The last eight presidents have gone on television and promised to move America towards an energy-independent future. So how much do you believe when Mitt says he could?
If our goal is to reduce the gas price that people pay, as one redditor put it, that is simply not achievable. Here is why
If our goal is to reduce the gas price that people pay, as one redditor put it, that is simply not achievable. Here is why
People seem to think that life would be wonderful if we got off of foreign oil and the United States was energy independent. They think somehow this would mean the oil companies would suddenly let us pay $1 a gallon and we wouldn't have to worry about energy anymore if this happened even if all we did was trade foreign oil for domestic oil.
NPR did an interesting story the other day about how Canada is considered energy independent but they still end up paying about the same as the United States for gas. This is mainly because oil prices are determined by trading on international markets and since the private companies who get the oil out of Canada can get away with selling it off to whoever in the world will pay them the most.
I think this shows that the United States would still be paying $4+ for gas (even if there was an endless supply here) if there were countries around the world that were still willing to pay that price to private multinational oil companies who are selling it. You would probably only see a major change if the government controlled the prices or the supply of the oil and could demand that domestic consumers be allowed to pay a certain amount at the pump.
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