Biden Calls for Gas Tax Holiday

[Precision]

3 hours ago, Jauronimo said:

 

No refineries of notable capacity have been built in this country since the 1970s.  1977 to be precise.  Theres a little more to the story than just the Biden admins anti-fossil fuel position.  For all Biden's efforts to kill the oil and gas industry its doing remarkably well.  Perhaps its more performative than substance.

The upgrade at Garyville (the refinery originally built in 1977 to be precise) doubled production in 2009 adding over 300K bpd, Motiva upgrade in 2012 added 300K bpd, Valero upgrades in 2014 added 150K bpd.  All told, in the last 13 years roughly 1 million bpd of refining capacity were added, when the pandemic hit 1 million barrels of refining capacity were lost.

When was the last refinery built in the United States?

 

The higher the price of oil and gas, the better these companies will do until prices hit the point of demand destruction.  Bidens efforts will in no way kill the oil and gas industry.  What their efforts will do is disincentivize the industry into not making capital expenditures.  This will limit the production growth of oil, gas, and refined products.  Oil and gas companies will just shrug this off as their revenue growth might suffer but the higher prices on a product with fixed production costs maximizes their profits.  Ultimately this nonsense hurts low income consumers the most.    

[ComradeKayAdams]

On 6/22/2022 at 3:45 PM, Buffarukus said:

oil prices are based on futures. if you have a administration openly saying they are going to end fossil fuels and FUTURE pipelines ect then it be a good guess that supply will be dwindling in the FUTURE. less supply with zero infrastructure to actually change to anything else. LOW supply SAME DEMAND or higher. where do you think that sends prices in the looking to the FUTURE.

 

at the same time if I'm a oil company, how much money am i going to invest in something I'm being activley told will be wiped out? lets pour billions into new drilling and processing for a president who is looking to destroy our industry? 

 

stupid tactics to begin with imo. hey fossil fuel im declaring war on you without a backup plan besides "be rich and switch everything to electric". 

 

im sure oil exects are gouging, makes the president look bad and makes people desperate to elect people that will let them have a free for all.

 

Anticipation of future profits, sure…but more on the temporal order of weeks and months, not years and decades. Biden’s long-term statements on a renewable energy transition, compared to the COVID-initiated supply shock phenomena dating back to early 2020, have very little to do with the currently observed inflation in the global energy sector. If anything, oil and gas employers are looking into the past and not the future when setting their prices. They’re trying to recover for their shareholders the expected gains that were lost during the pandemic. And incidentally, the supply chain disruptions and the Ukraine war are slowly morphing into a convenient cover for continued price gouging.

 

 

On 6/22/2022 at 3:58 PM, 716er said:

18 cents per gallon times average of say 16 gallons per week, times 12 weeks

 

an extra $35 in each driver’s pocket 

 

Cmon 

 

The reality is relative to our global counterparts gas is still inexpensive in the US.

 

Yes and relative to our global counterparts, we also have a terrible public transportation system and serious issues with suburban sprawl that limit our options.

 

I’m definitely not seeing how a gas tax holiday is going to help us much. Aren’t most gas taxes state and local, anyway? And the Federal Reserve seems dead set on raising interest rates to treat inflation like chemotherapy treats cancer. This is becoming a crisis of Biden’s own volition because he’d rather kowtow to corporate oligarchs rather than help ordinary Americans. I’d just go with windfall profit taxes at this point and play supply chain hardball with oil and gas, similarly to how JFK handled the steel industry or how Nixon enforced price/wage freezes for several months.

[Doc Brown]

1 hour ago, Delete_Account said:

 

Anticipation of future profits, sure…but more on the temporal order of weeks and months, not years and decades. Biden’s long-term statements on a renewable energy transition, compared to the COVID-initiated supply shock phenomena dating back to early 2020, have very little to do with the currently observed inflation in the global energy sector. If anything, oil and gas employers are looking into the past and not the future when setting their prices. They’re trying to recover for their shareholders the expected gains that were lost during the pandemic. And incidentally, the supply chain disruptions and the Ukraine war are slowly morphing into a convenient cover for continued price gouging.

Evidence?

[reddogblitz]

Trouble in donkey land.  President Biden wants to do a 3 month gas tax holiday and have states do likewise. However at least one donkey governor is not into it. Jay "The Snake" Inslee is not buying it.

 

Quote

As he pushed for a three-month suspension of federal gas taxes, President Joe Biden on Wednesday also urged states to do the same at the local level.

But in Washington, which has one of the highest gas taxes in the country, lawmakers so far are skeptical of taking that step. Democrats in particular questioned whether the reprieve would benefit those most in need.

 

Gov. Jay Inslee would need to call a special legislative session so members of the House and Senate could propose and pass a bill pausing the tax. Inslee signaled Wednesday he wasn’t interested in doing so.

 

“As for the idea of temporarily suspending the state gas tax, the oil companies would be the ones to benefit from yet another opportunity to pocket more profit at the expense of our ability to put people to work fixing our roads and bridges,” said Jamie Smith, spokesperson for Inslee.

 

President Unity having trouble uniting his own party.

[Doc Brown]

57 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

Trouble in donkey land.  President Biden wants to do a 3 month gas tax holiday and have states do likewise. However at least one donkey governor is not into it. Jay "The Snake" Inslee is not buying it.

 

 

President Unity having trouble uniting his own party.

 

[reddogblitz]

2 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

 

 

Sounds like President Biden wants to implement John McCain's policy.

[Doc Brown]

19 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

 

Sounds like President Biden wants to implement John McCain's policy.

