“There is a concern within this administration, which I support, that the imposition of a carbon cap in this country would – may – lead to the transfer of jobs and industry abroad (to nations) that do not have such a carbon cap,” Bodman said. “You would then have the US economy damaged, on the one hand, and the same emissions … potentially even worse emissions”

Bodman is a Bush appointee who for a dozen years ran a Texas-based chemical company that spent years on the top five lists of the country’s worst polluters.

It’s not just a few clouds of smoke emanating from an oil refinery or a power plant that got Bodman’s old company, Boston-based Cabot Corporation, those accolades. It was the 54,000 tons of toxic emissions that his company’s refineries released into the air in the Lone Star state in 1997 alone that made Cabot the fourth-largest source of toxic emissions in Texas. Cabot is the world’s largest producer of industrial carbon black, a byproduct of the oil refinery process.
http://www.pubrecord.org/natio…..?task=view

Total U.S. crude oil reserves are 21 billion barrels. If we could extract all of that oil right now that is 1019 days or 2.8 years worth of oil at today’s consumption rate.

because it takes energy to extract energy. to know what the actual reserves of energy (not barrels of oil) are, one must know the energy balance.

Using the Bush Gov’t numbers: U.S. petroleum consumption is 20.68 million barrels/day. Total U.S. crude oil reserves are 21 billion barrels. If we could extract all of that oil right now that is 1019 days or 2.8 years worth of oil at today’s consumption rate. it is less if demand continues to increase.

70% of that petroleum usage is for transportation. If we stopped putting gas in our cars today that is still only 9.3 years worth of oil in U.S. reserves. There is just no way to drill out of this, the math does not lie.

This is unsustainable without increasingly high levels of foreign oil importing and all of the geopolitical problems that come with it. However, what we don’t need is political tricks from Obama. I’m all for a windfall profit tax on oil companies but offering to give each tax payer $1000 is a cheap political stunt that will give those of us a feeling of exacting revenge on the oil companies but it will do nothing to address the real problem.

I would rather see the windfall tax spent on a man-on-the-moon type effort to reduce U.S. oil comsumption by 50% in 10 years through developing alternative energy sources. I’ll glaly donate my $1000 for that.

Pressuring and removing fake Dems is one of the most important things we can do, as you say. Don’t mean to open a can of worms here, but that’s perhaps the main reason I eventually started backing Obama, since he’s developed a grassroots movement of the likes has never been seen before. Unbelievable amounts of people are getting involved with their government. His plan for opening up the inner workings of government by using the latest technologies is great. And the fact that he’s let a group that’s critical of him flourish on his own campaign web site makes me think he’s serious about this.

With his background as an organizer, he knows that he’s checking and balancing himself with the American people. This positive is enough to overcome some of the negatives I have with him. Besides, since we’re still a small percentage of the electorate overall, we can have much more impact on Congressional races through Blue America, and that’s where I spend almost 100% of my political time and energy.