Ag fuel price crisis the fed's fault

The cost spiral in agriculture, led by high oil prices, may well be beyond the reach of record grain prices. Farmers might well lose money anyway.

The tragedy is that the federal government could have prevented this artificial crisis. Instead, their actions manufactured it and continue to prolong it. Excessively restrictive environmental regulations have prevented the construction of new, efficient oil refineries for over 30 years. Environmentalists have bottled up oil exploration on this continent, to where the U.S. must buy over 65% of its oil from foreign despots in the middle east, the Soviet Union and Venezuela.

North America has several decades worth of oil reserves, which cannot be accessed due to the refusal to drill in the arctic and off shore in California and Florida. Environmental regulations are bottling up the ability to develop oil from the tar sands in western Canada and oil shale in the Rocky Mountains.

The farcical Senate hearings today, where Sen. Pat Leahy and other demagogues dragged in the presidents of the major oil companies before their commitee, so they could rag on them for several hours might have made great political theatre in the mass media, but did nothing about high gas prices. Leahy and his buddies refuse to allow the steps that will solve the problem. They'd rather reap political hay.

Agriculture is hit harder than any other industry, except possibly transportation, by the huge run-up in oil prices. It takes gasoline to run tractors and other farm equipment over the fields to plant and harvest. Transportation costs are through the roof due to fuel prices, to get the crop to market. Diesel fuel is priced even worse than gasoline, due to outrageous environmental regulations on it, and is used is many tractors and to pump irrigation water. Most fertilizer and pesticides are made from oil, so their cost has risen as well.

The federal government caused the fuel price crisis through its failure to act, and only the feds can solve it. Does gas have to hit $10 a gallon before the liberals allow drilling in ANWAR? The answer is at hand, we just have to be willing as a nation to grab it.