Earmarks...let's take a look

FY 2002 FY 2003 FY 2004 FY 2005 FY 2006 FY 2006 FY 2006 FY 2006
Earmarks Earmarks Earmarks Earmarks Earmarks R&D Earmarks^ R&D
Defense (military)
336 426 825 1,029 563 73,633
(Army)
120 152 318 322 272 10,821
(Navy)
68 111 178 247 112 18,485
(Air Force)
43 41 134 142 67 22,652
(Defense Agencies)
90 71 127 246 98 19,579
(Other)
13 52 69 72 14 2,097
National Aeron. & Space Admin.
233 190 194 217 50 11,542 50 11,464
Energy
171 138 284 274 167 8,576 318 8,882
(Science programs)
72 50 95 78 35 3,385 49 3,379
(Energy programs)
65 36 114 122 103 1,205 202 1,372
(Defense programs)
35 52 74 73 30 3,986 68 4,131
Health and Human Services
31 62 97 82 5 29,050 4 29,961
(National Institutes of Health)
0 0 0 0 0 27,922 0 28,804
National Science Foundation
50 50 0 0 0 4,163 0 4,124
(Major Research Equipment)
50 50 0 0 0 193 0 193
Agriculture
369 297 220 239 183 2,223 293 2,373
(Agricultural Res. Service)
257 166 86 76 60 1,141 146 1,289
(CSREES)
107 129 125 148 123 624 138 625
(Forest Service)
5 3 8 12 0 329 7 323
Interior
* 14 18 23 12 12 620 12 620
(U.S. Geological Survey)
* 14 11 20 10 10 555 10 555
Transportation
63 54 59 45 0 727 22 742
Environ. Protection Agency
* 62 53 56 51 33 579 33 579
Commerce
72 136 122 109 4 911 198 1,384
(NOAA)
31 107 97 109 4 501 198 693
(NIST)
42 29 26 0 0 379 0 648
Homeland Security
0 0 0 0 0 1,259 0 1,266
Education
0 1 0 3 0 261 0 262
Agency for Int'l Development
4 4 4 4 0 225 4 240
Department of Veterans Affairs
0 0 0 0 0 786 0 805
Housing and Urban Development
30 11 15 5 5 32 5 48
Department of Justice
29 3 0 0 0 82 0 93
All Other
5 2 5 11 0 339 11 357
_____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
Total 1,470 1,444 1,906 2,080 1,023 135,007 951 63,199

FutureGen --"clean coal" research project

"We all know what this is about. It's an earmark for a single plant," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)

"After Bush rolled out FutureGen in 2003, ..."

...battle over FutureGen accelerated about a year ago when the Bush administration blocked the project hours after Mattoon was chosen over two towns in President George W. Bush's home state of Texas.

In December 2007, the alliance announced its choice of Mattoon, a community of 17,000 people, 190 miles south of Chicago, that had the strongest local support and a geological edge: Beneath the site is a natural sandstone formation that could serve as an ideal trap to keep carbon dioxide emissions stored underground.

But in the weeks after that announcement, the Bush administration began moving behind the scenes to stop the project, even while promoting it publicly.

The reasons behind the Bush administration's decision to kill the plant are the subject of two year-long probes -- one by the Government Accountability Office and another by a congressional committee -- that will be released this month.



THE STIMULUS
New Life for 'Clean Coal' Project
Illinois Plant Was Abandoned by Bush; Now Its Backers Are in Power
By Kimberly Kindy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 6, 2009; Page A01

Deep inside the economic stimulus package is a $1 billion prize that, in five short words, shows the benefits of being in power in Washington.

The funding, for "fossil energy research and development," is likely to go to a power plant in a small Illinois town, a project whose longtime backers include a group of powerful lawmakers from the state, among them President Obama.

They were unable to prevent the "clean coal" research project known as FutureGen from being abruptly killed last year by the Bush administration, which had created it and promoted it across the world as an environmentally sound way to produce power.

But now those same Illinois legislators -- including Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, and Ray LaHood, now transportation secretary -- control the White House and hold key leadership positions in Washington, and FutureGen is on the verge of resurrection.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said yesterday that he would support the plant with "some modifications."

"I have to say, there are many, many good things about it," Chu said after testifying before a Senate committee.

If FutureGen lived up to its promises, it would revolutionize the use of coal. On what is now 400 acres of cornfields in Mattoon, Ill., backers plan to build a commercial-size power plant that would produce 275 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 150,000 homes. Instead of releasing the resulting carbon dioxide emissions into the air as pollution, however, the plant would pump them into deep geologic formations thousands of feet below Earth's surface.

The project's goal is to test and develop affordable technology, on a commercial scale, that can remove 90 percent of emissions produced by coal plants. Chu said he thinks that the plant -- which would be built with a group of private coal and utility companies known as the FutureGen Alliance -- will move forward with some changes that have not yet been determined and will become a part of larger "portfolio" of research plants developed with other countries.

The FutureGen plant is expected to create jobs, and backers are currently pushing it as a stimulus project that could employ as many as 11,000 workers. The alliance must compete for the stimulus funds, but Chu's support adds significant momentum to the effort.

FutureGen's destiny is being decided as the debate over clean coal technology takes center stage in Washington, drawing big money in lobbying fees and campaign contributions. More than $20 million has been spent to hire lobbying firms that have petitioned members of Congress on FutureGen and other clean coal issues, according to a Washington Post analysis. And employees of the energy companies in the FutureGen Alliance have donated $3 million to congressional and presidential candidates.

The battle over FutureGen accelerated about a year ago when the Bush administration blocked the project hours after Mattoon was chosen over two towns in President George W. Bush's home state of Texas. The Illinois delegation responded with a bitter, bare-knuckle fight to save the plant. Without any assurance that their efforts would pay off, backers in Illinois spent tens of millions of dollars to buy land and have the project "shovel ready" -- before there was ever talk of a stimulus bill.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D), who led the Illinois delegation's efforts, worked the system, blocking some Bush administration appointments and holding hearings to publicly vilify the officials who stood in his way.

