Chuck Schumer Suggests Novel Plan for Reducing Price of Oil: Drill More! (in... Saudi Arabia)

He informs us that just 500,000 extra barrels of oil drilled in Saudi Arabia (which would take years and years to actually come on line, of course) will increase not only present supply but future supply, and thus knock the price of oil down, and stop endless up-bidding on the price by speculators, and all that other good stuff.

He does not explain, though, why Saudi Arabian oil has this magical property of increasing supply and psychologically pulling the carpet out from under speculators, and yet American oil does not.

We should be grateful that Chuck Schumer has at least grasped the interrelation of supply and demand. Now we just need explain to him the notion of fungibility, that a barrel of American oil is precisely the equivalent of Saudi oil as far as supply goes, and we'll be in like Flynn.

And on this point: Of the 18 billion in known reserves in the seas alone, ten million are off the coast of California, and those derricks could start producing oil within a year.

It seems a lot of them already are drilled and capped and ready to produce oil. They've just been shuttered by the ban on offshore drilling.

posted by Ace at 06:34 PM

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