Some notes from a breakout session at the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) Conference in DC on June 1 ,08

– we import 87,000,000 barrels of oil per day. Only 3% is displaced by alternatives such as bio fuels. 97% is used in transportation. It would take 15% of the corn crop to displace 3% of the gasoline.

A change of supply anywhere affects the demand everywhere.

Big oil is small compared to “national” oil companies. Private oil companies like Exxon are only 8% of the market. 50% of the national oil companies are either hostile or unstable.

In addition to the problem of instability there are no new facilities being developed and the demand is exploding. It is a perfect storm.

Small propducers have marginal leverage with big impact.

In the short term we can do little but reduce wasteful consumption. Technology will solve the long term. Because the high oil prices is the largest transfer of wealth to the most hostile and unstable countries ever in history, we must focus on the medium term.

from Robert Zubrin- Author of Energy Victory

In 1972 we imported $4 billion worth of oil or 5% of our defense budget.
In 1999 we imported $40 billion worth of oil or 15% of our defense budget.
In 2007 we imported $347 billion worth of oil or 75% of our defense budget.
In 2008 we will import $650 billion worth of oil or 130% of our defense budget.
At one trillion dollars we are at 40% of the IRS revenues.

We are not only funding both sides of the war on terror, we are funding the enemy even more than our own forces.

At this rate of this vast wealth transfer, these Middle Eats Oil exporting nations would be able to buy controlling interest in all of the Fortune 500.

OPEC is producing the same number of barrels that it did on 1973. It is like putting a fixed collar on a growing dog, without adjusting it as the puppy grows.

We can not win this by conservation.

HKO- Obama’s proposal to increase the taxes on America’s oil producers is precisely the wrong policy. It would be better to increase production in the short term and require cars to be flex fuel capable to create an alternative to oil fuels. This would address the other 92% of producers that Obama can not ‘punish’ with his socialistic perversion of justice.

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