Smokey Joe

Yup, he got his bill passed. By a whopping 212-210 majority nonetheless! Says Barton:

"In 1981, there were 324 operating refineries in the boundaries of the United States. Today there are 148. Do the math. There are a lot of reasons for it "

Yeah, like refineries just weren't profitable for the last 30 years when a gallon of gas cost roughly the same as a gallon of water?

"What company's board of directors in its right mind would want to go through this complicated process and tie up billions of dollars for years and years if they weren't certain whether this process would wrap up in a timely fashion?"

No, if a board member would ponder "jeez, gas is close to a buck-a-gallon, so if only there weren't those pesky environmental regulations, we could go out and build some more!", a few friendly guys in white suits would enter the boardroom to escort them to a better, quieter, office space complete with thorazine.

There used to be a reason why Republicans would propose to pursue a particular course of action, back in the Eisenhower years. OK, maybe some actions taken during the Reagan years had some iota of reason behind them. We could argue about the reasons and the consequences, but they actually had reasons to propose a particular course of action. Check out what this act actually does and tell me one thing that helps decrease the price we pay at the pump. Nothing. Why? Because when you're in the midst of a demand shock (analogous to the supply shock we experienced in the 70's--coincidentally the last time we built new refineries--except that this time we have arguably more supply out there), refiners have a financial motivation to build more refining capacity. Forcing neighborhoods to accept dirty air and water will not change anything about the economics behind building refineries because they're already planning on building more capacity. So why did smokey Joe Barton press for this legislation?


Greed.