Energy Prices and Solutions

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It is easy enough to pile on the “big oil” companies.  Collusion?  When all of the big oil companies fluctuate their prices within pennies of each other I see collusion, and that is why I called for hearings into the pricing practices of America’s big oil companies and the application of appropriate sanctions for any illegal monopolistic practices. I believe that all companies have a right to make as much profit as they can, but I submit, a company could use Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s model to make a greater profit while becoming a champion to the consumer.  Walton’s model of basic economics shows that a company can cut the price on any product and take a larger share of the market, that company would sell more and make a greater profit while forcing their competitors to lower their prices. 

As for America’s refinery capacity, the oil industry’s latest figures put America’s refinery output at roughly 95%, which is considered to be full production.  Conservation will help, but to meet the future needs of Americas growing population and to keep domestic industrial production growing, we need more refinery capacity.  I do not buy the arguments used by America’s big oil companies that government red tape will not let them build more refineries.  It appears to me that big oil companies have great influence over government when I look at the ease in which they have consolidated. Their apparent influence and the publicly reported record profits lead me to conclude that big oil companies could wade through the red tape required to build new refineries if they wanted to.

Instead of piling on the big oil companies and relying on the Federal government to find a solution, which is ridiculous and will ultimately grow the size of government, Oklahomans must act.  Two years ago I called for the use of technology and innovative ideas to solve America’s energy problems.  Big oil companies’ control on energy, $50 plus oil on the world market and advances in technology has created an opportunity which forward thinking entrepreneurs can take advantage.  Now is the time, and I am very excited to know, that there are courageous Oklahomans that are taking up this standard and charging forward.

As reported in The Chelsea Reporter on November 24^th 2005, David Allen and Scott Williams, two men that started making bio-diesel by recycling used cooking oil have opened Oklahoma’s first bio-diesel facility at Chelsea’s Industrial Park.  Allen and Williams’ new company will now turn soybean oil into bio-diesel at a rate of 750,000 gallons annually to start but expect to produce up to 30 million gallons annually and employ over 100 people.  Dean Houghton’s article, “Power the Future”, published in The Furrow December 2005, highlights agriculture’s contribution to the new wave of energies, touching on wind, bio-fuels, hydrogen generation and fuel cells.  There is also exciting research being done at some Oklahoma universities that hold great potential for our future energy needs.  Oklahoma is poised on the edge of a great expansion.  I know we can become the world leader in breaking the stranglehold that all big oil companies, both foreign and domestic have on America. 

The only obstacle I see in the way of this exciting future is the hammer of Oklahoma’s trial lawyers, as evidenced in the voracity by which they have pursued Oklahoma industries.  The trial lawyers have found a loop hole that allows them to absorb the lion’s share of any settlement.  The most recent example is the $0 Tulsa received from the 7.4 million dollar settlement with the chicken industry, case # 01-cv-900 Northern Federal District of Oklahoma, to solve the perceived problem.  In actuality, Tulsa did receive $200,000 which reimbursed the city for associated legal costs, leaving 7.2 million for the trial lawyers.  Without true lawsuit reform, every industry is at the mercy of the trial lawyers.

These are very exciting times we live in.  Oklahoma can and should be an example to the world.  You can do your part.  Look at the contributions to the people that are asking for your vote.  Do not just listen to their speeches; find out who they are really working for.  Is it you and your family or is it the trial lawyers.