Oil, Refineries, Fuel, etc...

I am hoping you can all educate me, as I know very, very little about politics and things like this.

I took some quick notes this morning, while watching Fox News. They interviewed a few people whose names I hope I got right. They were Jim Michaels, Elizabeth McDonald (?), and Wayne Rogers. In the discussion I heard numbers being thrown about that I just don't understand.

Supposedly we have 600 billion - 1 trillion dollars worth of oil that belongs to the government (although I didn't catch where it's located), and Jim Michaels said that it's "unused assets". Why aren't we using this resource? Is it because we don't have the refineries we need? If so, why not? Because it becomes an ecological problem?? I don't get it.

Can't we build refineries around the country in desolate areas? Wouldn't building our own refineries instead of getting our fuel from other countries, give more Americans jobs, as well?? I don't understand where the downside is and why over the past 30 years, this hasn't been done.

TIA to anyone who can help me comprehend how politics, ecology and economy plays a part in all of this.

Boy, you picked a really complicated subject. I hope others with more knowledge will jump in but I'll share what I know.

The oil that the Fed owns has recently been approved for distribution to aid with the shortages. That oil is already refined oil.

Refineries can be located in other areas but the gulf coast states have always had the majority. This could be political and more than likely is or it could be that labor for this type of work is not available in other areas. Refineries are not attractive and do pollute and some areas will not except these behemoths. Pipelines are everywhere so it isn't so much proximatety.

My husband has done some work at the strategic oil reserves located here in Louisiana. Not recently, it was a few years ago. Near Lafayette, there are some huge salt domes that have been pumped full of government owned oil. There are more reserves in other areas of Louisiana and in other parts of the country.

Walt is offshore right now--in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico--so I don't have him here to give you a complete answer.

But from memory, that oil is there for use in national disasters, particularly catastrophic events that occur which interupt production of oil and for use in times of war. It is really meant to keep the military going, but has been used before for citizen use.

The government is very, very serious about these reserves. The locations are considered to be targets of terrorist attack. When my husband did some work for them, we were shocked to find out from neighbors that FBI officials had contacted them to ask if we had a stable marriage, did we drink, do drugs, abuse our kids? They did not want anyone whose integrity could be compromised doing anything around the reserves.

As concerned says, some of the strategic reserves will be released. This will help keep our country going while production in the Gulf is down. And it should help keep prices at the pump for going completely through the roof.

Walt should be home within the next few days and I'll post an update if he has anything additional to share on this subject.