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Thread: BP Oil in deeper hot water

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    Default BP Oil in deeper hot water

    I wonder if this investigation is why gas prices are coming down?
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...P258Q&refer=uk

    BP Oil Pipeline Failures Show Need for Oversight, Lawmakers Say

    By Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Tina Seeley

    Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc, the world's third-biggest oil company, neglected its Prudhoe Bay oil pipelines for years and may have suppressed worker complaints, U.S. lawmakers said today.

    The resulting leaks and the partial shutdown of the field hurt the U.S. economy by boosting oil prices, Representative Joe Barton, the Republican chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, said today as BP officials appeared at a hearing. BP's failures are ``staggering,'' said Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, and he called for tighter pipeline regulation.

    Robert Malone, head of BP America Inc., told a hearing of the investigations subcommittee of the energy panel that the company had ``stumbled'' in the past year and failed to meet its environmental and safety goals. He said BP will create a board of corrosion experts to recommend better pipeline practices.

    ``We have fallen short of the high standards we hold for ourselves and the expectations that others have for us,'' Malone, said in prepared testimony for the hearing.

    The subcommittee is examining why BP didn't catch corrosion that led to the largest-ever oil spill on Alaska's North Slope and the loss, since early last month, of about half the output of Prudhoe Bay, the largest U.S. oil field. The company also faces criticism for an explosion at a Texas refinery that killed 15 workers and allegations its traders manipulated energy markets.

    ``BP runs the risk of becoming the poster child for big oil,'' said David Pursell, an oil analyst with Pickering Energy Partners in Houston. The hearing shows that ``everybody's going to get a swipe at the BP piñata,'' he said.

    `Chilling Atmosphere'

    BP made it hard for its workers in Alaska to report their concerns, Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, said at today's hearing.

    The company ``apparently created a chilling atmosphere for workers to report health and safety issues,'' Stupak said. He also said he has questions about ``what budget pressures were placed on the corrosion monitoring group at BP.''

    BP said earlier this week that it hired a former federal judge, Stanley Sporkin, to serve as an ombudsman who could field any employee allegations of wrongdoing raised by the company's U.S. employees.

    Richard Woollam, the former head of corrosion inspection for BP in Alaska, was called to testify today and declined, citing his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

    ``When you see an individual take the fifth, it means he does not want to testify under oath, and that should concern all of us,'' said Representative Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    I'd sooner think that it's related to ...



    ... as well as the short term news that BP will have its Alaska pipeline running again by the end of next month + the restoration of Nigerian oil exports after 'Militants' who were disruption oil production were 'suppressed'.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    All this will work until there is another major war in the middle east, then the oil prices will start another roller coaster ride. Even if we produced all our own oil it would still change the price of oil then.

    Because of one new oil field and a pipeline gas has dropped sixty cents (they have here anyway)? The price of oil hasnt even come down that much.

    I heard a commentator say that gas could go below a dollar again. There goes all the work that was put into alternative energy too.

    things that make ya go hmmmmm

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Quote Originally Posted by Vamp
    All this will work until there is another major war in the middle east, then the oil prices will start another roller coaster ride.
    I think threat of iranian sanctions may be enough.
    Even if we produced all our own oil it would still change the price of oil then.
    who cares. sending vast amounts of money to middle east seems a bigger worry. wouldn't mind paying more if money was not leaving country.
    Because of one new oil field and a pipeline gas has dropped sixty cents (they have here anyway)? The price of oil hasnt even come down that much.
    A new oil field shouldnt drop prices of oil. No one cares what happens 5 years or more into the future. right?
    I heard a commentator say that gas could go below a dollar again. There goes all the work that was put into alternative energy too.

    things that make ya go hmmmmm
    lol. most people seem to go hmmmm because of the high oil price. far fewer hmmmm's if price drops.

    Not trying to being negative or argumnetative. really. just talking. you seem very intelligent, bright, sophisticated....

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Quote Originally Posted by Vamp
    Richard Woollam, the former head of corrosion inspection for BP in Alaska, was called to testify today and declined, citing his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

    ``When you see an individual take the fifth, it means he does not want to testify under oath, and that should concern all of us,'' said Representative Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican.
    Oy.

