- Jun 6, 2007
- 852
- 483
- 910
PART THREE
Section: Three
Some of the other provisions the compromise bill should contain are the following. There should be provisions providing for loan guarantees for ethanol fuel pipelines, pipeline transportation for ethanol is less costly, more energy efficient and a better use of our nations transportation resources than using rail transportation the prevailing mode for transporting ethanol (See S. 3126 Sec.202).
The compromise bill should provide for a modified refinery permitting process that expedites the permit approval process for oil refineries. It should empower the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to coordinate with all the applicable state and federal agencies involved in the process. It should allow for consolidated permit applications. It should mandate concurrent reviewing process for all federal and state agencies involved in the process. Also, it should mandate deadlines on when these state and federal agencies must complete their work. Further, it should empower the Administrator of the EPA to transfer, if need be, to the state all the financial resources that the state will need to hire and equip the staffing needed to complete the states review and approval of permits. As the commodity markets have demonstrated in a crystal clear manner on many occasions, shortage of refinery capacity translates into higher oil fuel prices for the American people.
The compromise bill should give the Interior Department the authority to accept a voluntary, on the part of the lessee, partial relinquishment of that lessees lease. Some of the leases with the U.S. government contain leases for sections of land that are huge. Some lessees may not want to expose themselves to the financial risks of fully developing production on their leases the costs of the infrastructure to do such developments may be too high for those lessees and it very well may be in the publics best interest to accept a partial relinquishment of such a lease where that portion can be re-leased to another lessee who can make it fully productive as opposed to the U.S. government having to fight the first lessee for years to fully develop the entire lease. These provisions in the compromise bill should make such a partial relinquishments again discretionary with whichever Secretary is the lessor and the Secretary must find the proposed relinquished land portion of the lease is geologically promising for oil or gas production and viable to be re-leased expeditiously for energy production with the same financial terms of the first lease (same royalty rate, etc.); if the first lessee is charged a yearly rental fee that fee can be reduced to a pro rata degree, however, there is to be no reduction in the royalty rate nor any return of any portion of the bonus bid fee or any monies that had been paid by the lessee to the government.
There should be provisions in this bill authorizing the leasing of Federal lands for Solar and Wind energy; Americas present dependency on fossil fuels for power generation isnt good because of supply and pollution concerns this initiative helps this problem (See H.R. 6384 Sec. 602). There should be provisions in the compromise bill insuring the public receives a good percentage royalty (Sec. 602s percentages seem low), so as the wholesale price of energy increases so will the publics cut of the revenue generated from that lease; moreover, a lessee of this federal land for the purpose of solar or wind energy should be mandated to pay a yearly rental fee for the lease equal to at least the amount of local taxes that solar or wind energy business owner would have to pay on the land if it was private land (this is only for the portion of lease that has infrastructure on it) because this raises revenue for the public it compensates the public in a fair manner for the lease and it is fair to solar and wind power business owners who use private lands and have the expense of local property taxes the long term health of these industries would benefit by not have a private/public land imbalance. (Sec.602s cut of the revenue for the Federal government is too low, it should be at least fifty percent).
The compromise bill should contain provisions giving the Interior Department significantly more financial resources to do all that this bill is asking this Department to do and that it needs to do. It should also provide that it will receive this increased financing ongoing on a yearly basis.
The compromise bill should contain provisions that lower the tariff (currently 54 cents/gallon) on imported ethanol to make it the same as the tax credit (51 cents/gallon) given to refineries that buy ethanol for blending into gasoline and have the tariff automatically adjust with any future adjustment with this tax credit, the original purpose of the tariff was only to offset the credit the government was giving refineries to use ethanol so it would not be the case where the public was paying refineries to import ethanol from foreign countries. This price disparity acts as a deterrent, albeit a small one, to using imported ethanol and possibly reducing Americas dependence on foreign oil (See H.R. 6324 Sec. 3).
The compromise bill should not contain any Project Labor Agreements on any project to build pipelines through the National Petroleum Reserve to the North Slope to facilitate the transportation of oil and gas to the lower forty-eight states or any other energy project (See H.R. 6515 Sec. 5). Congress has no business giving unions undue leverage in furthering their interests in large energy projects. It is sufficient that Congress stick to the tried and true support for workers provisions in their mandates specified in this bill on this project or any federal affiliated project, that is, that the project owners, contractors and sub-contractors are required to pay workers on the project the prevailing wage and provide the prevailing benefits for the workers type of work Moreover, Project Labor Agreements often significantly push out the completion date for projects because of the time required to reach such an agreement (See the history of the current expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center).
The compromise bill should authorize for the next two years selling sixty to one-hundred thousand barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and mandate not that the government sell that oil by an open bidding process but rather sell this oil at $90.00/ barrel to oil refineries restrict its use only for the making of gasoline or home heating oil and mandate that the oil refinery purchasers pass on the savings to the American consumer, chose the refineries by a lottery system if another fair system cant be created. Americas is teetering on the brink, if not in a recession, the American economy and American families need all the smart help it and they can get, which this initiative provides or things could get real bad, like deep recession real bad. The loss of this amount of inventory from the SPR wont make that much of a difference to the value of SPR to our nation and it would provide real help for the American economy monetarily and symbolically ( $90.00 /barrel oil is the break point for the American airline industry an important industry for America).
