Letters to the Editor
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If Gas Costs More...
He could just ask everybody to try driving less. Driving down demand might just reduce prices. And walking or biking might also reduce our supersized butts.
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Shrub the follower
Cancelling the environmental regulations on gas formulation will not allow the oil cos to make more money. It will, however, allow them to get gas to the pump. New formulation requirements for desiel and gasoline are costing the oil cos time and money. And the consumers are going to pay for it. And since we haven't built new refining capacity in 20-30 years, we are heavily dependent to foreign refining capacity who are probably more focused on ordinary gas for the rest of the world and less focused on the fancy schmancy gas for the US.
Everybody wants to be environmentally friendly but no one seems actually willing to pay the price for it.
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Who cares?
I could care less about his motorcade. Should one of the most hated men in the world should ride around in a Prius? Presidents out of necessity ride around in big expensive, armored motorcades. Let's focus our lefty indignation on something worthwhile.
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fuel efficiency
I read an interesting article in The Atlantic (May 2005) that discussed the gasoline our military uses in Iraq by Robert Bryce called, "The Military: Gas Pains: One of the U.S. military's greatest vulnerabilities in Iraq is its enormous appetite for fuel. The insurgents have figured this out". It raised the issue of fuel efficiency of the military (or lack thereof) and how it makes our troops so vulnerable. The article is a year old, but I assume it is still relevant.
A Defense Science Board study suggested that because less gasoline convoys would mean less IED targets, the DOD should make fuel efficiency a priority. (And it's important too because so much armor has been added to military vehicles for protection against IEDs.) But the proposal was rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It's frustrating. Such huge defense R&D dollars could certainly help advance the technology and would benefit the private sector as well the military.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200505/bryce
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Refineries.
illiberal, the reason gas companies do not build refineries has nothing to do with environmentalists. The reason there have been no new refineries built is because of the lack of sufficient profit to cover the outlay of significant capital to build them. Additional costs of enivronmental safeguards compared to the capital cost required to build are like drops of water in the ocean. If they keep capacity low, the oil companies can make more money without the huge investment. It is simple economics. Saudi Arabia has always been open to partnering with oil companies to build refineries in Saudi Arabia or the US. No oil companies have stepped forward. The free market system the GOP worships doesn't reward the companies for doing so.
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To Motorcade, or Not to Motorcade
Anon's right in that the 14-car motorcade doesn't make a big difference compared to, say, sending up a new pilot to get flight time on a B-1 or having a Navy destroyer make a detour to Roosevelt Roads. But the symbolism of a president having a total disconnect between gasoline supply and gasoline usage is very disconcerting.
In the early 70s, during the first round of price hikes, Richard Nixon made a trip to his Key Biscayne home aboard a commercial jet, booking some first-class seats and boarding without prior notice. That didn't save much overall, but I'll give the guy credit for trying to show some thrift compared to using Air Force One. He was discourgaed from trying further examples, such as train travel between Washington and Miami, by the Secret Service. I personally think the Secret Service has become a major cause of, or component of, the Imperial Presidency.
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The Strategic Petroleum Reserve...
...to my knowledge, does not hold gasoline. It holds petroleum, specifically so it can be used for heating oil and other sorts of petroleum-based requirements.
The gap in supply isn't at petroleum (or Light Sweet Crude, which is what most fuel is made out of), it's at refined gasoline. Tapping the SPR won't do a bloody thing to help, as the refineries already have more crude than they can process. It's just an excuse by Shrub to throw more money at Big Oil and take a whack at knocking out environmental protection laws while he's at it, the S.O.B. Grr. -
Air Parades
A 14 car motorcade, how many came on the C-5 that precedes Airforce 1 loaded with limos for the king and even a helicopter? And then there are the covering fighterjets. Wow. And the presidents office is supposedly in the White House. What a waste of nonrenewable energy by the worst president ever.