    I don't think that dollar gas would stop work on alternative fuels, since there are other considerations aside from cost that make them attractive.

    Thinking about that took me back, though, to 1993, I think, when I purchased 89-cent-a-gallon gas. Oh, god, it cost me $12 to fill up my tank.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Space thanks,

    It is my round about way of saying that gas prices are fixed. They use any excuse to do whatever they want.

    Susan back in the 70s when there was lines for gas everyone talked about alternate fuel sources. As soon as gas prices dropped no one cared anymore. It will be the same this time too. No one wants anything unless its really cool or they need it. Automakers will not bother making anything that only marginally sales.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Although BP's abrupt announcement that it would likely have to completely shut-down the gathering-system trunklines for both the eastern and western portions of the Prudhoe Bay Field that flow into the main line running south clearly did cause the spot market price for crude to increase by roughly $3.00/bbl, the effect was very short-lived, as it took less than 2 weeks for BP to determine the lines in the eastern-half of the field were not suffering from the corrosion problems found in the lines in the western-half of the field, i.e., from the problems which had caused the initial estimate/announcement. As such, BP was able to revise the estimated loss of production downward from 400,000 bbls/day to 200,000 bbls/day, or approximately 4% of total domestic production (which, in turn, is less than 2% of total domestic consumption), which appears to have largely negated whatever upward effect its prior announcement had had on prices - remember, crude peaked at $78+ in mid-July, had fallen to around $74 when BP made its announcement, incresed to about $77 immediately following BP's announcement, and has declined more than $10/bbl over past month or so.

    Point being, if slide in price of crude that began in July (before BP's announcement) was only briefly stalled by BP's removing 200,000 bbls/day from production for next 3-6 months, hard to see how an investigation limited as to both scope (Alaska pipeline) and scale (basically, BP, although Alyeska will undoubtedly get dragged into it before it's over), conducted by a Congressional subcommittee with very limited enforcement powers, that just began - more than 40 days and $12+ into slide in price - could be having any effect at all! Instead, more likely reasons include less demand than anticipated, drop of about $.72/gln in price of ethanol over past month, less hurricane activity in GOM thus far than predicted, etc.
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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Quote Originally Posted by Vamp
    Space thanks,

    It is my round about way of saying that gas prices are fixed. They use any excuse to do whatever they want.

    Susan back in the 70s when there was lines for gas everyone talked about alternate fuel sources. As soon as gas prices dropped no one cared anymore. It will be the same this time too. No one wants anything unless its really cool or they need it. Automakers will not bother making anything that only marginally sales.

    I don't know. Big ass SUVs aren't selling well and people are buying more of those "urban motor bikes" aka vespa's and scooters. Throw on the makers of the big ass vehicles have been loosing market share for years and years now outside of the gas prices faced these days.

    I honestly think people are getting tired of this shit.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Quote Originally Posted by Susan Wayward
    Oy.

    I don't think that dollar gas would stop work on alternative fuels, since there are other considerations aside from cost that make them attractive.

    Thinking about that took me back, though, to 1993, I think, when I purchased 89-cent-a-gallon gas. Oh, god, it cost me $12 to fill up my tank.
    I remember gas being that cheap in '98/'99!

    Ah, the good 'ol days.

    All this crap with rollercoaster gas prices really makes me glad I live in NYC and don't have to deal with having a car. I know it gets passed onto me in the form of higher consumer prices, but still...
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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    injecting a few countervailing facts here ...

