We continue to be impressed at how smart our regular blog readers are — both of them. We were reminded again yesterday after posting the piece on gas prices when we saw some of the comments that came in. We would commend them to you, some smart and insightful folks there, some with first-hand knowledge of what’s going on.

Click here to read them. Prepare to be educated.

It was with a fair amount of hysteria that the WaPo reported over the weekend that House Speaker Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Frist were planning on sending a letter to the White House, demanding a crackdown on oil companies. After all, intra-family spats make for such great press, even better when it’s the GOP. Nothing like an internecine war to sell papers.

Yesterday, somebody sent us a copy of the letter — click here to read it. When you do, you’ll see that there’s not much there. It begins thusly: “In the wake of unprecedented increases in worldwide demand for gasoline, particularly in China and India, coupled with other factors, American consumers are facing record prices for gasoline at the pump.” So far, so good. It continues: “Anyone who is trying to take advantage of this situation while American families are forced into making tough choices over whether to fill up their cars or severely cut back their budgets should be investigated and prosecuted.” The letter goes on to call for vigorous enforcement by the Attorney General and the FCC of any allegations or instances of price gouging. Fair enough.

So it wasn’t exactly an indictment of the oil companies, and it wasn’t exactly calling on the President to conduct a full-scale investigation of the oil companies. it was urging the President to make sure there wasn’t any price gouging, the clear emphasis being on retail establishments.

But that wouldn’t make much news, would it….?

Thanks to our front page post on RedState, an honorable mention by our friends over at PowerLine and by uber-blogger Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, our traffic is pretty brisk today. We hope you newcomers will take a moment to look around. We have written a bunch on energy issues and, of late, on global warming — presenting the other side of the hysteria. We also take issue with Lou Dobbs more often than not and take an occasional shot at the trial lawyers. For fun, we post “Friday Follies” and every Saturday post a video of Cool Stuff Being Made.

Thanks again for visiting — we hope you’ll come back to see us soon again.

There’s probably no worse place to be than between an angry mob and the object of their ire, but with that in mind, we wade into the debate on oil prices that is now gripping the country. In fact, it has become so compelling that it has distracted the Senate’s attention from the object of their ire only a fortnight ago, immigration. Ah, the short attention span of Washington.

We took the trouble to read two very concise and clear explanations of oil price fluctuations: This one is from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), an arm of the US Department of Energy. For those of you who don’t trust government to provide the true facts, here’s a link to an Edmunds.com article on the same topic. Some clear factors emerge that drive gas prices:

1.) Supply and demand — This is an issue we’ve written about frequently in this space. It is one of nature’s immutable laws. There are two sides to this coin: first and foremost, global demand has soared with the explosive growth in China and India, among other places. However, global supply has not kept up. Here at home, we remain the only country in the world that limits access to its own natural resources. We could tap oil reserves in ANWR and in the Outer Continental Shelf if Members of Congress were really that concerned about gas prices. But apparently they’d rather make speeches.

2.) Uncertainty - In a meeting with NAM officials last year (on an unrelated topic) Treasury Secretary Snow — a PhD economist — made the observation that “the market builds in a premium for uncertainty.” Think about that in the context of the world oil market. One of the biggest sources of oil is the unstable Middle East. Another is Venezuela, with Castro-centric leader Hugo Chavez at the controls. His recent moves have made the already-jittery markets even moreso. This uncertainty is reflected in the world price per barrel of oil. And, however bad it is here, European drivers are still paying more for gasoline than we are.

3.) Refinery capacity – If oil can’t be refined, gasoline can’t be manufactured. Supply shrinks, demand grows, price rises. According to the EIA report, there were three refineries shut down by Hurricane Katrina, and they are only now coming on line. Others deferred maintenance in order to stay operational post-hurricane, but they are now closing in order to perform the necessary maintenance. Most important, we also have not built a refinery in this country in 28 years. Incidentally, the refinery bill that passed the House last year — to increase the number of refineries — garnered not a single Democrat vote.

For all the theatrical political venom directed at the oil companies, the US-based companies represent only 13% of the world’s output, a mere drop in the bucket. The real powerhouses are the state-owned operations in Russia, China, Venezuela, etc. All the finger pointing, all the speeches about price-gouging and windfall profits won’t change that simple fact. And it won’t alter the law of supply and demand.

At the end of the day, there are only so many solutions: drive down global demand or drive up domestic supply. If we could only harness the hot air being generated by the politicians and the media these days, we might solve the problem once and for good. In the meantime, we must conserve (manufacturers are leading the way in doing it and in inventing the newest technology) and we must search for new sources of fuel. Manufacturers there, too, are the ones who will invent and perfect it. But we also must continue to tap domestic supplies of oil, both on shore and off.

If you agree, drop your representative a note, tell them to stop making speeches, stop pointing fingers and start fixing the problem.

After years of the US — prompted by US manufacturers — being the lone voice on the international stage pounding away on the issue of China’s manipulation of its currency, the G-7 Finance Ministers, meeting this weekend, agreed that China needs to allow faster appreciation of its currency and lessen reliance on export-led growth strategies.

This really is a significant development. In the world of international diplomacy, gaining the assent of this influential group is huge. We hope this will further pressure China to let its currency float a bit more freely than in the past.

Here’s a link to our press release, praising the G-7′s action, noting its significance but also stressing the need to translate it into action.

