First of all, let me say, “Bring on the high gas prices!” I don’t personally care because I figure the only way you are going to change behavior is to make life painful. Plus, it costs me $13.00 a week to do the 54 mile round trip commute to work every day. I use transit. Second of all, I don’t care if you don’t have the transit option. You live in the country, and the only way you have to get around is your Ford F150. The grocery store is 50 miles away and it costs you a fortune to go there. Get with a neighbor and carpool.
Anyhoooo, to the subject of the post… politicians, (almost exclusively those on the Right) would have you believe that the Alaska National Wildlife Refguge is the solution to all of our problems. I used to believe that too, before I started thinking. (I used to believe a lot of things before I started thinking…) There’s a lot of oil and gas under ANWR. But is it worth drilling? Well, not if the reason you want to drill is to reduce gas prices. Why? Because it just won’t happen.
In order for oil and gas from ANWR to cause an “enough to notice” reduction in gas prices, the way oil is sold and priced would have to completely change for that oil only. When oil is drilled, it is sold on international markets. We pay a market price for the gas and diesel we put into our tanks. Because OPEC produces the vast majority of oil in the world, its limits on production will always affect the price of a barrel – even if that barrel is drilled at ANWR. For gas prices to come down, the companies doing the drilling in ANWR would have to sell their oil directly to the consumer and bypass international markets. That simply ain’t gonna happen. It’s going in the pile with the rest of the world’s oil, to be priced the same as the rest of it, and you’ll still be hurting. If ANWR is opened up to drilling, I’m guessing you might see a nickel drop in the price of a gallon of gas. Is it worth the potential risk of environmental damage to save 50¢ to a buck on a tank of gas?
ANWR is politics, and it’s politics of the most devious kind because depends on ignorance of the way oil and gas is sold in the international marketplace – ignorance that is, unfortunately, far too common.
Also: Speaking of playing politics – Hillary – reducing the Federal gas tax is a stupid idea – not that I expect any more from you.
Foxhunter
Tru dat, Michael D. Nice, reasonable and basic explanation of global markets centered around the oil issue. You could substitute any commodity in your statement and it would still hold true…rice, wheat, whatever.
You must take Marta north from your downtown abode. I’m guessing you work outside the permimeter if you take a 54 mile trip daily?
As for myself, I live on the southside and drive to Dekalb everyday. Just dumped the SUV for a hybrid. Take me awhile to recoup the price difference, but it beats 75 per week to commute to work.
Sean
Phoenix Woman
Two other things:
— Even if exploratory drilling started today, any oil therein wouldn’t be on the market until a good five years from now, minimum.
— That oil isn’t going into our gas tanks. It’s going to China to make cheap plastic crap to be sold to us.
Dave
And don’t forget that, at best, the oil taken from ANWR would be equivalent to what the US uses in 1.5 years. Not exactly a game-changing event.
R. Stanton Scott
Extracting oil from ANWR (or any other new source for that matter) will indeed bring the price down if enough is extracted to exceed total demand. It is not necessary to dedicate oil from particular sources to specific customers.
Oil companies cannot get enough oil from ANWR to make this happen. And even if they could, they would have the same incentive to keep supply down as OPEC does.
Wherever the oil comes from, the companies that extract and refine it can easily manipulate the price until some other energy source begins to compete with oil in the market.
kilo
Off-topic: I’ve been lurking here for a while, thanks to all of you for the great reading. This is the snarkiest, smartest bunch of blog commentators I’ve seen in a long while.
On topic: We’re done with oil – the days of growing supply are over, now it’s just a matter of adapting. I’m hoping y’all down south of the 49th are going to elect somebody that’ll start dealing with that, rather than playing these sorts of stupid politics with the issue. Please, please, please make that happen!
For those interested, the bright folks at The Oil Drum have some absolutely excellent writing on the topic of Peak Oil and what it means for our future – i.e. the end of suburban living, the need for better transit systems, implications for global food supply, etc.
Check the “peak oil” tag there for the quick overview.
Incertus
I’m with you on the gas price thing, even though transit is a joke around here–I drive a pretty fuel-efficient car and don’t drive unless I have to. I was talking to my teenaged daughter last night and she mentioned how she drives around to find the cheapest gas–being a teenager, every little bit helps–and I pointed out that even a difference of ten cents a gallon only translates into $1.20 a tank for her. The federal gas tax is what–18 cents a gallon? For me, that translates into $1.80 a tank. For my ex-wife, who has one of those trucks you mentioned, figure two-and-a-half times that, or not quite five bucks a tank. That’s not even a Happy Meal anymore.
mikesdak
Quite right about ANWR. It wouldn’t help reduce any price pressures, because whoever got the rights to it would sit on it if necessary to get the price they want. It would just give the oil companies more options from which to select the most profitable.
