“While energy traders on Wall Street artificially inflate the price of a barrel of oil, Connecticut families are paying the price at the pump. Until we wean ourselves off of our addiction to oil, we’ve got to crack down on the market that is distorting the price of oil and hurting our economy,” said Murphy.
Murphy is supporting legislation that aims to restore the fundamentals of supply and demand to the oil markets, ending rampant speculation in the energy commodities markets which place a distorted premium on the price of oil. Since 2000, investment in oil futures has increased more than 2,600%, from $9 billion to $250 billion. In testimony before House and Senate Committees, Energy Information Administration (EIA) officials and private sector experts have agreed that speculation has driven up the cost of a barrel of oil. Last week, Murphy voted to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) emergency powers to curb speculation. The House is expected to continue debate on this issue in July.
I'm somewhat lukewarm when it comes to calls for an increase in drilling (although I understand the Congressman's point).
With average gas prices in Connecticut at $4.37 a gallon and rising, Murphy is also supporting legislation to call on the oil and gas industry to drill on the 68 million acres of public lands currently under oil company control but unexplored.
Last week, Murphy voted for H.R. 6251, the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act – more commonly known as the “Use It or Lose It” bill – which would deny oil and gas companies any new federal leases until they demonstrate they are active in developing oil exploration on the 68 million acres they’ve already leased. Most offshore and onshore oil and gas is already available to be drilled. According to federal government surveys, 82% of the gas available offshore and 79% of the oil offshore is available for leasing – enough land to produce 86 billion additional barrels of oil. The measure has not yet passed the House because of Republican opposition.
“We can’t drill ourselves out of this problem – but the fact is there is land and offshore resources currently available to the oil and gas industry, and they aren’t using it while they know that Connecticut families are paying skyrocketing prices at the pump,” said Murphy.
Although Congressman Murphy's call is better than the ridiculous notion to drill in the ANWAR refuge in Alaska, the bulk of the energy crisis has nothing to do with supply and demand. The origins of this fiasco stems from speculation and greed from energy companies that were allowed to run amok with the help of what's called the "Enron loophole".
Now, I could do a huge write-up on this but recently Keith Olbermann did a excellent report on the history of the Enron loophole that's better than anything I could type.
Watch and LEARN.
As Olbermann notes, and as several people testified in Congress, close the loophole and most of your problem goes bye-bye and greedy oil companies' record profits will become a thing of the past. Increase drilling simply makes no sense when a majority of the problem comes from speculation as opposed to supply and demand.
And why would you want in increase in the production of oil? Shouldn't we be talking about this country getting off it's dependency of oil? What makes more sense, cars that get 100 MPG (which is available NOW), or cheaper gas, a return to the arrogant SUV era, and back to business as usual? I'd rather deal with the speculators that brought us such goodies as the power shortage in California and hopefully Congressman Murphy will focus on this problem before even thinking about an increase in drilling.
04.25.22 (RADIO): WSHU Latino group call on Connecticut lawmakers to open a Danbury charter school
06.03.22 (OP-ED): KUSHNER: "Career Academy ‘a great deal for Danbury"
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.
Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.
Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
