In article .com,
wrote:
The only twig of truth you have to stand on here is OPEC, and they're
not really a factor at this point. No one's witholding significant
supply right now. As for shipping, refining, and sales, it's about as
free a market as you can get. There are environmental regs on refining
but they are far from decisive. One of the main reasons we haven't
built new refineries is that it's more economically efficient to
upgrade an existing one where you don't have to build everything from
scratch, not to mention not needing double the amount of labor to
operate it.

Right now, as I understand it, there are two big problems with supply:
refinery capacity and delivery. Refinery capacity has been a growing
problem for some time, and the environmental laws requiring special
blends for certain parts of the country compound this capacity problem.

Delivery is a largely new problem spawned by the destruction of the
hurricane.

The bottom line is that environmental laws have a fairly substantial
financial impact on all industry, and the petroleum industry in
particular. New refineries could be built, but it would be so expensive
to build and operate them in compliance with environmental laws that it
would not be worth it.

On top of all of the other costs, most areas pay AT LEAST 50 cents per
gallon in state and federal consumer taxes. Suspension of these taxes
would help to ease gas prices, but those crafty politicians know that if
the gas taxes are suspended, it will be nearly impossible to bring them
back, at least to their current levels. And holy cow if government
might have to cut back on spending and learn to be more efficient.

On another note, anyone who lives near the ocean in a city that's 18
feet below sea level is living on borrowed time until the next disaster.
If businesses were refused insurance and government aid for disasters
such as this, and the poor were forced to work for a living, no one (or
very few) would live in areas like New Orleans because the financial
risk would be too great. Since the government swoops in to cover much
of the financial loss, there's less at risk for the individual, and
lives are needlessly lost.


JKG