Monday, June 23, 2008
Logic fallacies abound in debate about gas prices
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
Frederick Fuller
Fuller is a retired teacher and writer living in Roanoke County.
Many current debates on energy and how the United States is going to keep adequate supplies coming in are based on passion and post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning; "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one."
Alfred C. Anderson's commentary, "Blame Democrats for high gas prices" (June 13), is a prime example of post hoc. Since Nancy Pelosi's becoming speaker, Anderson says, gas prices have increased. "Gas prices skyrocketed from about $2.33 per gallon to $3.85 as I write this," he says.
According to FactCheck.org, gasoline prices were $2.19 per gallon a year before the Democrats won a majority in the House and Pelosi became speaker. It continued at $2.19 for a few months after. Then the world market for crude took over, and enforced supply and demand.
Also, Anderson says Pelosi and her Democrats placed "another 55 cents onto the price of gasoline through a higher gas tax." What's the bill number for that legislation?
Anderson brings up Democrats blocking energy exploration, particularly in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He's right, and maybe with good reason.
According to the United States Geological Service, ANWR would supply us at best with 9 percent of our needs.
The cost of drilling and extracting oil from ANWR would be governed by per barrel cost of crude. The higher the per barrel price, the more profitable extracting is.
Today's price per barrel is above $130, but we cannot be sure how the market would influence the price of oil from ANWR.
USGS says it would take at least seven to 12 years to sell leases, do permitting, environmental reviews, etc., so if we start this year, we're looking at 2015 at the earliest when drilling can commence.
After that, it would take at least another decade before usable oil began bubbling out of the ground, according to the USGS.
Another problem is that the big oil companies may not be interested in ANWR, according to a report from the Oberlin Review in 2005. Circumstances may have changed by now, but back then the companies said it was not profitable.
Maybe Democrats don't want to waste time and money for a 9 percent increase in oil supplies.
Democrats did not create higher gasoline prices. Neither did Republicans.
Congress has little to do with pricing fuel, except for taxes, steady at 18.4 cents per gallon. State and local taxes vary, and profit is so complicated it is almost impossible to figure, according to FactCheck.