As for the high gas prices,the first behavior change most likely will be to spend less elsewhere,hurting other businesses. I’ll also bet that nearly all of the items you buy are hauled in by trucking companies who are getting hit even harder by higher fuel costs, and they will certainly pass those costs on.
Krista
Heh. You’ve never seen my car after a trip to the grocery store, friend. I am actually 50 miles (well, 48.59 miles, but if rounding up is good enough for Hillary, it’s good enough for me) from the nearest grocery store, so when we do go, we make it worthwhile, and pack the car to the friggin’ rafters with anything else we might possibly need in the next couple of weeks. If I carpooled with a neighbour, I’d have to strap the poor bugger (and their groceries) to the roof.
I agree that in general, we all drive way too much, but you’re being simplistic and dismissive by saying “just carpool!” Rural areas have fewer goods and service providers as things centralize more and more around cities, thus leading to people in rural areas needing to drive farther, and more frequently. I wish I knew the answer to the problem, but I’m fairly confident that whatever the answer is, it can’t be summed up in a one-sentence directive.
Michael D.
Krista:
First, yeah, that was dismissive. But most people DO have alternatives.
Secondly, I’d be very interested in seeing a picture of your car. I’ve never seen one with rafters.
Wilfred
All this is whistling past the cemetery. Tata has already launched a 2,500 car to meet the demands of an emergent Indian bourgeoisie; China shouldn’t be too far behind. The Tata has a 650cc engine, and generates 50-60mpg – with zero emission controls.
If there’s anything to anthropometric global warming and carbon footprints then the Yeti is about to come on stage. The bottom line, so to speak, is unrestrained capitalism and the final achievement of its ultimate expression – Free Trade.
Without a genuine critique of the impacts of capitalism, let alone meaningful opposition in the form of a resurgent Left, the rest of the discussion is a waste of ever decreasing clean air.
jake
Don’t forget the price hikes that will come because they need to pay to set up drilling in a hostile environment, but I thought there was still a question as to how much oil was under the moose hooves in the first place. My guess would be you’d see the following scenario:
1. Get permission to drill.
2. Prices drop slightly over the next five (ten, fifteen) years because they’re expecting to find 100 billion squashed dinosaurs under there.
3. They discover far less oil than expected.
4. Prices skyrocket to make up for the money they lost.
5. Profit!
Did anyone catch the portion of the Congressional finger wagging at oil execs where they hinted that gas prices might possibly maybe come down a teeny bit if they were allowed to do more off shore drilling?
Pigs.
Birdzilla
The enviroweenies will tell us that the ANWR is a fragil eco-system WELL THEIR LYING THROUGH THEIR FAT GREEN TEETH FEED THE GREENS TO THE POLAR BEARS,KILLER WAHLES AND SKUAS
Davebo
There’s one other aspect that I’d like to add as I live in that evil energy capital of the world.
Exxon/Mobil, Cheveron/Texaco, BP, etc WON’T FREAKING DRILL IN ANWR unless they are granted both royalty forgiveness (read the feds give the oil away, I wonder how Alaskans would respond to that given their sweetheart deal on oil revenue sharing with the feds) AND tax credits.
Which is why there has never been legislation to open up ANWR to production that didn’t also grant royalty forgiveness and tax credits to producers.
So should we pay these companies to take oil off federal lands?
Or perhaps leave it where it is. It’s not going anywhere and when oil is at $300.00 a barrel they might be willing to explore there without federal incentives.
Davebo
Actually I’d love to see them open up the Destin Dome area in the Gulf to production.
Perhaps in the future when the president isn’t the the guv’s brother we can get that done.
Hypatia
.
That’s an awful lot of people not to care about, if I may say so.
That’s right. I’m in favor in principle of high gas prices, but in the short term and maybe in the long term they make life painful the people who can least afford it or do much about ‘behavior changing.’ The people blowing huge wads of dough on new SUVs aren’t going to be put off by high gas prices – if they can buy those things in the first place they can afford to pay more for gas. High gas prices hurt working people who can’t afford to live close to where they work because that’s not where the jobs are. These days there are people putting in only fifteen dollars’ or so worth of gas at the station because that’s all the money they have to spare that day, and you know how far that’s going to go. You can’t just issue diktats to ‘use transit’ or ‘carpool’ because for many those simply aren’t realistic options. Maybe we can do something to change that over time, but it’s going to be a very long time.
