CRUDE REALITY

Democrats traditionally hammer Big Oil for making record breaking profits while their poor constituents are breaking the bank to fill up their gas guzzling SUVs. Schumer and Hillary even resurrected the idea of a TAX on "windfall" profits after Exxon-Mobil announced huge quarterly earnings due to the spike in the price of gas at the pump.

Bad enough Democrats miss the boat but Republicans, who should know better, have jumped aboard the anti-Big Oil bandwagon; speaker of the House, Denny Hastert described the paychecks of Oil Ceos as "unconscionable." Why don't they broadcast that the Tax Foundation report showed that Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Cevron paid $44.3 billion in taxes on corporate income plus $ll4.5 billion in payroll, property and excise taxes in 2005-UP 50% from '04?

To hear the politicians tell it, Americans only lose when oil companies do well but in the real world Chevron announced that the NEW Gulf of Mexico OIL STRIKE is the biggest boon to domestic oil supply since the Alaskan pipe line. The new well promises to tap into 3-15 billion barrels of oil on a par with Prudhoe Bay. Complex operations like this, using modern technology for exploration require intense research and development and do NOT RUN CHEAP. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that US oil companies will spend about $66 billion this year on exploration and production.

Thank high oil prices for research & development of new technologies that result in the discovery of new sources of domestic oil, the reduction in our dependence on foreign oil and the stabilization of gas prices in the USA. OPEC has been paying attention to American progress..notice the cost of filling up at the pump is steadily getting lower and lower..experts estimate that by November(just in time for Election Day), Americans will paying as low as $2 per gallon.

"This is the silver lining of higher oil prices. If we didn't have higher oil prices, they[Oil Companies] wouldn't have dared to risk this much capital on exploration here."A.F.Alhajji,Professor Ohio University