    I think threat of iranian sanctions may be enough.
    From a 'short term' standpoint which would quickly impact the price of oil in the USA, Iranian exports to the USA are practically non-existant. Europe would see much more immediate impact from Iranian sanctions than the US would, since some 40% of Iranian exports are destined for European countries (which undoubtedly plays some part in why European countries have balked at UN sanctions against Iran). If the truth were told, the major concern the US has with Iranian oil is the Iranian govt's push to break up the present US dollar monopoly on oil sales (which forces every country except the USA to exchange their currency for US dollars in order to buy oil, and which provides an 'automatic discount' for buyers for whom the US dollar is their native currency).

    who cares. sending vast amounts of money to middle east seems a bigger worry. wouldn't mind paying more if money was not leaving country.
    Well, actually, the vast majority of US soldiers' paychecks are spent back in America and not in Iraq or Afghanistan, even if they are stationed there. Every humvee that gets hit by an IED means another $100,000 sale for GM and more overtime for UAW workers in South Bend, IN. Every helicopter that gets shot down means another multimillion dollar sale for Sikorski or Bell or Hughes. Every shell fired off by an Abrams tank means more overtime for civil service workers in Watervliet, NY. As painful as these facts might be, there's no denying that America's middle east military activities are providing a whole lot of money and a whole lot of well paid jobs right here in America. On a percentage basis, far more money from middle east DOD spending stays in America than money spent on foreign cars/electronics or WalMart goods or US home mortgages for that matter (construction money mostly stays in America but mortgage interest goes overseas to the actual owners of Fannie / Freddie bonds).

    A new oil field shouldnt drop prices of oil. No one cares what happens 5 years or more into the future. right?
    Not completely true ... some part of the price of oil is psychological i.e. it is arguable that world markets added a $10/barrel 'middle east war' premium to the price of oil that was unjustified on the basis of supply and demand. The discovery of a comparatively HUGE reserve of new oil off the Texas - Louisiana Gulf coast would tend to dispel some future fears that the entire middle east may turn into a future war zone, disrupt oil exports from Saudi etc., and effectively leave the USA 35% short of future oil supplies. It would have been an entirely different reaction if for example an equal amount of new oil had been found under say the Chinese Gobi desert, because there would be essentially zero chance of the USA securing any additional 'reliable' new oil supply from such a find.

    I don't think that dollar gas would stop work on alternative fuels, since there are other considerations aside from cost that make them attractive
    Yes, the other considerations are called 'tax credits' which US taxpayers are forced to finance, whether they're being paid to a US company or a Japanese company. Statistically speaking, while a small minority of Americans are willing to pay a 'price premium' for alternative energy products ... from hybrid cars to 'green' electricity to solar home water heaters ... in point of fact the vast majority of Americans are making their choices based on their own bottom line (with tax credits factored in). Thus the bulk of the financial justification for alternative energy research for the construction of electricity windmills, for the purchase of hybrid vehicles, for the purchase of solar equipment for private homes etc. is being driven by gov't policy (and your US tax dollars) rather than by free market economics. Before anybody jumps, I'm not implying that past and current gov't policy in this area is a good thing or a bad thing, only that it exists and lots of our tax dollars are being spent to implement it.

    Big ass SUVs aren't selling well and people are buying more of those "urban motor bikes" aka vespa's and scooters. Throw on the makers of the big ass vehicles have been loosing market share for years and years now outside of the gas prices faced these days.
    a lot of the big ass SUV phenomenon was also related to 'tax credits' which existed in previous years ... i.e. the one year business expense tax write off for the purchase of a new 'business' vehicle, which artificially encouraged every doctor, lawyer, plumber, accountant, beautician, exotic dancer etc. to buy a 6000lb SUV. Even at $2.50/gallon last year, one could afford to buy a s#!tload of additional gasoline if the IRS was 'kicking back' $15-$20k in reduced taxes on the purchase of a $40-50k big ass SUV - like enough additional gasoline to drive 50,000+ miles over the course of 3-4 years and still get full blue book price on a trade-in ! Once the US gov't put 2 and 2 together that the big ass SUV tax credit phenomenon was spending US taxpayer dollars for a purpose other than the one originally intended, and especially after the US gov't became aware that Japanese and German auto companies were starting to build big ass vehicles of their own to compete for these US taxpayer subsidized big ass new vehicle purchases against the former 'monopoly' of US auto companies, the rules were changed. Arguably, the reduction in big ass SUV tax credits was just as responsible for declining sales as were rising gas prices.

    Thinking about that took me back, though, to 1993, I think, when I purchased 89-cent-a-gallon gas. Oh, god, it cost me $12 to fill up my tank.
    ... and herein lies another phenomenon that most people don't really 'absorb'. Yes, the US dollar price of gasoline has essentially tripled between 1993 and today - interesting graph of this at . Official CPI figures show that the purchasing power of the US dollar has declined some 37% since 1993, explaining $1.11 worth of the increase in gasoline price on this basis alone. 'Unofficial' measures show significantly more reduction in the purchasing power of the US dollar since 1993 i.e. movie ticket prices went up 55%, the price of gold has more than doubled, health care costs have tripled, some home prices have tripled too in some locations etc. When trying to make mental comparisons, it's very important to keep in mind that the US dollar you spent filling up your tank in 1993 (or I spent filling up my tank in 1983) is NOT the same US dollar we spent filling our tanks last week.

    I'll also throw in that federal and state taxes on gasoline have also gone up significantly since the summer of 1993 ... federal gas tax has gone up 31% from 14.1 cents/gal to 18.4 cents/gal, and state/local gas tax has gone up much more than that in most states - with may states now adding an extra 60 cents/gal on top of the federal tax. More interesting reading at

    The larger issue here is that the amount of US dollars in most American paychecks hasn't even kept up with the official CPI inflation rate, let alone kept up with the cost of movie tickets or gold or health care or houses i.e. the 'real world' US dollar inflation rate !

    As a final comment, I'll also throw in that an identifiable reduction in US gas/oil consumption over the past couple of months has arguably been due to a downturn in the levels of US intermediate economic activities. This means lower levels of manufacturing, lower levels of shipping by truck, lower levels of homebuilding etc. While this hasn't directly shown up on department store shelves or real estate blotters (if sales are slowing you don't need to build or ship as much new product) it has a nearly immediate impact on fuel oil, diesel fuel and gasoline consumption, on volume of oil based wood preservatives and paints and plastics etc. In a tightly balanced supply versus demand market, even a 3% reduction in oil/gas consumption levels winds up building a surplus of oil/gas in storage if the refineries keep pumping out gas/oil at the same rate - and especially so if they've been working at a catch-up surplus oil/gas production rate in preparation for a hurricane season that hasn't materialized so far. Tanks filling up at your local wholesale gas/oil distributor is guaranteed to result in a lowering of wholesale gas/oil prices to make room for next week's new shipment from the refinery.
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    Last edited by Melonie; 09-10-2006 at 05:43 AM.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    Yes, the other considerations are called 'tax credits'
    I think you are forgetting another consideration in the equation.

    Environmental damage. Alot of people these days are becoming more educated, interested and aware of how the use of oil contributes to environmental damage.

    Even from a purely financial standpoint, environmental damage has an adverse effect on economics. While it may not be the majority as of yet, more people are in fact taking enviromental damage into consideration when making personal choices about things like traditional and alternative energy sources.

    I believe that may have been what Susan was refering to when she mentioned she didn't think that dollar gas would stop work on alternative fuels because there are other considerations aside from cost that make them attractive.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Even from a purely financial standpoint, environmental damage has an adverse effect on economics.
    oh absolutely true ... however, like the concept of the US dollar's value now being a globalized 'moving target' which is beyond the control of the US Fed alone, the concept that local environmental efforts / higher local costs of environmental compliance actually producing their 'intended' local result also needs to be viewed on a global basis ... because due to globalism the physical location where environmental damage is occurring may now be very different from the physical location where the adverse economic effects are occurring !!!



    (snip)"Fumes and dust from industrial factories, coal-powered energy plants and privately owned cars in China are crossing the ocean and polluting the air in the United States. If drastic intervention is not taken, the situation will deteriorate rapidly and affect the entire globe.

    The consequences of the country’s rapid economic development do not only pollute China: thousands of km away, across the ocean, on some days, nearly 25% of polluting matter above Los Angeles can be traced to Asia, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Scientists have confirmed that the pollution is carried by air currents and they fear that China could one day account for a third of all California's air pollution."(snip)

    On a global level, California's attempts to reduce local pollution levels by enacting strict environmental compliance laws on industry, by enacting a pollution fee structure on industry ( see ) , by paying higher prices indirectly for 'green' electricity and for a wide array of products which are produced and sold at higher costs with tighter pollution control devices in place, have indeed had an effect on the California economy. That effect has been that industry is leaving the state and taking good high paying jobs with it.

    In exchange, it would appear that some of those industries have relocated to Asia, are producing their products at much lower costs with much less strict pollution controls, are consuming much lower priced electricity from coal fired power plants (China is starting up a new coal fired power plant every week !) ... and at the end of it all, a significant portion of that extra pollution generated in Asia simply floats across the jet stream and comes back in for a landing in California ! Thus from a purely financial standpoint, Californians have spent a great deal of time and money to substitute formerly medium levels of locally generated pollution for ghastly levels of foreign generated pollution over which they have no control whatsoever, and to subsitute formerly high paying California jobs for super-low paying Asian jobs, with the end result apparently being that California smog levels aren't actually getting any better.

    To address your point about alternative energy spending at an individual level, yes I'll agree that a certain percentage of Americans will be willing to spend extra money out of their own pockets to purchase alternative energy products from hybrid cars to photocells. However, the actual percentage of Americans who are willing to voluntarily do this, or who can actually afford to voluntarily do this and still manage to pay all of their 'essential' monthly bills, is much too small to provide a profitable market for alternative energy products in the absence of gov't subsidies. Also, while persons may voluntarily choose to spend extra money on alternative energy products in the belief that their extra expenditure is reducing the amount of pollution thay are personally generating, this may not actually be true in a global sense due to the indirect effects of additional pollution being generated elsewhere by outsourced / relocated industries who chose to outsource / relocate because of the very same policies towards locally reducing environmental damage to miniscule levels at a very high extra cost (i.e. production of low cost batteries, low cost photocells etc. which are the heart of alternative energy products).

    When a local government makes it mandatory to spend extra money on alternative energy rather than voluntary, obviously more people will spend the extra money ... but even more people still will leave the jurisdiction of that local government to avoid having to spend the extra money ... which will eventually have a profound effect on the local economy of that jurisdiction ! And unlike East Berlin, there is no way for that jurisdiction to erect an impenetrable wall around itself to keep people from leaving and to keep foreign generated air pollution from being carried in !
    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 09-10-2006 at 03:10 PM.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    as 'proof please' for the above, here is some background for a California lawsuit being brought against the state Air Resource Board by a construction contractor .. which they have extremely little chance of winning !

    "August 25, 2006

    To Whom It May Concern,
    This letter is in reference to a situation we are facing today as a Small Business owner regarding California Air Resource Board requirements and its effects on companies just like ours.
    In 2004, my husband and I started a Concrete Pumping Business. We purchased a 2004 Transcrete Concrete Pump in October from a California Dealer, XXXXXXX. We then went on to purchase a 2005 Putzmeister pump from Califonria dealer XXXXXXXX.
    On May 25, 2006 we were on a job in Placer County and were notified by the Air Pollution Control District that we needed a Permit to operate our Concrete Pump in the state of California. Despite the fact that we purchased the piece of equipment in California, no dealer, manufacturer, or state agency had contacted us to let us know that these pieces of equipment required a permit. I then sent off to the State Air Resource board for a permit less than three weeks later. However, in the meantime, the Placer County Pollution control district sent us out a Notice of Violation with a potential fine of $10,000. They kindly offered us a “settlement” of $2,000 in order to avoid a civil suit in the court system. This is despite the fact that we only made around $300 per job.
    Much to my dismay, I then discovered that the equipment that we purchased in 2004 and 2005 had 2003 Tier 1 engines in them. The State Air Resources Board no longer registers Tier 1 engines. If we would have been made aware of the fact that we needed to get a permit, we would have been allowed to register the equipment through December 31, 2005. However, the communication for the need for registration broke down along the line or was not even attempted by the state. It's similar to DMV making requirements for all new vehicles that a special license is required and then not even contacting the most obvious source to get the word out, the Car dealers.

    Therefore, we have a piece of equipment which is illegal to run in the state of California according to Air Resource Board Rules. I have since learned that we MIGHT be able to register the pumps in the individual counties (Although this is against the State Air Resource Board policies which the districts profess to follow). However, to do so we will have to pay about $600 per pump per county. For a company like ours who operates regularly in three counties and periodically in six, we are looking at approximately $1800-$3600 per pump for registration. And the worst problem is that even if we get the district registration, we will have to bring the engine “in compliance” by 2009. Since that means getting the engine registered with the State Air Resource Board (Which we have already determined is not possible), bringing it “into compliance” means replacing the engines altogether by 2009.

    This is what information I have gathered so far which is of a concern.
    1. XXXXXXXX who sold us the 2005 Putzmeister with a Tier one engine in it was unaware of any permit or registration requirements. They were also unaware of the requirement for the law of averages starting in 2010.
    2. XXXXXXXX directed me to an Enrique with Duetz, the manufacturer of the engine in our Putzmeister. Enrique is the Emission expert for Duetz engines. He was aware of the registration requirements, and concluded that the only solution would be to replace our Tier 1 engine with a Tier 2 engine (Despite the fact that the engine has only 1 year of use on it). He was completely unaware of the requirement that all Tier 1 engines would have to be replaced by 2010, if they were not registered. I directed him to XXXXXX at the Air Resource Board. While tier 1 engines will continue to be allowed in use in the state of California, only if they are registered (Which we determined is impossible at this point).
    3. XXXXXX who sold us the 2004 Transcrete with a 2003 Tier one engine was also completely unaware of the permit or registration requirements. I was told that they deal with the requirements for the Tier 2 engine modifications to the Trucks and vehicles out there every day. However, this was the first they heard of the engine requirements for portable equipment over 50 Hp.
    4. I spoke with XXXXX at Transcrete who is the technical specialist with their company. I was informed that my call was the first time they were made aware of the permit and registration requirements. He also noted that Hatz (The engine manufacturer of the Transcrete engines) is unable to keep up with current demand for new engines for new pieces of equipment. Should it be necessary to replace all Tier 1 and older engines on all pieces of portable equipment in California not registered, there is no way they will be able to keep up with demand.
    5. Another pumping company who has been cited by Placer County also was contacted in March of 2005 by a member at the ARB to bring his trucks into compliance. He did so gladly. He has since learned that his pumps mounted on the trucks which he gladly brought into compliance also needed permits. When he contacted the person from the ARB to question why he was never told, he was told by her that this was not her area of concern. So even if the ARB would have contacted contractors to make sure their Vehicles were in compliance, they might not have passed on the news that the portable equipment also needed permits, despite they were very obviously displayed. He now has two Tier one engines that he cannot get registered and cannot sell also.

    We are not talking about inexpensive engines here. A 50hp engine alone costs in the neighborhood of $10,000. That not including installation of the engine. Furthermore, the larger engines can cost upwards of $20,000+. No Construction business owner in the state expects to purchase a $50,000 piece of equipment only to have it illegal to use in the state two years later. Furthermore, the life expectancy of these engines is well over 5-7 years, and to expect them to be replaced then will create an undue hardship for hundreds of businesses.
    I believe that we are probably one of the first test cases of this law in the state. I cannot stress the scale of people this will affect. There are hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment in this state and it seems that none of the owners are even aware of these rules. I have spoken with multiple dealers which stress that the number of these machines owned by California alone to be used on Cal-trans projects or other state construction projects is huge. More than likely multiple state agencies are also not in compliance with this law. While I support cleaner air, the current rules have significant flaws which do not address the needs of small business contractors or recently purchased equipment which was legal to make, legal to build, legal to sell, but now illegal to use.

    Thank you for your time and attention to this matter."(snip)

    The conclusions which can be drawn from the above are fairly obvious ...