Special Thanks to former NAMer David Walker, now with the National Glass Association for sending this tip along.

We heard through the news wire that the Pink Pather has been promoted to CEO of NAM-member Owens Corning…that’s Chief Energy Officer, by the way.

According to their press release, in celebration of Earth Day, Owens Corning is honoring longtime energy-efficiency ambassador the Pink Panther with the new title and his very own Pink Panther Energy Blog.

The interactive blog is available at saveenergy.owenscorningblog.com and can be accessed on Owens Corning’s energy microsite, which also provides instructions on easy insulation projects, an insulation project calculator and the Department of Energy’s R-value calculator.

So, we say a heartfelt welcome to the Blogosphere Pink Panther!

Hey Pather, wanna swap links on our blogroll?

Interesting article in Sunday’s NY Times by Andrew Revkin, ostensibly looking at both sides of the global warming debate but in the end, not really. Still a valiant effort, just fell short, that’s all. Among the accompanying graphics are two headlines — one from 1932 and one from 1956 — talking about global warming, as evidence that it’s “been a concern for several generations.” Notably absent are the Time and Newsweek covers from the 70′s touting global cooling, a big “oopsie” along the enviros’ road to stoke the global warming hysteria.

And, speaking of the hysteria, another interesting fact in this article: after a virtual carpet-bomb of scare and disinformation on the topic over the last many months, the issue is till not of concern to the public. Revkin notes that in a recent Gallup Poll that asked respondents to rank 10 environmental problems, global warming ranked 2d from the bottom, bested — or worsted – only by acid rain. This is an incredible statistic, given the fire hose of information that has spewed from CNN, ABC, Time and AOL over the past many months. It also struck us as all so wonderfully provincial, this notion that we can somehow control all of this here in the US of A, when China and India are emerging powerhouses, with much less regard to the environment than our leading efforts here.

In any event, a better article — in the same section of Sunday’s NY Times — was from John Tierney, entitled, “Cheer Up, Earth Day is Over.” In it, he notes that the air is getting cleaner (has he been reading the blog…?), that the amount of forest land in the US has not been shrinking, and that the US is actually leading efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that outpaces efforts of signatories to the vaunted (but ultimately ineffective) Kyoto Protocol. Tierney notes the impact of technology — pioneered and invented by US manufacturers, by the way — and notes that both cars and power plants have become cleaner as a result. Tierney also points out the issues with India and China, but touts the efforts of the US in helping the two countries generate cleaner electricity, in the end having a far greater impact on the global environment than Kyoto.

There is no doubt that the energy and global warming issues are flip sides of the same coin. At the end of the day, we ought to be guided by science and results, not hysteria. Judging from these two criteria, the global climate picture brightens dramatically. It just doesn’t make for very good headlines.

In the President’s Weekly Radio Address, he touched on the issue of energy, saying

“[M]any of you are asking how we can meet our growing energy needs while protecting our environment. The key is technology. So I have proposed the Advanced Energy Initiative to change the way we power our homes, businesses, and cars. …My Advanced Energy Initiative will also help improve hybrid vehicles — cars and trucks that run partly on electricity and help drivers save gas. We’re funding research into a new generation of plug-in hybrid vehicles that could be recharged in electrical outlets and could allow many drivers to make their daily commute using no gasoline….By developing these and other new sources of clean renewable energy like ethanol, we will continue growing our economy, reduce energy prices and protect our environment, and make America less dependent on foreign oil.”

OK, so far, so good.

The Democratic response was done by Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida. In fairness, he likely had no idea what the President might say, so he spent his time talking about energy as well. He talked about conservation, technology and producing synthetic fuels form coal. Right.

OK, so here’s the rub: All of this makes sense. There’s nothing objectionable about Sen. Nelson’s plan, except to ask, “How’s that going?”. In other words, we’ve been about the business of conservation here for some time. We continue to pursue alternative fuels. There’s nothing like $3/gallon gasoline and the highest natural gas prices in the world to encourage conservation by manufacturers.

However, 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas sit off the coast in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Sen. Nelson, among others, has been reticent to allow exploration — even through Fidel Castro can explore only 45 miles off of our coast.

And so we agree with Sen. Nelson that all of these other ideas are just swell, but they ain’t getting the job done. There is supply and there is demand. It’s an immutable law, as old as the hills. Let’s hope that if Sen. Nelson is really serious about reducing our dependence on foreign energy and in driving down energy prices, he begins with a solution that is very close to home.

Here from the White House Press Office is the Presidential Schedule for the week of April 24. You’ll see some events here on immigration and on energy and some National Volunteer Week activities at week’s end.

Click here to see it.

As many of you know, former VP and erstwhile Presidential candidate Al Gore has now entered the world of moveimaker, and has made a movie on global warming entitled, “An Inconvenient Truth”. There appears to be no really threat that “Truth” will pose a box office threat to “Scary Movie 4“. Although we’ve not yet seen it, the reviews would indicate that “An Inconvenient Set of Sweeping Generalizations” might have been a more apt title, but maybe not as grabby.

For our part, we throw in with yesterday’s Wall Street Journal editorial on the topic, and their view of poor Al’s crusade for relevance. And, we remind you new readers to click on this link for a more balanced view of global warming. it is, remember,a theory, with no real consensus on it’s cause, it’s effects, or solutions, if any.