Palin stumbles on question about Congress ban on oil exports
Published Thursday, October 9, 2008
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Stumble It!WASHINGTON -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, touted by GOP presidential candidate John McCain as his expert on energy, seemed to have problems Thursday explaining whether the government bans oil exports - especially from her state's North Slope fields.
A questioner at a town hall-style meeting in Wisconsin said he had heard that at least 75 percent of the oil drilled in Alaska was being sold to China and said, if true, he would like to know why.
"No. It's not 75 percent of our oil being exported," Palin said, suggesting some of Alaska's oil, in fact, may be going abroad but not that much.
"In fact," she added, "Congress is pretty strict on, um, export bans of oil and gas especially."
No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service.
And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft.
The Alaska ban has never been reinstated.
"It's been discussed recently as part of talk about drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf," said Bill Wicker, a spokesman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. But he said there's been no active legislation that would reinstate the Alaska ban or any thought on Capitol Hill of banning other U.S. oil or natural gas exports.
Natural gas exports must be approved by the Energy Department under a 1938 law, although such authorization for gas shipments to Mexico, Canada and Japan have been granted for many years. The Energy Department recently indicated it is ready to renew authorization for shipping Alaska liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Japan.
There are no such restrictions when it comes to oil.
Between 1996 and 2004, about 95 million barrels of North Slope oil, roughly 2.7 percent of Alaska's production, was exported to South Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan, according to the Energy Information Administration.
There have been little or no oil exports since 2000, according to the Congressional Research Service. The EIA said there have been no Alaska oil exports since 2004.
The United States exports a relatively small amount of oil and petroleum production as Palin acknowledged as part of her answer, which largely focused on the need for more domestic drilling.
"It's not a huge portion of any domestic supply being exported," Palin said toward the end of her response, and seemed to contradict her earlier view that Congress bans exports.
Last year, the United States exported 523 million barrels of petroleum products, of which only a small amount was crude oil. That year it imported more than 4.7 billion barrels of oil and oil products.
The United States exported 822 billion cubic feet of natural gas, almost all by pipeline to Canada and Mexico, and a small amount of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Japan and Mexico in 2007, according to the EIA.
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A so called "expert" on energy shouldn't stumble on a question that simple!
This from WIKI ANSWERS.....he's knows experts
How did John McCain qualify for flight training with an Annapolis class ranking of 894 out of 899?
The answer appears to lie in the fact that both his father and grandfather were high ranking Naval Officers. John also crashed five military aircraft during his tenure as a Naval Flight Officer. Each time the Navy quickly cleared him and kept John flying.
To be fair Three of the crashes appear to be John's fault. The rocket mishap on his aircraft carrier could not have been prevented by McCain. And it is uncertain whether his lack of flying skill led to John's being shot down in Viet Nam
Lack of leadership,morals,good sense.......ad nausium
I don't a see a stumble, what I see is bias. Did anyone from the AP report on Lord Obama's slip when he said that the military developed the computer to communicate when he meant to say the internet. No, of course not, never gonna happen. The only thing the AP is expert at is cheerleading.
Of course not RODATRIP...we only exist to annoy, irk and piss you off....geeze get a clue.
Oh, heck...why should Sarah have to know anything about oil exports, Alaskan or otherwise? After all, as long as she can wink and mug for the camera (be sure to watch for whichever one has its red light on, Sarah) that's all we need demand of her pretty little head....
HUGE NEWS; Cindy...wife of GOMER, stated today that her husband was trained to not be affected or effected by war, but enlisted men and women were responsible for being all "stressed out". As a VET ..Vietnam vet....and living the BS lies for 40 years...all I can do is raise the middle finger of my right hand and say walk in my shoes.....oh sorry my A.L's dont have shoes they have metal pads...THE GOP AND SARAH AND JOHN AND CINDY....a special spot to kiss folks....
Ra, ra, Hussein's our man, we'll bad mouth Palin as long as we can. Just how long can you substitute slamming Palin for not touting Lord Obama's accomplishments? He says this and he says that but the only thing he has done is to associate himself with ultra left wing nuts. Should we send a boy to do a mans job?
When I think of Sarah Palin and oil; I think of how she raised the taxes on that industry.
Obama has done nothing but eloquently talk and surround himself with shady rich characters. Other than that has has no credentials. He will destroy what's left of this country. May God save us all (except for the democrats who started this free fall into the abyss).