"This has been my longest, most difficult battle in Congress," Durbin said.

The fight got a lot easier after Obama was elected. Within weeks, his transition team met with FutureGen's industry partners. In January, when Obama announced his plans for an economic stimulus bill, Durbin and other members of the Illinois delegation quickly crafted a $2 billion line item to fund a "near zero-emissions power plant(s)," and Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) placed it in the Senate version of the legislation.

Republicans in both chambers pointed out that only one shovel-ready project in the country met the criteria spelled out in the bill: the FutureGen plant in Mattoon.

"We all know what this is about. It's an earmark for a single plant," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who railed against the item, securing support to keep it out of the House bill. Coburn labeled it "pork," placing it at the top of his government-waste list, which is emblazoned with the image of a pig.

The $2 billion in the Senate bill was zeroed out by the joint House-Senate conference committee that met to resolve differences in the chambers' two bills. In a compromise that Durbin helped craft, the final version of the legislation cut the funding to $1 billion and specified that it go to "fossil energy research and development." The new language still described the project but deflected mounting criticism by opening the door to other proposals.

When the Bush administration moved to kill FutureGen, officials cited its cost, with estimates rising from $1 billion to $1.8 billion as it approached construction. They also objected to a cost-sharing arrangement with industry that required the government to pay for more than two-thirds of the project.

"The likelihood that it would fail, leaving the American people with hundreds of millions of dollars in sunk cost and none of the benefits, is not acceptable," then-Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said in a Feb. 6, 2008, letter to the editor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Bodman declined to comment for this article.

After Bush rolled out FutureGen in 2003, coal mining unions and coal states immediately started leveraging to host the plant. Among the most aggressive was Illinois. Then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) formed the FutureGen for Illinois Task Force, which included the state's entire congressional delegation. He paid D.C. lobbying giant Cassidy and Associates more than $460,000 to help land the plant.

In July 2006, it was clear that the strategy was paying off when the FutureGen Alliance announced the four site finalists -- two in Illinois and two in Texas.

Over the coming months, Illinois further ginned up its self-promotion. The towns of Tuscola and Mattoon held a joint rally at a high school where a man dressed as Santa Claus passed out pieces of coal to cheering residents, politicians and schoolchildren.

In December 2007, the alliance announced its choice of Mattoon, a community of 17,000 people, 190 miles south of Chicago, that had the strongest local support and a geological edge: Beneath the site is a natural sandstone formation that could serve as an ideal trap to keep carbon dioxide emissions stored underground.

But in the weeks after that announcement, the Bush administration began moving behind the scenes to stop the project, even while promoting it publicly.

The reasons behind the Bush administration's decision to kill the plant are the subject of two year-long probes -- one by the Government Accountability Office and another by a congressional committee -- that will be released this month.

Internal department e-mails and memos show that Bodman directed his staff to develop an alternative plan, exploring whether to scrap the large plant and replace it with five or six smaller plants to test pieces of the same technology. The e-mails show that staff members were skeptical of the new plan, dubbed "FutureGen Plan B," which would call on the industry to pay a higher share of the cost.

"New money riding in to save the day seems unlikely," said one e-mail. Staff members described the new plan as unworkable and came up with their own name for it -- "the Frankenstein."

Incensed by what he viewed as duplicity on the part of the Bush administration, Durbin began making frequent calls to Bodman's office, records show, and quickly organized a campaign to keep the plant alive. He aligned 19 other members of Congress to join him in late December 2007, first by signing a protest letter to Bodman, then by gathering fellow lawmakers to confront the energy secretary.

The meeting in Durbin's office quickly became heated, as Bodman told lawmakers for the first time that the plant in Mattoon was dead.

"This is a meeting unlike any meeting I've been a part of. Members of Congress are literally screaming and waving their fists at the secretary," said someone in attendance, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing debate over FutureGen.

"We won this competition fair and square," Durbin said. "I told Bodman point-blank, 'We are going to keep this alive for the next president.' "

The next day, Bodman went public with his decision to replace the FutureGen project with multiple smaller plants. Obama and the rest of the Illinois delegation wrote to Bush, charging that the secretary had "misled us and the people of Illinois, creating false hope in a FutureGen project which he had no intention of funding or supporting."

The group organized three congressional hearings in the spring, challenging Bodman to explain his decision. In July, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to protect $134 million in funding for FutureGen in Mattoon, prohibiting the Energy Department from spending it on anything else.

Still, Bodman moved forward with Plan B, hoping to set the new plan in motion before the next administration was in place. But just four sites submitted proposals; two did not qualify and two others were incomplete, according to lawmakers and former department staffers.

Last week, Durbin and the delegation persuaded Congress to lift a freeze on $73 million of the money set aside in July, directing Chu to use it for the project if it is revived. The same day, the delegation sent Chu a letter, arguing that the plant in Mattoon should get the stimulus money because it is "five years ahead of any comparable project. . . . We cannot further delay on this promising technology."

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Op-Ed Contributor
The Climate for Change
By AL GORE
Published: November 9, 2008

The inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he -- and we -- must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

The electrifying redemption of America's revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.

The world authority on the climate crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after 20 years of detailed study and four unanimous reports, now says that the evidence is "unequivocal." To those who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from scientists around the world, ignore the melting of the north polar ice cap and all of the other apocalyptic warnings from the planet itself, and who roll their eyes at the very mention of this existential threat to the future of the human species, please wake up. Our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late.

Here is the good news: the bold steps that are needed to solve the climate crisis are exactly the same steps that ought to be taken in order to solve the economic crisis and the energy security crisis.

Economists across the spectrum -- including Martin Feldstein and Lawrence Summers -- agree that large and rapid investments in a jobs-intensive infrastructure initiative is the best way to revive our economy in a quick and sustainable way. Many also agree that our economy will fall behind if we continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign oil every year. Moreover, national security experts in both parties agree that we face a dangerous strategic vulnerability if the world suddenly loses access to Middle Eastern oil.

