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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (11536)	3/12/2002 5:15:46 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

The Senate engaged in an even more protracted struggle this month over how to calculate oil royalties, a hot-button issue for environmentalists. Administration officials argue that the industry deliberately has underpaid the federal government by $66 million a year by inaccurately estimating the value of the oil it extracts from federal lands. But lawmakers from oil states have blocked new rules basing royalties on the market price of oil by including prohibitions in three spending bills over the past 18 months. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) waged a filibuster on the issue, and it took Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) two weeks to muster enough votes to reinsert language halting the royalty changes. Hutchison, calling it "one of the hardest fights I've ever had," said she and her allies were merely asserting their institutional prerogatives. "I think it's important to take a stand that Congress should make tax policy, not federal agencies," she (Kay) said. Boxer described the oil industry's current stance as "an intentional defrauding of the United States taxpayer." TP washingtonpost.com

To: MSI who wrote (11536)	3/12/2002 8:09:20 PM
From: Selectric II	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

You must have misunderstood my post. The quality, refinability, transportation costs, etc. have a greater impact on crude price disparities. I didn't suggest that the purpose was to change royalties on the basis of oil type. Crude oil from different places has very different qualities. Not unlike different soils (sand, loam, clay) or different types of mushrooms (button, shitake, crimini, oyster, etc.) In the early '80's I did some extensive research for the maritime industry, matching various types of crude on the world market to domestic refinery capabilities, and was surprised to learn that many refineries couldn't even refine certain crude at all, which would have to be transported thousands of miles to refineries that had the right capabilities... This dramatically affects the price.