« Dems Miss Cash Deadline for Denver Convention | Obama's Pals: From Chicago Corruption to anti-US Iraqi Thieves »
June 17, 2008
How to overcome opposition to oil drilling
The solution is surprising, but really shouldn't be: government ownership. Mary Anastasia Grady of the Wall Street Journal notes that where governments own substantial shares of oil producers, environmental concerns do not seem to prevent oil field development.
Citing Brazil (with its socialistic government), where nobody is stopping development of massive new offshore oilfields, she contrasts that situation with the United States:
...the Brazilian government has a 58% controlling stake in Petrobras's voting shares and 32% of its total shares. This means that some of Petrobras profits go straight to the government's bottom line, giving the politicians more money to spend on bribing their constituents.In the U.S., Congress doesn't have nearly such a vested interest in a successful oil industry. What good are corporate profits if they go to shareholders, pensioners and employees? Congress has even been denied the windfall profits tax. For American politicians there is a much greater incentive to respond to the concentrated power of the special interest group known as the "greens."
Greens like to pretend they are altruistic, but their allies in government, essential to thwarting the plans the greens oppose, are certainly not.
Bruce Walker anticipated this argument.
Hat tip: Jerome Schmitt
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- The Left Achieves Peak Political Insanity
- Saving the Jewish People
- A Third Possible Trump Term?
- Taming the Ravenous Dragon
- Rethinking Reparations For The Living Who Deserve Them
- Smart Cities: Are They Worth It?
- Corey Booker: The Attention Seeker
- Rust Belt Revival
- Birth Rates and the Future of Civilization
- Forebears of Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs
Blog Posts
- If not revealed, then it never happened
- What will tariffs cost the average American family?
- Can our society regain cohesion and dignity before it's too late?
- No, a 50-percent tariff doesn’t mean a 50-percent price hike
- For Trump and Netanyahu, Iran is the issue
- Mike Huckabee: A game-changer for Israel
- Can schools force-jab children with COVID-19 shots?
- Our Lady of Perpetual Denial
- No, Trump didn't stiff migrants by ending the CBP One app -- Joe Biden just used them
- So much winning...and I’m not tired of it yet
- Oregon law enforcement goes after a 27-year-old ‘trans’ sex offender who enrolled in high school as a 15-year-old girl
- Pigs at the Trough: SoCal food bank accused of using food funds for cars, trips to Vegas, and more
- The Darién Gap is now… a ghost town?
- Deportation scoreboard
- Jerome Powell wants ‘hard data’ about tariffs and inflation before he lowers interest rates—so here it is