As Abraham Lincoln said during America's darkest hour, "The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." In our present case, thinking anew requires discarding an outdated and fatally flawed definition of the problem we face.

Thirty-five years ago this past week, President Richard Nixon created Project Independence, which set a national goal that, within seven years, the United States would develop "the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources." His statement came three weeks after the Arab oil embargo had sent prices skyrocketing and woke America to the dangers of dependence on foreign oil. And -- not coincidentally -- it came only three years after United States domestic oil production had peaked.

At the time, the United States imported less than a third of its oil from foreign countries. Yet today, after all six of the presidents succeeding Nixon repeated some version of his goal, our dependence has doubled from one-third to nearly two-thirds -- and many feel that global oil production is at or near its peak.

Some still see this as a problem of domestic production. If we could only increase oil and coal production at home, they argue, then we wouldn't have to rely on imports from the Middle East. Some have come up with even dirtier and more expensive new ways to extract the same old fuels, like coal liquids, oil shale, tar sands and "clean coal" technology.

But in every case, the resources in question are much too expensive or polluting, or, in the case of "clean coal," too imaginary to make a difference in protecting either our national security or the global climate. Indeed, those who spend hundreds of millions promoting "clean coal" technology consistently omit the fact that there is little investment and not a single large-scale demonstration project in the United States for capturing and safely burying all of this pollution. If the coal industry can make good on this promise, then I'm all for it. But until that day comes, we simply cannot any longer base the strategy for human survival on a cynical and self-interested illusion.

Here's what we can do -- now: we can make an immediate and large strategic investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.

What follows is a five-part plan to repower America with a commitment to producing 100 percent of our electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years. It is a plan that would simultaneously move us toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis -- and create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced.

First, the new president and the new Congress should offer large-scale investment in incentives for the construction of concentrated solar thermal plants in the Southwestern deserts, wind farms in the corridor stretching from Texas to the Dakotas and advanced plants in geothermal hot spots that could produce large amounts of electricity.

Second, we should begin the planning and construction of a unified national smart grid for the transport of renewable electricity from the rural places where it is mostly generated to the cities where it is mostly used. New high-voltage, low-loss underground lines can be designed with "smart" features that provide consumers with sophisticated information and easy-to-use tools for conserving electricity, eliminating inefficiency and reducing their energy bills. The cost of this modern grid -- $400 billion over 10 years -- pales in comparison with the annual loss to American business of $120 billion due to the cascading failures that are endemic to our current balkanized and antiquated electricity lines.

Third, we should help America's automobile industry (not only the Big Three but the innovative new startup companies as well) to convert quickly to plug-in hybrids that can run on the renewable electricity that will be available as the rest of this plan matures. In combination with the unified grid, a nationwide fleet of plug-in hybrids would also help to solve the problem of electricity storage. Think about it: with this sort of grid, cars could be charged during off-peak energy-use hours; during peak hours, when fewer cars are on the road, they could contribute their electricity back into the national grid.

Fourth, we should embark on a nationwide effort to retrofit buildings with better insulation and energy-efficient windows and lighting. Approximately 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States come from buildings -- and stopping that pollution saves money for homeowners and businesses. This initiative should be coupled with the proposal in Congress to help Americans who are burdened by mortgages that exceed the value of their homes.

Fifth, the United States should lead the way by putting a price on carbon here at home, and by leading the world's efforts to replace the Kyoto treaty next year in Copenhagen with a more effective treaty that caps global carbon dioxide emissions and encourages nations to invest together in efficient ways to reduce global warming pollution quickly, including by sharply reducing deforestation.

Of course, the best way -- indeed the only way -- to secure a global agreement to safeguard our future is by re-establishing the United States as the country with the moral and political authority to lead the world toward a solution.

Looking ahead, I have great hope that we will have the courage to embrace the changes necessary to save our economy, our planet and ultimately ourselves.

In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18.

This year similarly saw the rise of young Americans, whose enthusiasm electrified Barack Obama's campaign. There is little doubt that this same group of energized youth will play an essential role in this project to secure our national future, once again turning seemingly impossible goals into inspiring success.

Al Gore, the vice president from 1993 to 2001, was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He founded the Alliance for Climate Protection and, as a businessman, invests in alternative energy companies.

NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN-PALIN

Return of the "Mavrick" MEVERICK


A Democrat, probably some sort of spelling elitist, is amused.

The line appeared on screen just as McCain discussed adult literacy, two colleagues say.

Clinton amends 'No way, no how, no McCain-Palin'

Hillary releases a statement at the close of McCain's speech:

“The two party conventions showcased vastly different directions for our country. Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden offered the new ideas and positive change America needs and deserves after eight years of failed Republican leadership. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin did not.

“After listening to all of the speeches this week, I heard nothing that suggests the Republicans are ready to fix the economy for middle-class families, provide quality affordable health care for all Americans, guarantee equal pay for equal work for women, restore our nation's leadership in a complex world or tackle the myriad of challenges our country faces.

“So, to slightly amend my comments from Denver: NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN-PALIN.”

Add forgery to the list of Bush's crimes

Add forgery to the list of Bush's crimes
Yet another smoking gun that points the way to impeachment


Suskind explains the plot:

"In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD — as Habbush had foretold — the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a “small team from the al Qaeda organization.”

"The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conducting disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil."

John W. Dean, who served as Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel, drew the connection on MSNBC between the new allegations and those that brought down Richard Nixon in 1974 just weeks after the House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of Articles of Impeachment.

John W. Dean being interviewed by Keith Olberman stated:

"I don‘t think people are looking at it too narrowly or Suskind is when I read his book. What happens when you tie that with a criminal conspiracy statute, 18 USC 371, which nailed countless people in Watergate for misusing the agencies and departments of government—that‘s where they‘ve got a problem.