Svensker
Michael, high oil prices don’t just mean that all the big SUV drivers will have to downsize to the Prius or take up biking. It also means poor families struggling to stay warm in the winter, or having to choose between being comfortable and eating. And since high oil prices also mean higher food prices, that choice gets a lot more difficult.
I agree that we need to change our ways, but there are going to be a lot of poor folks paying a very high price for this — I wouldn’t be quite so flip about it, fi were you.
Krista
Rafters, maybe not. I did see a truck the other day that had chicken wire instead of a tailgate, though.
And Svensker makes a good point about heating oil. I was reading the Canadian version of the Oil Drum (from Kilo’s link), and have had the pee thoroughly scared out of me. Needless to say, I’m very, very, very, very glad that we will have a wood furnace and a wood stove. It highlights the fact that we really need to find some alternatives here. We can reduce consumption as far as driving goes, but the kind of winter we had here in the Maritimes – you can’t ask people to not heat their homes when they’re ass-deep in snow and it’s minus 20 degrees.
Xanthippas
Good overview. You and Tim are on a roll today. Maybe someone can talk about the continuing threat of Avian Flu next? (I’m not really kidding about that.)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The simple way to frame this issue is that ANWAR is the strategic petro. reserve writ large – bigger and it operates on a longer time scale. From an economic nationalist standpoint, our objective should be to make sure that this is the last large remaining oil reserve left on earth, before we tap into it. The longer we wait, the more valuable it will become. It’s like a giant bank vault buried miles below the surface, with an exponentially increasing value, if we can summon the patience to just leave it there.
Not that patience is exactly our strong suit…
Krista
Birdzilla! How absolutely lovely to see you, darling! How HAVE you been, anyway?
DM
Regardless of how much I may agree with the rest of your post this statement right here earns you a giant “screw you”. YOu talk about country living as if we’re all wealthy, suv-driving, selfish idiots. You think we don’t know that the travel fuel cost an arm and a leg? You think we haven’t factored that in?
Well guess what, we have, and it sucks. Many people who live “out in the sticks” do so because that’s where the only homes they can afford to live in are. They often can’t afford the ultra-efficient hybrids or nice new cars, they deal with what they can get for under $2500. Why? Because that’s what they can afford.
Carpooling’s not an option because, as Krista already pointed out, when we travel into town it’s a once/twice a month endeavor. We don’t fuck around when it comes to grocery shopping, and you’ll often find an entire pantry room devoted to storing food in country homes.
So go ahead: imagine that we’re all torching dollar bills out of the tailpipes of our brand-new F-150 Superduties, imagine that you have any clue what it’s like to live outside of a mass-transit area. But for God’s sake, get off your fucking high horse.
R. Stanton Scott
Hypatia: Of course higher gas prices hit poor people the hardest. But we should be careful about using the “poor people get hurt first” argument when debating public policy. Sympathy and assistance for the disadvantaged matters, but if we never make any changes that might harm poor people, we would never change anything.
Anyway, to some degree the poor find themselves in that position because they do not use the political power they have. If they were more active politically, and for something besides stopping gay marriage and closing strip joints, they might find politicians a bit more responsive.
Davebo
DM,
It’s all about trade offs. Yes, you use more gas, but you pay a fraction of the price for a home. Then you pay a fraction of the property taxes that a city dweller would.
Look, I grew up in the sticks and I know what you’re talking about. But people make a decision about where they want to live by taking into account a variety of issues.
Once the decision is made, we all face the consequences. I pay more for the home and higher taxes.
The guy in the sticks spends more on gas and can’t get decent food delivery!
Krista
No kidding. I can’t even get pizza delivered!
At any rate, whether you’re a country mouse or a city mouse, the price of gas is still a major factor, as it affects more than just your car.
The time to do something about gas prices was long, long ago. Now, I fear that it will truly take a crisis in order for those in power to wake up and try to solve this problem. And by the time they even start to make inroads, how many fixed-income seniors will have frozen to death in their own homes due to not being able to afford their gas bill?
betamu
Michael, next time, could you just make your point and please forgo the snide-trying-to-be-witty opening commentary? Thanks
Andrew
North Cackalacki Peoples!