RODATRIP; Got that paranoia all calmed down? That risperdal work, eh?
Tell the folks about AKIP...hiding all those seimauto for the big invasion....ooooohhhhhh.
If anyone wants to seen the underbelly of this great state go to akip.org it scratches the surface, gives a sense of the weird and unusual...ALL OF SARAH's Wasilla friends are there..enjoy. Keep fighting the UFO's roadie you are a state treasure
roadtrip, I cannot believe you called Obama "boy," in the best racist tradition. I guess you really do feel kinship with Palin and McCain.
GDogg; Those demo's that started this free fall would be Phil Grammmmm whose bill eleiminated the 1930's safegards put in place to avert just what is happening....and Greespandex who lowered interest rates to a point where a $500 a year snow farmer, such as yourself, could borrow 500,000 with no way of repaying any of that amount in the next 1000 years.....you mean those Democrats......I say again....I make a circle with my thumb and forefinger, I insert the other forefinger in the circle and rotate that finger around the inside circumference of that circle, that GDogg, in American Sign Language is my salute to you.....over
sambreetmeuse: Enlighten me on who is running the house and senate right now. Who kept the regulations from be passed in 2003? Your beloved Barney Franks, Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi were just a few. They had the chance to get a grip on this and they let their b.s pride get in the way. Also they were lining the pockets of a know nothing political idiot. I’ve heard the argument about when the republicans had the majority but they never screwed this up. If your beloved democratic party was so smart then why didn't they reinstate some safeguards? This disaster could have been avoided. History will show that some lowlife democrats did this. Save your whining and crying for election day. If Obama wins we will all be crying. I will not lower myself to your level with a childish insult like you have done.
May God Bless us all except for those responsible for this financial crisis that we are in, we know who you are (democrats); )
If Obama wins we will certainly will see major changes in our country. We will have open doors to terrorists, open doors to illegal immagrants, health care to everyone as a right which this country can not afford, give a time line to Al Quida to sit back and wait until they can just walk back in and take over the Iraq. Changes in government will be accomplished by the actions of Ayers and his teachings. As far back as the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton days when the democrats said that, as health care is an entitlement program, they said that owning a home was an entitlement program. Banks were deregulated, than they were regulated to provide loans to people who did not even have to show how much income they recieved - or even if they did have an income. No banker in his right mind would make an unsecured loan to a person who couldn't prove they could pay it back. No bank would but a democratic would. Like health care Obama says that everyone has a right to a home whether they could afford it or not. He chanlled money to ACORN to intimadate bankers and make this happen. The problem did not start with the housing bubble busting, it started with Carter, helped along by Clinton and left the Bush administration, who admittedly could have done more, to clean up the mess that the democrats started. This county was based on the fact that if you did not own land you could not vote. We should return to the principal that if you do not pay taxes you do not get to vote. Of course, anyone can vote today even if you don't have any ID, no driver's license, no social security number - go to ACORN, they will sign you up. Or go see Obama, he will send you to ACORN since he channeled $60 million to them for doing exactly what they are being investigated today.
CPW
And this is not a sexist campaign? The first issues all over the media was the dynamics of her family. The poor little MOTHER from alaska couldn't possibly be capable of being the VP of this country, right? If she were a man, the media would not have spent so much time on the Palin's domestic situation.
Ironically enough, this is all really Governor Frank Murkowski's fault. He's the one that appointed her to the Oil & Gas Conservation Commission when she had no credentials whatsoever for the six-figure job.
She should have rightfully trained and seasoned in the Valley to earn her wings before being catapulted one major step at a time with these remarkable selections.
DNM, thanks so much for the built-in spell check mechanism, wish a lot of the users would click on their red underlined misspellings and USE it. It'd be easier on the eyes as we read the hate.
Palin should give hope to anyone with a minimal amount of education. This is America, the Country where ANYONE can get a shot at running the show. Even those that aren't qualified.... only in America !!! Jeesh, how embarrassing.
when I think of Sarah and oil... nevermind
Can she chew gum and walk? Along with the rest of the FALIN lovers. Just relax folks, she'll be back in Nov. 2009!
That's one of the problems in this country, people complain too much, and quick to bite the hand that helps feed them. I have dogs, and even them don't try to bite my hand, They are naturally gentle, and happy for what they get.
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