"That‘s where Nixon had a problem for telling the CIA to block the FBI for part of the Watergate investigation. Yes, it was obstruction but it was also defrauding the government. This is their real problem with that statute. ... "

Congress failing to increase fuel-efficiency standards....2003

CONGRESS 2003......HMMM......WHO HAD CONTROL?

The incentive, part of President Bush's economic stimulus package approved by Congress earlier this year, is gaining attention from car dealers and accountants across the country.

Published on Monday, December 1, 2003 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune
Going Backwards
Tax Breaks Target Big SUVs
by Elizabeth Dunbar and Rob Hotakainen

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Taking the advice of her accountant, Carolyn Hodgson found a way to reduce her federal taxes this year: She spent $38,117 on a sport-utility vehicle.

After deducting the cost of the 2002 GMC Yukon Denali from her 2003 income, Hodgson figures she'll end up saving about $14,000.

"It helps offset some of the other rising expenses businesses are facing," said Hodgson, of Plymouth, who bought the SUV for her Edina delivery business.



Bad policy. It encourages the use of the most fuel-inefficient means of transportation in urban America.
Minnesota Democrat Jim Oberstar
The incentive, part of President Bush's economic stimulus package approved by Congress earlier this year, is gaining attention from car dealers and accountants across the country.

For years, business owners have been able to use vehicle purchases as tax write-offs for equipment, but now the rules have changed dramatically.

In a move intended to encourage businesses to invest in new equipment, Congress is allowing a full deduction of as much as $100,000 for business equipment. In previous years, the equipment deduction was limited to $25,000.

Included in the category of equipment are vehicles weighing more than 6,000 pounds when fully loaded -- which can mean heavy-duty pickups used in construction work or Cadillac Escalades.

For those who buy smaller vehicles, the tax benefit is much less attractive. The maximum deduction businesses can take this year for a new car weighing less than 6,000 pounds is $10,710. And while the deduction for large vehicles can be taken in a single year, the deduction for smaller cars must be spread out over five years.

In New York, RIA senior tax analyst Bob Trinz is urging people who run small businesses or professional practices to "buy yourself an SUV for Christmas." And in the Twin Cities, car dealers are realizing that the break could be good for business.

"We're going to take advantage of this and go after it in the next 60 days," said Michael Kahn, sales manager at Stillwater Motors.

Kahn said the tax break has meant a bigger demand for trucks, vans and SUVs. For example, instead of stocking two or three Chevy Express cargo vans, Kahn has 15. And he's trying to get the word out because he says it will help his business and the economy.

Heft helps

The tax law is encouraging a bigger-is-better mentality among both auto dealers and the buying public.

To qualify, vehicles must be used mainly for business. At least 38 vehicles hit the 6,000-pound weight requirement, including Dodge Durangos, Lincoln Navigators and Toyota Land Cruisers. Buick introduced a new luxury SUV for 2004 that barely meets the cutoff: 6,001 pounds fully loaded. A buyer who has more than $50,000 to spend could shop for a Range Rover or a Hummer H2.
"We've seen a change in the type of vehicles that some people are buying," said Cheryl Meyer, an accountant with Biebl and Ranweiler in New Ulm, Minn. The firm's tax advisers have been talking about the tax breaks at state and national conferences for accountants.

Some dealers are expecting an end-of-the-year rush because small-business owners who buy and use qualifying vehicles before Dec. 31 can deduct the entire amount from their taxable income this year.

So far, Kahn said, funeral homes, construction companies, real estate agents and delivery services are among those taking advantage of the tax break.

"People come in and want to upgrade their whole fleet, so they're coming in with big orders," he said.

Tom Johnson, a Minneapolis tax adviser for Boulay, Heutmaker and Zibell, said he hasn't seen people buy vehicles that they don't need or can't afford.

"It's still an economic decision," he said. "But if they need a vehicle like that, it makes it much more attractive."

Even with the tax break, consumers have to think about how much they'll spend on gas. The larger SUVs generally get between 9 and 15 miles per gallon.

Hodgson said she already discovered the drawback.

"This thing is horrible," she said of her Denali, adding that she's at the gas pump every three days. "I step on the gas and you can just watch the gas gauge drop."

Opponents fuming

Environmentalists and fiscal watchdogs are fuming.

They say that not only is Congress failing to increase fuel-efficiency standards, but now Washington is allowing tax breaks that encourage bigger vehicles.

"Just by increasing the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks, we could answer a major part of the challenge of America's energy future," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

"As long as SUVs are flying off of dealership lots, the current break makes no fiscal sense," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and 26 other House Democrats are cosponsoring a bill that would plug the SUV loophole. A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate by Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

"Giving tax breaks to encourage the selling of these heavy, gas-inefficient SUVs . . . doesn't do anything to help us reduce our dependency on oil," McCollum said.

Minnesota Democrat Jim Oberstar, the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the tax break is "bad policy," adding: "It encourages the use of the most fuel-inefficient means of transportation in urban America."

While the legislation to plug the SUV loophole is pending, nothing is scheduled to change anytime soon. When Congress considered an energy bill earlier this month, efforts to change the deduction back to $25,000 failed. Under current law, the $100,000 deduction will end on Dec. 31, 2005, returning to the $25,000 level.

For now, business groups argue that the increased deduction is helping businesses expand, even if it means more people are buying SUVs.

"In the big picture, you're stimulating the economy by giving small business owners a bigger deduction," said Raj Nisankarao, president of the National Business Association.

He said that people often forget that the new $100,000 limit is allowing businesses to purchase more equipment and supplies than the $25,000 limit permitted.

But McCollum said the need for an SUV tax break has never come up in conversation with a small-business owner.

Though Hodgson said she appreciates the tax break, she wonders whether the money could be spent elsewhere.

"It just seems like this is helping the people who are already successful," she said.

© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune

“Bush Buy SUVs” program

.....