One of the few major disagreements in the '08 primary between Obama and Hillary was suspending the gas tax.  Hillary wanted it pitching it as Biden is doing right now.  Giving working class Americans some relief at the pump.  Obama rightfully called it a gimmick and then explained why which helped turn public sentiment in his favor.  His political instincts were right while McCain's and Hillary's were wrong.  Now Biden is doing the same thing.  Surprise surprise.

[ALF]

After what stimulus did to inflation, everything needs to be highly means tested. 

[BillsFanNC]

 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

What’s baffling is why the left isn’t openly celebrating.
 

Making gas irrationally over expensive is the only real way to make it not the most economically efficient source of energy on the planet by miles. 
 

doesn’t Mother Earth need $10/gallon fossil fuels? 

Edited June 24, 2022 by Over 29 years of fanhood

[Doc]

1 hour ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

What’s baffling is why the left isn’t openly celebrating.
 

Making gas irrationally over expensive is the only real way to make it not the most economically efficient source of energy on the planet by miles. 
 

doesn’t Mother Earth need $10/gallon fossil fuels? 

 

Because of the polling.

[Jauronimo]

15 hours ago, Precision said:

The upgrade at Garyville (the refinery originally built in 1977 to be precise) doubled production in 2009 adding over 300K bpd, Motiva upgrade in 2012 added 300K bpd, Valero upgrades in 2014 added 150K bpd.  All told, in the last 13 years roughly 1 million bpd of refining capacity were added, when the pandemic hit 1 million barrels of refining capacity were lost.

When was the last refinery built in the United States?

 

The higher the price of oil and gas, the better these companies will do until prices hit the point of demand destruction.  Bidens efforts will in no way kill the oil and gas industry.  What their efforts will do is disincentivize the industry into not making capital expenditures.  This will limit the production growth of oil, gas, and refined products.  Oil and gas companies will just shrug this off as their revenue growth might suffer but the higher prices on a product with fixed production costs maximizes their profits.  Ultimately this nonsense hurts low income consumers the most.    

It was only a few short years ago that we were running out of places to store all the gasoline we were producing.  Demand for gasoline has been flat for years and long-term expectations were that we had already seen peak demand.  Petrochem was the only bright spot in terms of demand growth for oil and gas.  This was the outlook pre-pandemic.  Obviously 2 years of lockdown crushed demand for refined products.  This context is important to understand what I will describe next.

 

The industry has already curtailed CapEx after Wall Street and private equity cut them off after the shale boom and bust.  Wild E&P spending on low yielding acreage was no longer going to be tolerated.   The mandate has been clear, control costs and return profits to shareholders.  Every super major is doing just that and it has nothing to do with Biden trying to kill the oil industry.  These cost control efforts have been in place for years. 

 

Energy prices are high because there is a war in Europe and a near global embargo on the world's second largest exporter.  Thats 75% of the equation.  The US oil and gas industry has said unequivocally that they will not ramp up production in light of high prices.  They are sticking with the game plan.  People can blame that on Biden's shallow talking points but its a weak argument in my opinion.

 

Thanks for a little discussion on the issue that isn't just "Biden's fault!!".

 

https://www.bcg.com/publications/2019/value-creation-oil-gas-investors-trust

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/18/big-oils-bid-to-lure-back-investors-with-cash-could-ultimately-fail.html

[ALF]

2 hours ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

What’s baffling is why the left isn’t openly celebrating.
 

Making gas irrationally over expensive is the only real way to make it not the most economically efficient source of energy on the planet by miles. 
 

doesn’t Mother Earth need $10/gallon fossil fuels? 

 

Try finding a electric vehicle to buy , lack of computer chips , massive batteries and the other parts just ask Elon Musk about building the Tesla

[Doc Brown]

5 hours ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

What’s baffling is why the left isn’t openly celebrating.
 

Making gas irrationally over expensive is the only real way to make it not the most economically efficient source of energy on the planet by miles. 
 

doesn’t Mother Earth need $10/gallon fossil fuels? 

You have to remember that most of the far left congress Dems come from cities where their constituents mostly use public transportation.  Also, higher gas prices hit red states harder because they’re generally more rural (drive more often and have more pick up trucks) and the average salary is lower.  That’s usually fine because the cost of living is lower but gas prices are mostly determined at a federal level.

[SoCal Deek]

4 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

You have to remember that most of the far left congress Dems come from cities where their constituents mostly use public transportation.  Also, higher gas prices hit red states harder because they’re generally more rural (drive more often and have more pick up trucks) and the average salary is lower.  That’s usually fine because the cost of living is lower but gas prices are mostly determined at a federal level.

The vast vast vast majority of people in the nation’s largest state, California, do not use public transportation. Just saying. 

[Doc Brown]

2 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

The vast vast vast majority of people in the nation’s largest state, California, do not use public transportation. Just saying. 

True but that’s why I brought up average income.  Paying $6.50 at the pump in a state where minimum wage is $15.00 an hour is less of a financial gut punch than paying $4.25 at the pump in a state that has a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.  It hurts red states more.

[SoCal Deek]

3 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

True but that’s why I brought up average income.  Paying $6.50 at the pump in a state where minimum wage is $15.00 an hour is less of a financial gut punch than paying $4.25 at the pump in a state that has a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.  It hurts red states more.

Yes and no. It’s not just the price. It’s how far you drive. Here in California we drive a long long way to get everywhere.

[Doc Brown]

33 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Yes and no. It’s not just the price. It’s how far you drive. Here in California we drive a long long way to get everywhere.

You guys also don't drive as many gas guzzler trucks as more rural states.

[SoCal Deek]

11 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

You guys also don't drive as many gas guzzler trucks as more rural states.

That’s an interesting thought. I wonder if they track gas consumption, per state, per person. I guess I could look it up…but I’ll need an eight year old for that. (Maybe one of our resident constitutional scholars can help.)

[B-Man]