    #1 - California contractors will endure lower profits and higher 'govt mandated' expenditures in order to bring their equipment in compliance with California clean air regs

    #2 - The prices that California contractors must charge will have to be marked up in order to cover these lower profits and higher 'govt mandated' environmental compliance costs

    #3 - the prices paid by customers for contractor services i.e. constructing roads, public works projects, commercial and residential property will be raised to allow the contractors to earn a sustainable profit

    #4 - the amount of taxes which must be collected by California state and local gov'ts in order to cover the higher prices of constructing roads and public works projects will be directly passed on to California residents who actually have jobs and actually pay taxes

    #5 - some contractors will close down ... more California taxpayers will leave the state to avoid an even higher tax burden ... and California taxpayers who remain will see their standard of living decline

    #6 - every bit of reduced pollution which results from the California Air Resource Board regulations on industrial engines will be replaced by additional 'imported pollution' from Asia !

    #7 - picking up some shares of Deutz diesel engine corp. ( ) might be a very good investment ( unfortunately for investors Hatz Diesel is still privately owned )
    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 09-10-2006 at 07:25 PM.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    , like the concept of the US dollar's value now being a globalized 'moving target' which is beyond the control of the US Fed alone, the concept that local environmental efforts / higher local costs of environmental compliance actually producing their 'intended' local result also needs to be viewed on a global basis ... because due to globalism the physical location where environmental damage is occurring may now be very different from the physical location where the adverse economic effects are occurring !!!

    Well ofcourse environmental damage isn't limited to just coming from the USA. I didn't mean imply it was just a USA problem. I thought it was a given that environmental damage derived from use of oil comes from numerous industrial nations.

    What I was trying to point out in my earlier comment was that enviromental damage is one of the "other considerations" which I thought Susan may have been referring to in the debate over if dollar gas would or would not stop work on alternative fuels.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    ^^^ and I'm responding in the same way ... agreeing with you that US gov't policy is going to continue driving stricter environmental compliance laws as well as taxpayer subsidized research into alternative energy and tax credit subsidization of the purchase of alternative energy products (regardless of the price of gasoline) ... which in the final analysis will have negative economic effects in the USA - while not actually reducing US pollution levels because domestically produced pollution reductions are quickly replaced by the import of foreign generated pollution which is several orders of magnitude worse.

    In fact, the very environmental compliance laws which were intended to reduce 'local' pollution, through their higher 'gov't mandated environmental compliance costs' on 'local' industry, serve as a strong incentive for those very industries to relocate offshore ... where they are able to operate at pollution levels that are essentially unregulated and far exceed the amount of pollution they generated while still operating in America PRIOR to enactment of the new tighter environmental compliance laws ... with the trade winds bringing some fraction of that additional pollution right back to the USA ! So the US jobs are gone, the US tax revenue is gone, the targeted source of US pollution is also gone, but nobody took into account that the same company is now generating 4 times as much pollution in its new essentially unregulated facility in China ... and 1/4 of that new pollution is being blown right back to the US thus almost exactly replacing the amount of 'locally produced' pollution the company's now defunct US facility had formerly generated !
    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 09-10-2006 at 08:08 PM.

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    Default Re: BP Oil in deeper hot water

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    ^^^ and I'm responding in the same way ... agreeing with you that US gov't policy is going to continue driving stricter environmental compliance laws as well as taxpayer subsidized research into alternative energy and tax credit subsidization of the purchase of alternative energy products (regardless of the price of gasoline) ... which in the final analysis will have negative economic effects in the USA - while not actually reducing US pollution levels because domestically produced pollution reductions are quickly replaced by the import of foreign generated pollution which is several orders of magnitude worse.

    I never mentioned anything about agreeing with your opposition of tax credit subsidization on the purchase of alternative energy products nor did I write that those products don't actually reduce pollution either. In fact, I couldn't disagree more.

    All I mentioned was that environmental damage could be one of those "other considerations" mentioned earlier in the discussion. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less. The rest of the stuff you just said I agreed with you about are your comments and opinions, not mine.

    The point I was making in my first reply is this and this alone. Environmental damage could very well play a part in the "other considerations" Susan mentioned.

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