Now the Federals are fighting dumb with dumber.

The Bush administration has proposed tripling a little-know tax deduction that dermatologists, real estate agents, accountants or business consultants can use to buy the biggest SUVs.

It’s a highly stimulating provision in the administration’s economic stimulus program. The loophole would allow someone who buys an $102,581 Hummer H1 for “business purposes” to deduct $87,135 from his taxes immediately. Seriously. Good deal if you can get it.

In December, The Detroit News first reported that lots of self-employed dentists and lawyers were gettin’ it. The auto industry’s hometown paper also was the first to figure out that the new Bush plan would turn the SUV loophole into a four-car garage in the tax code.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding," said Skip Barnett, a Hummer dealer in Atlanta when the News told him about the Bush tax plan's new SUV subsidy. "That would make a Hummer practically free." Bingo.

In case you were wondering, a businessman who wants to stimulate the economy by buying a Ford Taurus or a BMW convertible can’t get these big tax breaks.

That’s because in the 1980s, Congress put limits on how much small businesses and the self-employed could write-off for fancy cars. But they exempted vehicles that weighed more than 6,000 pounds because they didn’t want to discourage farmers and builders from buying pickup trucks and big vans. SUVs weren’t yet popular with soccer moms and football dads.

So now a chiropractor in Sausalito can buy a top of the line Hummer for that $102,581 and then claim a $75,000 deduction for capital equipment, an $8,274 post-Sep. 11 bonus capital equipment deduction and a first-year depreciation allowance of $3,861. The total deduction: $87,135. Assuming the driver is in the top income bracket, the federal tax savings for buying a Hummer is $33,634.

Bet you feel like a sucker for missing out, don’t you?

The Bush administration certainly thinks we’re suckers when it comes to SUVs.

As the administration’s right-hand writes big deductions for big vehicles into the tax code, the administration’s left-hand is grasping to make these road monsters safer. The country’s top road safety regulator, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently told an auto industry group, “The fatality rate per 100,000 registered SUVs is about three times higher than it is for passenger cars. It doesn’t take a statistician to tell you something is wrong here.”

Runge also said that he wouldn’t let his family ride in rollover prone SUVs “if they were the last vehicles on earth.” That really sent Detroit into a tailspin.

The “Bush Buy SUVs” program also collides with the administration’s recent decision to force car companies to improve the fuel economy of SUVs, pickups and minivans by 7 percent over the next few years.

The bottom line is absurd: the government wants to increase its subsidy for buying vehicles it says are unsafe, gas-guzzling polluters.

That makes about as much sense as asking “What Would Jesus Drive?”

Dick Meyer, a veteran political and investigative producer for CBS News, is Editorial Director of CBSNews.com based in Washington.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/23/opinion/meyer/main537649.shtml

OIL LEASES........GIVE EM UP!!!!! BIG TAX BREAKS FOR SUV PURCHASE!!

Bush plan gives huge tax break to buyers of big SUVs

Let someone or some other company takeover the OIL LEASES that are all COVERED UP!!!
Give me a break!
Where were the REPUBLICANS when the TAX BREAKS were given for the SUV Purchases.

Posted 1/21/2003 9:22 AM Updated 1/21/2003 9:22 AM





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Anti-SUV movement grows











Bush plan gives huge tax break to buyers of big SUVsBy David Kiley, USA TODAY

DETROIT — Buying big, luxurious sport-utility vehicles could cost a lot less under the Bush administration's economic stimulus proposal, even though a Bush appointee blasted SUVs last week as dangerous fuel hogs.
Small businesses and the self-employed could deduct the entire cost, up to $75,000, from business income the year of the purchase. Normally it would be written off over several years, using a depreciation schedule. Deducting the entire cost in one year considerably reduces that year's taxable income, and income taxes. In some cases, it could result in paying no federal income tax.

A similar deduction in the current tax code is limited to $25,000. Tripling that creates a much more alluring incentive at a time when SUVs are under fire for fuel consumption and safety concerns.

Bush appointee Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, scolded automakers at an industry conference one week ago for not making SUVs safer and more fuel efficient. He told reporters that he considers some SUVs so dangerous he wouldn't allow his family in them "if they were the last vehicles on Earth."

A stung auto industry shot back with statistics showing SUVs are very safe in the most common types of crashes.

White House spokesman Taylor Gross said Monday that the provision "is not designed to favor one vehicle over another, but rather to allow small businesses to buy more equipment and to create more jobs."

Computers and other equipment do also get favorable treatment in the provision to help small businesses and the self-employed upgrade their hardware. But the language regarding vehicles limits the tax benefit to those with a gross vehicle weight rating of 6,000 pounds or more. That means full-size SUVs and pickups.

As a result, an accountant who'd do fine with a 30-mile-per-gallon compact sedan as a company car could be enticed into a big, 15-mpg SUV instead because of the deduction. Or a real estate agent about to buy a 20-mpg midsize SUV that doesn't qualify for the deduction might opt for a full-size SUV instead, because it does qualify.

Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) estimates that the current deduction cuts tax revenue $1 billion for every 100,000 SUVs, and vows to lobby against tripling the amount. "The market for personal-use SUVs has outgrown the original intent of this tax break," says Aileen Roder of TCS.

"When a loophole gives an accountant an incentive to deduct the cost of his luxury SUV, it makes the argument of how ridiculous" it is, says Jonathan Collegio of Americans for Tax Reform.

During furious SUV sales last month, "We did have some people coming in saying, 'My accountant told me I better buy something,' " says Chevrolet dealer Jerry Haggerty in Glen Ellyn, Ill.

Contributing: Gannett News Service

DRILL, DRILL , DRILL....Is that all we can think of?

With a President with the intelligence capacity , I guess that is all we KNOW!
OIL!!!!

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!

Does T Boone Pickens have any credibility with any real thinkers?

