This has to be one of the most absurd things I have read to date on this forum. "$1.79 was the result of the near collapse of the banking industry"? Then you follow it up with this gem; "Drilling is likely to cause OPEC to drop their production proportionately."
Listen, if you want $2.00 per gallon gas within a year (probably much less than $2.00), here is what ANY politician could propose:
1) Allow all of America's oil to be drilled and or minded.
The majority of oil that is still recoverable in the United States is not economically recoverable when oil prices are such that gas at the pump is less than 2 dollars a gallon. Take the Bakken Shale formation in North Dakota and western Montana. By some USGS estimates, there is around 270 billion barrels of oil in that formation. However, only around 2.1 billion barrels of that oil is technically recoverable with current technology, and because it is so expensive to recover shale oil, its only economically recoverable when oil prices are very high. There is oil boom in North Dakota because oil prices are near 100 dollar a barrel. If oil prices were to significantly drop, that oil would no longer be economically recoverable, and thus the North Dakota oil boom would end.
2) Eliminate any governmental/legal regulation associated with drilling, refining and transporting of the oil/gas
Thats a good idea :roll:. In the hopes that it would lead to lower prices at the pump, we could eliminate all environmental regulations on the domestic oil industry. That way they would not have to concern themselves with petty concerns "water pollution", "fowling of lands", "wildlife protection". The end result would be our oil fields would look like the oil fields in nations that don't have those "governmental / legal regulations":
3) Eliminate any and all environmental regulations associated with any aspect of the supply chain.
Another great idea :roll:, that way we can have the same air and water quality that nations that lack those environmental regulations get to enjoy. Our cities get to look like this on the promise that gas will get cheaper:
4) Heavily subsidize through tax breaks and credits any corporate entity willing to make this investment.
Another great idea. :roll: Not only should energy companies get to fowl our land, air, and water for the promise of cheaper gas, they should get even more taxpayer subsidized corporate welfare despite being the some of the most profitable companies in the history of civilization to begin with.
There you have it, a simple 4 step plan to $2.00 oil. In other words, flood the market with supply (or the potential for supply) market prices drop...simple economics.
No, what you presented is a 4 step plan for the fowling of our air, land, and water, and the destruction of our quality of life that is made possible because of environmental regulation and oversight. The difference between our air, land, and water, and the environment in places like China are those regulations and oversight. Many of the same multinational energy companies that relatively cleanly produce oil in the United States, have also desecrated the environments of third world nations they have worked in. Our environmental protections and oversight are what prevents them from doing the same here.
Some of you guys on the anti-environment right are fools. Corporations don't pollute out of the goodness of their hearts, they mitigate pollution associated with oil extraction and production because they are legally compelled to do so in the United States. Visit a country that does not have those environmental regulations. Go to China, breath their air. Walk outside on a clear day and look up and notice how you can't even see the sun because of all the smog in the air. Notice how your eyes burn just walking down the sidewalk. Drink their water, oh, but you can't its undrinkable. Even citizens of China have to drink bottled water. You don't even hear birds in their parks there. Practically the entire country is an environmental nightmare. That is what you get when you do away with all those pesky environmental regulations.
This is what American oil companies, the same companies that drill here, have done in Nigeria when they were free from all those burdensome regulations: