Latest In Oil: South Dakota Wells and North Dakota Millionaires

This article assails a "do nothing" Congress when it comes to the energy issue.  As expressed in the article, the Democrats insist on "windfall taxes" on oil companies, a deal killer for Republicans, while the GOP insists on more drilling, a deal killer for Democrats.  This passages in humorous:

Some experts have told Congress that speculation in oil futures could be adding a $40-a-barrel premium to the price of oil, which translates to about $1 a gallon at the pump.

But critics say that policing the financial markets, much like a windfall profits tax, would do little to increase worldwide oil supplies, which some energy analysts see as the root of the problem.

Would do little?  How about nothing!  How would regulating speculators and taxing oil companies magically make more oil come out of the ground? 

I have often commented that by attacking the oil companies we really injure the average Joe who makes his living in the oil fields.  Attacking oil industry profits won't affect the lifestyle of the Exxon corporate board members, but it might cost a North Dakotan or South Dakotan a job. The high price of oil is causing oil wells in Harding County to open up and money to flow into that sparsely populated part of the state:

For the past few years, rooms at the Tipperary Lodge motel in Buffalo that sat empty in winter have been full.

Truck drivers, road builders and laborers have been busy, and a revenue source for Harding County that brought in about $1.6 million in 2007 already has added $1.4 million to the public coffers this year.

While everyone with a car or truck in South Dakota feels the pain of record fuel prices and President Bush calls for drilling in environmentally sensitive areas that have been off limits to oil exploration for decades, for the little oil patch in the northwest corner of this state the astronomical run up in oil prices has ignited something of a boom.

Read it all here.  You see, when you attack the oil companies you don't hurt the fat cats in Houston, you hurt Diane Haivala, owner of the Tipperary Lodge in Buffalo, SD.

Meanwhile, the oil boom is creating millionaires in North Dakota.

State and industry officials say North Dakota is on pace to set a state oil-production record this year, surpassing the 52.6 million barrels produced in 1984. A record number of drill rigs are piercing the prairie and North Dakota has nearly 4,000 active oil wells.

I wonder how many people those evil oil companies are employing in North Dakota?  I happen to know that there are people from Lemmon, SD who now work in oil fields in North Dakota.  That's oil company profits and speculation putting people to work. 

Here is Joel Dykstra on this issue:

We need to take action to reverse years of neglect by Washington incumbents. We need to open up areas of American territory in Alaska and off-shore to exploration to get more oil and gas flowing to American consumers from American reserves. We are the only country in the world that imports more oil from overseas without utilizing its own God-given resources.
 
Senator Tim Johnson voted at least five times to keep parts of Alaska off-limits to oil exploration. If these areas had been opened instead of blocked we could be using American oil now instead of importing more from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela - two countries who use our dollars to work against American interests around the world.