"But Pickens knows he’s unique. Unless, he says, “Congress adopts clear, predictable policies” — with long-term tax incentives and infrastructure — so thousands of investors can jump into clean power, we’ll never get the scale we need to break our addiction. For a year, Senate Republicans have been blocking such incentives for wind and solar energy. They vote again next week.

If only we had a Congress and president who, instead of chasing crazy schemes like offshore drilling and releasing oil from our strategic reserve, just sat down with Boone and Shai and asked one question: “What laws do we need to enact to foster 1,000 more like you?” Then just do it, and get out of the way. "


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Many oil industry insiders believe this is a bubble

Peak Oil or Oil Bubble? - The Oil Bubble ArgumentWritten by FrugalTrader on Jul 24, 2008 filed under Ed Rempel
This is a guest post from Ed Rempel (CFP and CMA). For those of you joining us recently, Ed has written a number of controversial articles for MDJ in the past. Today’s article is a continuation from yesterdays post with a counter argument that it’s not peak oil but an oil bubble.. Make sure to participate in the poll at the end.


In his 1998 book, “The Roaring 2002’s”, demographics expert Harry Dent predicted that the large block of baby boomers in their peak earning years would cause one financial bubble after another. Since then, we had the tech bubble, a real estate bubble in the US, nearly an income trust bubble in Canada, Chinese stock market bubble, and now what looks like an oil and resources bubble.

Just like the unlimited potential of the internet that led to the tech bubble, there are real explanations for oil’s rise, but they do not explain a price increase from $10 to $145/barrel.

Arguments in favour of a Oil Bubble
1. Index futures for oil and resources have been created in the last couple of years and have resulted in massive speculation that has driven much of the oil price rise. Many institutional investors are allocating a portion of their assets to commodities primarily through the futures market, which has created incremental “investment demand”. Commodity index futures are about 80% oil. Because of the comparatively high price inelasticity of both oil supply and demand, relatively small disruptions in supply or increments in demand can have outsized effects on price.

According to a May 19, 2008 report titled “Blame It on Your Pension Fund” from Probability Analytics Research in Chicago, open interest in the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude and Brent Crude oil contracts traded have more than tripled over the last 5 years, rising by 1.3 million. At 1,000 barrels per contract, this represents incremental demand of 1.3 billion barrels of oil, or about 53% of the increase in world oil “consumption” over that period. Index speculators would not necessarily have accounted for all of that increase in open interest, but Michael Masters (Masters Capital Management), in testimony before a Senate subcommittee on May 20, 2008, estimated that over the last 5 years, index speculators through the futures market increased their net exposure to petroleum products by the equivalent of 848 million barrels of oil, an impact roughly equivalent to the 920 million barrel increase in demand from China over that period.

In a tight market for physical oil, how large a price impact could the incremental investment demand from commodity indexers have had? Probability Analytics Research estimated the equilibrium oil price without investment demand is $60-75 per barrel, with investment demand adding roughly $60 to the price of oil.

2. Demand is not out-pacing supply. In the last 12 months, world oil demand is up only 2%, while supply is up 2.5%. Meanwhile, the price has nearly doubled. How can this be anything other than pure speculation?

3. Most oil experts assume the proper oil price should be between $60-90/barrel. Almost all oil analysts assume a price of $80-90/barrel when valuing oil company shares. The $60-70 range is often quoted by Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al-Naimi as being a realistic price for oil, since that is the marginal cost of production for alternative energy sources. In fact, OPEC, which controls 40% of the world’s oil, states that there is “no justification for oil above $80/barrel” and that “fundamentals do not support a price above $80/barrel”.

4. Anecdotal evidence is that the long-awaited demand reductions resulting from high oil prices may have begun. The widely-used quote is: “The cure for $145 oil is $145 oil.” Airlines—choking on $4 per gallon jet fuel prices—are slashing capacity. Sales of gas-guzzling SUVs and light trucks are collapsing in the U.S., while small cars and hybrids are flying off the lot. Public transportation use is increasing. Many are changing jobs to be closer to home, or moving closer to their job. Oil demand is starting to drop off throughout the OECD. Demand responses take time, but we may have reached a tipping point. Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago, has calculated that in the past, over periods of less than 5 years, oil consumption in the OECD dropped by only 2% to 9% when oil prices doubled. But over longer periods, consumption dropped by 60%.

5. Oil supply increases may be on the way. Six years is not a long time in the context of the time it takes to develop an oil field. The last doubling of oil prices has occurred in the last year or so. No supply response over that time frame could have been reasonably expected. The largest new field for years was just discovered in Brazil and is estimated to contain 5-8 billion barrels.

6. Huge amounts of oil are thought to exist off-shore. George Bush just lifted an executive ban that has existed since 1990 on off-shore oil drilling. If the legislative ban is also lifted, then off-shore drilling can finally start. Drilling is banned in many other regions rich with oil or gas resources due to long-term energy strategies and environmental concerns.

7. Oil-producing countries do not necessarily have the incentive to increase production as rapidly as oil-consuming nations may want. They may believe that they will maximize the long-term value of their oil reserves by developing them more slowly.

8. Oil price subsidies in many countries will become increasingly difficult to maintain. Higher gas prices in these countries would result in lower demand. The latest jump in oil prices is making subsidies much more costly, and strains on governmental budgets are forcing some nations to lift subsidies. On May 24, Indonesia raised fuel prices by +30%, followed shortly by Taiwan (+13%) and Sri Lanka (+24%). China has just recently increased its gas prices, since the subsidies that amounted to about 1% of GDP.

9. Many European geologists, especially in Russia, still believe in the abiogenic theory. Oil is widely considered to be a fossil fuel in the West, but this belief is far from unanimous world-wide. The abiogenic theory states that oil is created by carbon released by microbes that migrates upward from the earth’s mantle. It has been popularized in the West recently by Thomas Gold, professor at Cornell University. If it is correct, then not only can oil be continuously created, but there may be far more oil in the earth than most believe. Oil companies have not drilled in areas most likely to contain abiogenic oil. Most geologists consider oil to be a fossil fuel, but the abiogenic theory has not been proven false.

