The "68 million acres" claim about oil companies.

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OK I didn't post this until I had had a chance to read the offending document, but yeah, it really looks like these claims (pdf) about the oil companies--and the federal lands that they have leased but are stubbornly refusing to develop--are as ignorant as they first sound.

Here IER (not me writing this time) blows them apart. This actually gets pretty funny (for these types of things) in the bullet points, so I encourage you to actually read it.

Now that I have assured myself that these accusations against evil Big Oil are patently absurd, the question becomes: Is Obama truly this ignorant of how business works, or is he making such ridiculous charges just to get elected?

I'm not sure which outcome I prefer. It's comparable to: Does George Bush actually think he's patching things up over there in the Middle East, or...?

Comments

  1. Anonymous11:29 PM

    "...(but the pipeline construction would be a bear)."

    Ha!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tim Swanson2:18 AM

    You're right, this was a good read:If we use the very same extrapolation, we can estimate that an extra 182.5 days (12 hours per day x 365 days) of sunlight per year would produce an additional 2,784 megawatt hours of solar electricity each day. That would double our current daily solar energy today, if the government would just outlaw night.

    That reminds me of Frederic Bastiat's satirical piece about the Sun and candlemakers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:00 PM

    Taking an argument to it's logical extreme does not disprove the argument.

    Do you seriously believe that U.S. oil companies have already developed every profitable acre? I don't.

    Do you believe that oil companies would develop in national parks simply because it is 2% cheaper than their existing leases? I do.

    Oil companies are perfectly willing to use a national crisis to increase their long term resources. All those silly "extrapolations" are not an argument, they are just name-calling.

    You need to start thinking more clearly than that.

    ReplyDelete

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