This isn't "don't buy gas at all." It's "don't buy gas from them." That sort of thing can start a price war. Heck, we already have people driving 10 miles to save 3¢ on a gallon of gas. How hard could it be to get them to avoid Exxon and Mobil stations?

It is so funny that this stuff happens such a short time after GM introduced "employee discounts for everyone" and dumped their big-car-truck-suv inventory.

People come around fairly quickly, but not exactly proactively.

From all the dicussion on Grist (of all places) about biodiesel versus vegetable fuels and true hybrids versus whatever -- with people waxing orgasmically about their Prii -- you have to know that the American love affair with the automobile is alive and well -- even among environmentalists.

Granted, our built environment has been manupulated such that it's quite difficult to live a normal life in America without driving constantly, but "better" cars are still not the answer.

If all of America switched tomorrow to cars and trucks that got 100mpg or more, we'd still have a paved-over landscape, alienating sprawl, 45,000 death and hundreds of thousands of serious injuries a year (a million deaths planetwide each year!), gridlock, our lives circling down the drain of wasted commute hours, the noise and fear-induced tension from having to live near and negotiate our way among these huge machines, probably continued wars to control oil (even at 100mpg we'd still need oil), and on and on.

The problem isn't primarily gas mileage -- IT'S CARS! I therefore challenge Grist readers to take a stand. Are we going to rid ourselves of these soul-sucking machines? Or is our goal to make these obviously treasured possessions just a little more respectable?

There's a campaign that might work, along with apropriate bumper stickers explaining why one is driving so slowly.

And it really does increase mileage.

Imported oil=blood, drive 50 mph. Save lives!  

In that vein.

getting rid of cars.

"Don't buy Mobil" or "Don't buy Exxon" is never going to amount to any reductions at the pump.  Here's my take on why ...

Fifteen years ago or so, the EPA started putting pressure on the oil companies and small refineries to clean up or shut down.  Many shut down, dismantled their equipment and sold it to overseas buyers.  Production capabilities were drastically reduced.  Independents were out of the refining business and what was left was all owned by the Big Boys.

They were smart ... they keyed in on the Law of Supply and Demand and looked to the future. Don't build any new refineries ... the laws are too stringent and make any new operations too expensive to build ... just sit back and wait for demand to increase ... even if crude oil is available, we can only produce so much per day. When we reach capacity, or close to it, demand will drive the price up.  We can get away with it ... our customers have no place else to go, and we have almost everyone in the federal government in our back pockets. We are also smarter than them. When they yell and scream, we can point our fingers back at them and say, "The EPA forced us to shut down old refineries"; "They made it too expensive to build new ones"; "We wanted to build a couple on the West Coast but the Californians wouldn't let us"; "We wanted to build a couple on the East Coast, but New Englanders wouldn't let us".  If the vast majority of refineries weren't located along the Gulf Coast, do you think the Big Boys could holler, "That will be another ten cents per gallon for the next six months. We had to shut down the Louisiana plant for a couple of weeks because of the storm".

We really are stupid.  The Big Boys have us by the "you know what's" and we really don't have any way out.  We can start pumping new stuff out of the ground in Alaska; we can start drilling off the California coast; we can become best of friends again with all the Middle Eastern producers ... the price still isn't coming down because enough is never going to get refined to satisfy our demands.

So here's what I'm saying ... the key to any type of "recovery" is to build new refineries ... get some competition going.  Maybe the U.S. government should build, own and operate a couple of them.  Right now, the Big Boys are all in cahoots with each other. You think that they don't strategize together? Develop gameplans together?  Fix pricing together?  Fund PAC's together?  Lobby Congress together? They have to be confronted with competition before they will change.  Where in the hell is it going to come from?

This is an environmental blog.  Decreasing oil prices by building new refineries will just cause two forms of destruction: more consumption from lower prices and more destruction caused by additional refineries.  Cheap oil causes more environmental harm and should be strongly opposed here, not sought!

You are welcome here. This isn't an echo chamber where like-minded people sit around and repeat unreflective articles of faith to each other, however much some folks might wish it were so.

That said, I can't see how increased refinery capacity would do anything but hasten the depletion of the world's extant oil fields -- something we already have very little time to prepare for.

www.grist.org

"Maybe the U.S. government should build, own and operate a couple of them."

As with the coal strike when federal troops were sent in to operate the mines, this oil industry manipulated fuel shortage needs government intervention.  

Then solar and wind powered refineries should be part of new energy policy.  and conversion to renewable power of all existing refineries.

Right now 20% of the oil we use goes up the refinery smokestack to supply heat energy for refining.  What would a 20% reduction in oil consumption do to oil prices?  Even providing refining energy with coal would work.

As far as rolling back environmental laws to spur more refinery building?  Does ANYONE still believe any environmental laws are enforced in Louisiana or Texas?  That is a dodge by oil industry monopolists designed to eliminate ALL environmental laws everywhere in favor of self-regulation.

But it is mainly a talking point distraction from the monopolistic nature of the oil industry itself.  Does exxon mob fear another trust buster like Teddy Roosevelt?

Not with a Cheney (puppet duuuhbya)administration.  

This is why McCain had to be smeared out of the presidential race in 2000, Rove/Nixon rat effin style.  Good luck buying off a war hero who was tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.  

The good ole oil boys would get one (or more)upside the head from a McCain administration.