10. Governments have not responded with official policies and have not officially expressed concern. Peak Oil has been discussed endlessly in the press and in the financial industry. Governments must know what is going on and are not concerned.

11. Alternative fuel sources will reduce our need for oil. Humans are adaptive. There are many fuel sources available now and high oil prices will make alternative sources much more viable.

12. Peak Oil is being a marketed. Most of the strongest proponents of Peak Oil are in the investment industry working for companies that have made huge amounts of money from rising oil prices.

13. Many oil industry insiders believe this is a bubble. Those that believe this is a bubble include OPEC, Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al-Naimi, Richard Rainwater (Texas oil billionaire), and George Soros (legendary hedge fund manager).
What is your opinion?
Many readers of MDJ are well-read in many issues, so your opinions here would be very interesting. What is your opinion? Which are we currently witnessing?

A. The beginning of Peak Oil.

B. An oil bubble.

http://www.milliondollarjourney.com/peak-oil-or-oil-bubble-the-oil-bubble-argument.htm

Drill! Drill! Dril!!! Is that all you can do?

Is there anything else this half - Educated , LOW INFORMED Nation can think of,t hen to continually live and breath for the FINITE, (Get your Webster out) Resource of OIL!!

Does anyone value EDUCATION or KNOWLEDGE from EXPERIENCE that will HELP US?
Such as T Boone!!!