Arcade Fire and Superchunk playing Obama Early Vote Rallies in Greensboro, NC and Carrboro, NC on May 1 & 2
http://www.mergerecords.com/news.php?month=Apr%202008#372
I am going to spam the heck out of all the BJ threads, but this is cool.
Plus, I agree with Michael. Carpool to the concerts!
R. Stanton Scott
DM: I live in a rural county near Richmond, VA. I know what living away from mass transit looks like. And I can’t say I buy the “we can’t afford to live in town” argument.
You can probably find job with higher wages there, for example, unless you have no education and skills. Even if you’re that guy who makes ends meet by grading long gravel driveways and cutting up firewood, you can probably make it in town. The ‘burbs are full of small landscaping and lawn service businesses.
You may also save enough on fuel to afford to pay more for a home. We spend about $600 monthly on gasoline. This covers all trips. Cutting this in half frees up enough cash to increase the value of the home I can afford by about $50K (at 6%).
And the beater car you have will serve you much better if only needed for short trips–it won’t break down as much, and you won’t have to replace it as often. In some places, you may not need one at all, saving not only car purchase prices and fuel but insurance, repair costs, and the need to have a garage (which makes the home more expensive).
The cost of living in the country includes all costs, not just that of your home (don’t forget to count maintenance of your land, for example–time you could spend working for a wage). Higher fuel costs increase this total cost. So you have to make a decision: do you like the lifestyle and the job enough to keep living there? If you don’t, move.
Kirk Spencer
re living in the sticks….
I grew up that way. Once every two weeks when we lived close, once a month otherwise, buy milk at the highly overpriced local market when wee ran out. (an aside. Almost every ‘local market’ I’ve encountered charges more for milk and other basic goods than the cost of gas plus goods driving to get it myself. It’s the convenience store principle writ rural.)
And yes. If you’re buying for extended times, you buy a lot more. And when you go may or may not match when others need (or can) go. Unmentioned but also applicable… when we had to drive 70 miles for groceries, we didn’t just go for groceries. The trip was pretty much an all day affair with groceries (being time sensitive good) purchased last. It’s pretty much a guarantee that my neighbor and I aren’t going to have the same list of destinations, and since we were both taking all-day trips… nope.
dougie smooth
What a dumb argument to make: “I use transit so I don’t care about gas prices”. Gas prices are a macro-economic factor, and potentially cataclysmic factor at that. I don’t care if you walk to work. You are still going to feel the effects of high gas-prices on your personal economies. And our entire suburban, big-box, American m.o. is predicated on cheap transport. Even the transit elitists are stuck on this sinking ship.
oh really
Michael D.
“Second of all, I don’t care if you don’t have the transit option. You live in the country, and the only way you have to get around is your Ford F150. The grocery store is 50 miles away and it costs you a fortune to go there. Get with a neighbor and carpool.”
As clueless (to the realities of life) and selfish as any right wing nut job. Your own little niche is working for you so you don’t care about anyone else. Michael D. meet George Bush. You guys should have a lot to talk about.
It’s true that most Americans are ignorant and wasteful. It’s true that high gas prices were predictable and buying gas guzzlers has always been idiotic (except for those people whose livelihoods demand large trucks). But it is also true that people are easily led on the path to disaster, and while some deserve what they get, many who are blameless will get screwed in the process.
For conservatives, compassion is a campaign slogan. For decent people it is a real part of their world view. As usual, what makes life painful for the middle class doesn’t affect the rich and crushes the poor. So, while you smugly ride your “transit” remember that there are millions of Americans who don’t have that option, don’t drive huge vehicles, and don’t make enough money to weather all the storms that are headed their way.
PaulB
Don’t forget that ANWR extraction will be on a bell curve, with perhaps 10 years or more to hit full pumping capacity. And it will only be at that capacity for a few years before it starts drifting downward again. Opening ANWR now does nothing for gas or oil prices now. At maximum capacity, it might drop a penny or two off of the price; it’s highly unlikely to have any other impact than that.
And, as noted above, the oil from ANWR is not guaranteed (and is not likely) to remain in the U.S. It will be shipped overseas to the highest bidder.
DM
That’s pretty much how things work with Michael’s posts. Whether you agree with the context of his posts (which I often do) he really does seem a ‘bit lacking in the empathy department.