SEE PART FOUR
Section: Three
Some of the other provisions the compromise bill should contain are the following. There should be provisions providing for loan guarantees for ethanol fuel pipelines, pipeline transportation for ethanol is less costly, more energy efficient and a better use of our nations transportation resources than using rail transportation the prevailing mode for transporting ethanol (See S. 3126 Sec.202).
The compromise bill should provide for a modified refinery permitting process that expedites the permit approval process for oil refineries. It should empower the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to coordinate with all the applicable state and federal agencies involved in the process. It should allow for consolidated permit applications. It should mandate concurrent reviewing process for all federal and state agencies involved in the process. Also, it should mandate deadlines on when these state and federal agencies must complete their work. Further, it should empower the Administrator of the EPA to transfer, if need be, to the state all the financial resources that the state will need to hire and equip the staffing needed to complete the states review and approval of permits. As the commodity markets have demonstrated in a crystal clear manner on many occasions, shortage of refinery capacity translates into higher oil fuel prices for the American people.
The compromise bill should give the Interior Department the authority to accept a voluntary, on the part of the lessee, partial relinquishment of that lessees lease. Some of the leases with the U.S. government contain leases for sections of land that are huge. Some lessees may not want to expose themselves to the financial risks of fully developing production on their leases the costs of the infrastructure to do such developments may be too high for those lessees and it very well may be in the publics best interest to accept a partial relinquishment of such a lease where that portion can be re-leased to another lessee who can make it fully productive as opposed to the U.S. government having to fight the first lessee for years to fully develop the entire lease. These provisions in the compromise bill should make such a partial relinquishments again discretionary with whichever Secretary is the lessor and the Secretary must find the proposed relinquished land portion of the lease is geologically promising for oil or gas production and viable to be re-leased expeditiously for energy production with the same financial terms of the first lease (same royalty rate, etc.); if the first lessee is charged a yearly rental fee that fee can be reduced to a pro rata degree, however, there is to be no reduction in the royalty rate nor any return of any portion of the bonus bid fee or any monies that had been paid by the lessee to the government.
There should be provisions in this bill authorizing the leasing of Federal lands for Solar and Wind energy; Americas present dependency on fossil fuels for power generation isnt good because of supply and pollution concerns this initiative helps this problem (See H.R. 6384 Sec. 602). There should be provisions in the compromise bill insuring the public receives a good percentage royalty (Sec. 602s percentages seem low), so as the wholesale price of energy increases so will the publics cut of the revenue generated from that lease; moreover, a lessee of this federal land for the purpose of solar or wind energy should be mandated to pay a yearly rental fee for the lease equal to at least the amount of local taxes that solar or wind energy business owner would have to pay on the land if it was private land (this is only for the portion of lease that has infrastructure on it) because this raises revenue for the public it compensates the public in a fair manner for the lease and it is fair to solar and wind power business owners who use private lands and have the expense of local property taxes the long term health of these industries would benefit by not have a private/public land imbalance. (Sec.602s cut of the revenue for the Federal government is too low, it should be at least fifty percent).
The compromise bill should contain provisions giving the Interior Department significantly more financial resources to do all that this bill is asking this Department to do and that it needs to do. It should also provide that it will receive this increased financing ongoing on a yearly basis.
The compromise bill should contain provisions that lower the tariff (currently 54 cents/gallon) on imported ethanol to make it the same as the tax credit (51 cents/gallon) given to refineries that buy ethanol for blending into gasoline and have the tariff automatically adjust with any future adjustment with this tax credit, the original purpose of the tariff was only to offset the credit the government was giving refineries to use ethanol so it would not be the case where the public was paying refineries to import ethanol from foreign countries. This price disparity acts as a deterrent, albeit a small one, to using imported ethanol and possibly reducing Americas dependence on foreign oil (See H.R. 6324 Sec. 3).
The compromise bill should not contain any Project Labor Agreements on any project to build pipelines through the National Petroleum Reserve to the North Slope to facilitate the transportation of oil and gas to the lower forty-eight states or any other energy project (See H.R. 6515 Sec. 5). Congress has no business giving unions undue leverage in furthering their interests in large energy projects. It is sufficient that Congress stick to the tried and true support for workers provisions in their mandates specified in this bill on this project or any federal affiliated project, that is, that the project owners, contractors and sub-contractors are required to pay workers on the project the prevailing wage and provide the prevailing benefits for the workers type of work Moreover, Project Labor Agreements often significantly push out the completion date for projects because of the time required to reach such an agreement (See the history of the current expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center).
The compromise bill should authorize for the next two years selling sixty to one-hundred thousand barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and mandate not that the government sell that oil by an open bidding process but rather sell this oil at $90.00/ barrel to oil refineries restrict its use only for the making of gasoline or home heating oil and mandate that the oil refinery purchasers pass on the savings to the American consumer, chose the refineries by a lottery system if another fair system cant be created. Americas is teetering on the brink, if not in a recession, the American economy and American families need all the smart help it and they can get, which this initiative provides or things could get real bad, like deep recession real bad. The loss of this amount of inventory from the SPR wont make that much of a difference to the value of SPR to our nation and it would provide real help for the American economy monetarily and symbolically ( $90.00 /barrel oil is the break point for the American airline industry an important industry for America).
SEE PART FOUR