By Dan Reed, USA TODAY
SWEETWATER, Texas — Get ready, America, T. Boone Pickens is coming to your living room.
The legendary Texas oilman, corporate raider, shareholder-rights crusader, philanthropist and deep-pocketed moneyman for conservative politicians and causes, wants to drive the USA's political and economic agenda.
"We're paying $700 billion a year for foreign oil. It's breaking us as a nation, and I want to elevate that question to the presidential debate, to make it the No. 1 issue of the campaign this year," Pickens says.
Today, Pickens will take the wraps off what he's calling the Pickens Plan for cutting the USA's demand for foreign oil by more than a third in less than a decade. To promote it, he is bankrolling what his aides say will be the biggest public policy ad campaign ever. The website, pickensplan.com, goes live today.
Jay Rosser, Pickens' ever-present public relations man, promises that Pickens' face will be seen on Americans' televisions this fall almost as frequently as John McCain's and Barack Obama's.
"Neither presidential candidate is talking about solving the oil problem. So we're going to make 'em talk about it," Pickens says.
"Nixon said in 1970 that we were importing 20% of our oil and that by 1980 it would be 0%. That didn't happen," Pickens says. "It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It's just under 70% now. Where do you think we're going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we're importing 80% of our oil?"
Finding solutions to other major issues, including health care, are important, he concedes. But "If you don't solve the energy problem, it's going to break us before we even get to solving health care and some of these other important issues." And it has to be done with the same sense of urgency that President Eisenhower had when he pushed the rapid development of the interstate highway system during the Cold War.
Of course, Pickens also has a particular solution in mind.
Wind. And natural gas.
Last week, Pickens loaded up his $60 million, top-of-the-line Gulfstream G550 corporate jet with reporters and a few associates from his Dallas-based BP Capital energy hedge fund and related companies and flew here to illustrate just how big — and achievable — his vision is.
There's not much to Sweetwater except for wild grasses, scraggy mesquite trees and rattlesnakes (Sweetwater hosts its famous Rattlesnake Roundup each spring). The gently rolling terrain and vegetation make it ideal for raising cattle, which is what its first settlers did in the 19th century, and what their descendants do today. A regional oil boom in the 1950s and 1960s poured money into the area's economy, as have two oil revivals since: one in the 1980s and one now.
But the exciting new industry in town is wind energy. You can drive for 150 miles along Interstate 20 and never be out of sight of a giant wind turbine, claims Sweetwater Mayor Greg Wortham, who does double duty as executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium.
Were it a country all by itself, Nolan County, Texas, would rank sixth on the list of wind-energy-producing nations, says Wortham. Year-round wind conditions, the terrain, low land prices and a small population make it an ideal location for wind farms. It already produces more wind-generated electricity in a year than all of California. And the business is growing so fast that he struggles to define it by numbers. By year's end, there'll be more than 1,500 turbines in Nolan County, representing a $5 billion investment. In the multicounty Rolling Plains region, there are already 2,000 operating turbines.
Add those operating further west, the Permian Basin region around Midland and Odessa, and the entire area has more than 3,000 turbines operating, producing about 6,000 megawatts of electricity — about equal to the power produced by two to three nuclear power plants.
Growth potential
The growth potential is, well, electrifying.
New turbine towers are going up at a rate of three to four a day in the Sweetwater area, Wortham says. "It depends on the (Texas) Public Utility Commission, but the number could be 20,000 ultimately," Wortham says.
Pickens, who over the past two years has become the USA's biggest wind-power booster, is quick to note that "there could be lots of Sweetwaters out there," especially in the nation's midsection, where winds are ideal for power generation.
Indeed, though Sweetwater is a windy place, plenty of locations farther north in the Great Plains are even better suited to wind farming. One is about 250 miles north of Sweetwater, near Pampa, northeast of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. That's where Pickens is building what would be the world's largest wind farm, four times larger than the current titleholder near here. So far, he has spent $2 billion on the project, including a record purchase of nearly 700 wind turbines this year from General Electric. He expects to spend up to $10 billion on the project and to begin generating electricity in 2011.
Though Pickens doesn't own a single wind turbine in the Sweetwater area, Wortham was eager to play host to the oil baron and the reporters traveling with him. Sweetwater, he says, is proof that wind power has much more potential than its many skeptics believe.
"People hear about the 8-foot-tall wind turbines at Logan airport in Boston or the five turbines at Atlantic City and think 'interesting,' " Wortham says. "But they don't see how we can get to the 300,000-megawatt-production level" established by the Bush administration as a national goal for 2030. "Once you come to Sweetwater, you see that it can be done, and be done pretty easily, not only here, but … anywhere there are prime wind conditions. None of this existed seven years ago. Now, we produce enough electricity in this one county to power a large city, and we do it cheaply and cleanly."
Getting lots more electricity with wind is only half of the Pickens Plan. Increasing wind-power production by itself won't reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil because most of that oil is consumed as gasoline.
The key, Pickens says, is that wind energy can be used as a substitute for natural gas now burned to generate electricity. That, in turn, will make far more natural gas available for use as a transportation fuel. Pickens' plan is to produce enough wind power within 10 years to divert 20% of the natural gas now used to fuel power plants for use in cars and trucks. That's much more aggressive a growth plan for the development of wind energy than envisioned by the Department of Energy, which doesn't expect the USA to be getting 20% of its total energy needs from wind until at least 2030.
Pickens foresees as many as a third of the vehicles running on natural gas within only a few years. Julius Pretterebner, director of the Global Oil Group at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, says getting 15% to 20% of the USA's cars to run on natural gas — in some cases, in mixtures with other fuels in dual-fuel vehicles — by 2020 would be an outstanding achievement, and doing that will require federal support to expand the necessary infrastructure.
Powering vehicles with compressed or liquefied natural gas, CNG or LNG, has been Pickens' pet project since the late 1980s.Yet the concept has been very slow to catch on.
Distribution is a major problem. CNG drivers can, like Pickens, install inexpensive equipment to fill up at their homes. But with fewer than 800 natural gas filling stations around the USA, drivers can't count on being able to fill up wherever they go. So, for the most part, CNG, or LNG, has remained limited to fleet operators, such as local bus companies or big-city police departments.
And that's where David Friedman, research director in the vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says most natural-gas-powered vehicles will continue to be operated because of the distribution problem, the lack of vehicles made specifically to run on CNG, and the cost of converting conventional vehicles to run on CNG.
"I honestly think (natural gas') role will be in medium- to heavy-duty vehicles and fleets — and as a stepping stone to hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vehicles in the future," Friedman says. Only one car, a version of the Honda Civic, is available from the factory ready for CNG fuel, he says, and only at a significant premium over the price of a conventionally fueled version.
If you build it …
Pickens aims to shout down the skeptics by taking his case to the people via his TV ad campaign. If the nation is to break its addiction to foreign oil, a network of CNG stations could be built along interstates and in major cities for a relatively small investment, he says. Some gasoline retailers have told him they would add CNG pumps to their stations once they're certain there'll be enough vehicles capable of running on natural gas to justify costs.
Washington, Pickens adds, can encourage the move to natural-gas-powered vehicles by providing modest economic incentives for fuel retailers to invest in CNG pumps at their stations, for automakers to build CNG-powered cars and for individuals to convert their existing vehicles to CNG use. And it should continue to provide tax incentives for another 10 years to encourage wind energy's rapid development as part of an overall plan to wean the nation from foreign oil, he says.
"It certainly would be cheaper than what they're doing already for nuclear," Pickens adds. But he's also in favor of developing more nuclear energy, and every form of alternative energy to reduce oil imports. "Try everything. Do everything. Nuclear. Biomass. Coal. Solar. You name it. I support them all," he says. "But there's only one energy source that can dramatically reduce the amount of oil we have to import each year, and that's (natural) gas."
Pickens is an outspoken believer in the so-called peak oil theory that holds that maximum world production has peaked at about 85 million barrels a day — vs. current demand of about 86 million barrels a day — and will never rise much above that even with lots of new drilling and production.
"Even people who continue driving gasoline-powered cars and trucks will benefit" from his plan, he says.
Critics could easily accuse Pickens of advocating a major new public policy initiative that will line his own pockets. He is, after all, a big player in both the wind power and natural gas businesses. Pickens says while his hedge fund will earn money for its investors, earning more money personally is meaningless: "I'm 80 years old and have $4 billion. I don't need any more money."
He's more concerned that his efforts to make reducing foreign oil dependency the No. 1 issue on the national agenda will be dismissed by the public and, therefore, by Washington. So he says he's carefully steering his plan clear of partisan bickering.
He's already enlisted an unlikely supporter: the Sierra Club. "I will be in the front row of the chorus cheering" him on, says Carl Pope, its executive director, who flew with Pickens to Sweetwater.
Pope sees wind and solar energy as inexpensive sources of power that, along with other non-carbon forms, can be pooled to greatly reduce the need for oil- and coal-fired electric-generating plants.
"When it's cloudy in Dallas and the wind's not blowing in Sweetwater, but the sun's blazing in the (Western) deserts, solar energy can run all those air conditioners in Dallas. When it's windy in Sweetwater and cloudy in the desert, wind energy from Sweetwater can heat homes in Chicago.
"Mr. Pickens and I probably don't see eye-to-eye on some other matters," Pope concedes. "But he's right on this one."
Setting goals, clearing roadblocks
Washington's role, Pope said, should be in setting the goal and clearing roadblocks such as the patchwork of state, regional and federal regulations that block the creation of a true national grid that can shift electricity from anywhere in the country to anywhere that it's needed.
Getting support from groups and people not ordinarily aligned with his conservative political views is important to Pickens. A lifelong Republican, he'll vote for McCain. But he's not involved with McCain's campaign, largely to keep his plan from being dismissed as mere campaign rhetoric.
"This has to be a bipartisan effort," says the man who four years ago offered $1 million to anyone who could disprove the charges made against Democrat nomine Sen. John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
"This is not about Republicans vs. Democrats," Pickens says. "This is about saving our country from the ruination of spending $700 billion a year on oil imports. Ninety days after the oil hits our shores, it's all burned up, and we've got nothing to show for it. But they (foreign oil producers) still have our money. It's killing our economy."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-07-08-t-boone-pickens-plan-wind-energy_N.htm