Temple Stark
What isn’t mentioned here is the simple weak-willed approach to not being able to find better solutions to tearing apart yet another beautiful area of the country. Pure cowardice. A lot of people here seem to think it’s inevitable and proper to drill ANWR, but it’s not. There are many more options now. I would think it would be a source of national pride to use intelligence and ingenuity to avoid destroying the area (and yes I know drilling practices are less “messy” now, but not much). Perhaps it’s a real politik approach but it’s still giving up, when no one has to.
People in even slightly rural areas are hit hard when it comes to gas prices. and people do live there for many good reasons, that can’t be dismissed. i have lived in “non-city areas” and it’s extremely hard to do much on the cheap. In addition, some jobs do not allow carpooling, because people aren’t just stuck behind a desk, twiddling keys and knobs pretending to do something useful – much like blogging.
Car companies should not be applauded for finally pulling their fingers out of their asses to get something done. They could have been ahead of the curve and done a lot of R&D decades ago. They did not because they pretended they and the oil companies had mutual interests. They pretended, of course, because it meant a big financial windfall. But no, none of them should be applauded now. Just fucking catch up already.
Lastly let me repeat my point when Michael D first joined this cluster of a site, his approach is simplistic and more often then not if he posts enough, self-contradictary many times over. I’ve come to realize, where before I thought differently, that he fits right in here. At least until other contributors get their intellectual honesty balls back.
Temple Stark
BTW, i do actually agree with this statement — “I figure the only way you are going to change behavior is to make life painful.”
I have come to the same conclusion, but I do actually care because I know myself and many other people who can ill afford it are going to be deeply hurt and limited along the way.
– Temple
kilo
This is the heart of the problem.
Every reservoir follows a bell curve, or something very similar to it. One implication is that the peak comes when about half the oil is withdrawn; the production rate tails off from there.
When you aggregate all the bell curves of all the reservoirs worldwide, you get (surprise!) another bell curve. And depending on who you believe, we are now at the peak of that global bell curve.
So, we’ve only used half the global reserve, but there’s no way that we can maintain the same rate of production going forward. Ergo, petroleum is about to become much, much scarcer than ever, and there’s no going back.
The good news is that we’ll have a while on the decline, so we can start thinking about living without oil. But those who’ve been forced to the suburbs by the high cost of inner-city real estate are going to be especially impacted.
Sadly, the pain again falls disproportionately on those least able to afford it.
Wilfred
Temple makes the usual good points, the same ones that have been made for the last 30 years or so. They crack under the weight of history. Here, the settlers of Milford, Connecticut, 1640:
1. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. Voted.
2. The Lord can dispose of the earth to His saints. Voted.
3. We are His saints. Voted.
The roots of the capitalist ethos (vomits) are ineradicable, the rape of the land and its inhabitants are its fruits. The Government cannot protect ANWR indefinitely. The false pressures to get to it are just too strong.
The world is drowning in oil. They just ‘discovered’ another 8 billion barrels of the body and soul destroying venom here in Brazil. Yes, yes, yes habits have to be changed, but as long as capitalism persists none of those changes will take place. It’s just the nature of the beast to consume and destroy and consume again.
liberal
There’s a lot of oil and gas under ANWR. But is it worth drilling?
Best to leave it in the ground until we really need it.
jake
Yep, welcome to the Cascade o Shit, brought to you by St. Ron/BushCo. The sad truth about this country (or people in general) is things have to hurt the middle class otherwise no one could give a shit provided the great unwasheds stay in their place and don’t steal anything. Why do you think everyone is ZOMGing over the mortgage mess? The GOP first tried to play that off as a few deadbeats who “shouldn’t have tried to buy a house anyway.” Nope, the poorer owners were just the ones who lost their homes first. When the people who make a little too much for the deadbeat label started to hit the curb, then you saw legislation and investigations and companies going belly up. If that hadn’t happened no one but a few economics wonks would have noticed.
Before things hit the middle class, the lower class will always get very badly screwed. Always. And by the time the middle class feels the pinch, the lower class has been beaten to a pulp. People are staining their pants because a few members-only stores are rationing rice. There are a lot of people who are getting a really big (and bitter) laugh out of their fellow Americans wringing their hands because they can only buy 80 lbs a rice at a given time. So like it or not, this:
Is true, and unless we lower our pain threshold this also true:
But I still don’t want to see anyone ripping the top off the ANWR, which puts me on the side of more suffering. [Shrug]
Plus, I enjoy the sight of GOPers telling people that real Americans would rather freeze to death than accept heating oil from Islahomocommiesatanist Hugo Chavez.
