The president and gasoline prices

To the Editor:

Re: President and Gas Prices

I am in complete agreement with Mr. Dersch that the President of the United States, sitting or future, can have little effect on the price of gas at the pumps. I also agree with the ways in which Mr. Dersch suggested could reduce the consumption of gas. There are a couple of comments in his letter to the editor with which I take exception and a couple of consequential aspects of the administration's energy policy I feel should be mentioned.

First exceptions. Mr. Dersch said "They all tell us they are in business to serve us, but they are really only in business to make money." While he may not have meant it this way, it came across that the oil companies are terrible corporations only concerned about making money. Terrible corporations? I think not. Look at the effort of ExxonMobil to encourage more education in the areas of science and the effect of Valero's volunteers to build homes and help others. Of course they are in business to make money. They must make money to pay their employees, to provide maintenance, to grow their business, to provide a return to their shareholders. They can only make money by satisfying their customers; by providing services such as quality stations, credit to their card holders, improvements to the quality/formulation of gasoline. Oil companies are no different, only bigger, than the likes of our local business, all of which are in business to make money for the same underlying reasons. And, we make money by serving our customers.

As for consumption, it would appear that the general public, while not happy with gas prices at the pump, are not unhappy enough to slow down and increase their mileage. However, reports are that more people are buying hybrids, which is encouraging.

Mr. Dersch mentioned "Another factor is refinery capacity. Right now all U. S. refineries are running at full capacity except for down time for maintenance and repairs." I am not sure where Mr. Dersch got his information, but during a recent interview on television a congressman pointed out that he had five refineries in his district, which, collectively, could handle an additional one million barrels of crude of day. However, whether they are at capacity or not brings me to the issue of consequential energy related decisions.

Let's assume Mr. Dersch is correct and our refineries are operating at capacity. Where is the bulk crude that is keeping them at capacity coming from? The Middle East and South America. Billions of dollars a year are going to the oil producing countries in the Middle East and South America. Even if more production came from oil leases in the United States or Canada (XL Pipeline), the price of gas would not come down. As Mr. Dersch points out, oil is a world commodity. But, wouldn't it be better to shift the balance of trade by refining North American oil instead of refining foreign oil and sending billions off shore?

Lastly, think about it . . . increased sale of domestically extracted crude would significantly shift the money going offshore to North American producers; additional revenue would be generated from the sale of refined oil to other countries. Then there is the impact on jobs that would take place if we opened up the Gulf, approved the XL Pipeline, expanded leases in Alaska and the Rocky Mountain states. Think of the increase in Federal revenue (taxes). Huge!!!! Combined, a major step to reducing our out of control $16 trillion deficit.

H. M Doran

Poplar Bluff, Mo.