Epicanis
Last time I checked, it wasn’t even clear that there really WAS “a lot of oil and gas under ANWR.”. Apparently, the only direct measurement done has been a single test well. The results are being kept a proprietary secret by the oil companies, who appear to have completely lost interest in drilling ANWR.
My opinion at this point is that Alaska needs to admit that ANWR drilling is simply a ploy to bring money and jobs into Alaska (not that this is a bad goal, but it’s dishonest to pretend it’d really accomplish anything much for our oil situation).
MaryM
Trust me on this, you are being taken. “Peak Oil” is a bunch of hooey to “allow” the price of oil to rise to extremely obscene levels with massive profits. That is what the Iraq war and the following chaos has produced as intended.
When the car & oil companies started a secret campaign in the 1940″s to destroy mass transit in this country, it was ruthless. In LA, which has a subway system, was caught captive of the then “privatize” campaign, the subway sytem was sold to GM, which promptly shut it down and then to make sure it was not resurrected, pumped cement into the tunnels. This is only a small thing that happened.
Alternate energy technology that has been developed in this country since, has been hampered and harrashed and lastly bought and buried deeper than anti-Christian thought by the Vatican in the middle ages. If you are an inventor, and you have a really great idea, if I have billions of dollars, and I do not want want you to get a ligitimate patent, I will make it too expensive and too difficult and while you are brilliant and starving, I will make you get an offer you cannot refuse and make our contract so secretive, that if you open your mouth, your yearly stipend ends and you have to sue me.
The whole purpose of the the Iraq War (the illegal occupation of another country) and the possible “Iran War” is the same. There is no safer place for all that oil than under ground and not used.
We are the idiots that bought that “whole thing about capitalism” that would allow a commodity so important to be held in private hands. You have been HAD SO BAD.
dougie smooth
What middle class?
Martin
Wha?
If you are going to tie Iraq to oil, it’s because the UN allowed Saddam to shift off of dollars and onto Euros in 2000. That undermines the demand for dollars which weakens the dollar. After we invaded, we immediately dropped it back to dollars.
What other oil exporter is shifting to Euros? If you guessed Iran, you guessed right. No sooner did they threaten to do this then we started sabre rattling.
It’s all about protecting the dollar – something that isn’t going terribly well right now.
merl
Where I live, buses stop running at 6pm and take 4 hours to go the 13.2 miles to where I work. I work graveyard shift.
So, I would get home at appr. 11:30am. I would have to get up by 4:30pm in order to ride the bus to work.
No way. And the buses don’t run on weekends.
Decided FenceSitter
Heh. This sounds similar to an ongoing debate I’m having with some friends on our blogs started as bitching about traffic in Northern Virginia (this morning on I-95N there were two accidents, both of which shut down all the lanes, one of which required a medevac helicopter).
Basically my point is this; there needs to be a revolution on how professionals and the companies who employ them approach “work”. This revolution will not happen until the companies are unable to hire employees who are willing to drive 300+ miles a week (note my commute is 30 miles one way).
Yes I’m contemplate alternate modes of commuting in; I miss taking the commuter train. But utilizing the Metro is not an effective option as it is 20 miles to hit the start of one of the line; and then I’d have to go all the way into the city; and then head all the way out on another. There’s slugging (organized hitchhiking to take advantage of the HOV-3 rules for non-locals), my wife does that, and it works well. At least then I’m not spending as MUCH time on metro.
Of course my work generally requires me to run errands so we’ll see what happens. Gas is currently 3.50-3.60 for the low-test stuff in my area (and yes, I know VA is known for having cheap gas) and with my commuting (400-500 miles a week is not unusual) another .25 – .50 cent jump may make it too much for me to deal with. The .505 cents a mile for mileage if great, but that only gives me mileage for errands. If they want to add another 600 dollars a month to my paychecks then we can talk about not finding an alternate route; but something tells me a $7200 raise is not in the cards.
jake
Dorms at the work site. Negligible fees for room, board, water, electricity, heat, wear and tear, insurance, &c, &c, &c, will be deducted from your paycheck.
Evinfuilt
I come so late to this. I have agree with this whole thread, and I thought the only comment I could bring… well beaten to the punch.
ANWAR would be terribly tricky and expensive to start (that gigantic Permafrost issue), and would take a long time to make any difference on the International Market, the oil companies would be gambling to even break even with-in a decade.
And if it has less oil than the *hope* then its even worse.
Kynn
Demmons can’t help it. He’s a privileged dumbass.
If only!