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Teddy Roosevelt realized that if he didn't do something, big oil, that would be The Standard Oil Company in his day, would roll right over the people, control prices and fleece everyone. Standard Oil employed many different monopolistic practices. It threatened the railroads to get first call on all the tankers it needed to transport it's oil at the expense of everyone else. Standard Oil got so strong that at one point it was controlling over 80% of this countries' petroleum. Something very different from today happened. A reporter named Ida Tarbell decided to let the country know exactly what Standard Oil was doing. Between the years of 1902 and 1904 she wrote a story that had 19 installments and galvanized the American public against Standard Oil. Roosevelt decided to break up this trust. He clearly didn't want the nation's future controlled by some huge company. Many laws were passed to try and prevent a company from ever getting this powerful again. As with many laws that are passed, they depend on the will to enforce them and the favor of the White House.

We don't seem to have any Ida Tarbells today. Could it be because all reporters know that if they incur the wrath of those in power, who just happen to be connected with big oil, they will be ruined as many of those before them? Tarbell was not anti business, what she condemned was the lack of ethics in business. This includes much of what is going on today. If we really wanted to control the price of oil, what is one of the main things that we could do? We could close the futures market on petroleum. Some would say that this is a democracy and we are violating this. I say that the big oil companies don't care what happens to the average citizen as long as they get their gold. I wouldn't be surprised if they were manipulating the futures prices some way to insure bigger profits.

People are complaining about the price of gasoline, and rightfully so. When you have to pay almost $3.00 per gallon, this can take quite a bite out of you when you travel to work by car every day. Of course those 22 million millionaires that live in this country and benefit from higher oil prices because of dividends and stock splits would scream bloody murder if we tried to control the price of oil in any way. These are the people that have the loudest voices and the biggest connections and those in power have an affinity for them. Just look at how they have benefited from many of the laws passed by this administration.

Did you know that all the problems with high oil prices are our fault? Well that is what the administration is trying to sell. Supposedly the prices are the result of we, the common people, preventing the opening of the pristine Alaska National Wildlife Reserve to oil drilling. Yeah we always seem to get the blame, but we never get any of the benefits. Oh, God forbid we begin to develop oil alternatives and cut down of oil usage! No let's try and make believe that we need more oil when we really could substitute other forms of power for some of this usage. Even if we cut the oil usage down by one third, it would help tremendously. This is doable folks by using alternate forms of water power such as more generating stations in dams. Did you know that this country has over *76,000 dams yet only 2,000 produce electricity. The big question is why and can some be fitted to do this? I am not an electrical engineer but I bet we could at least quadruple the amount of dams producing electricity or even do better than that.

I actually heard a congressman on tv reporting to the American public that we had no coal reserves. You really have to be stupid to buy this line. Just last year they were reporting that coal reserves were over 200 years in this country.

Oh come on, we can produce electricity by wave machines on our huge coast, **under water turbines that take advantage of the current, wind power, solar power, fuel cells and other devices. We can even recover some of the energy we use and use it again. In truth we are being held back. It is so obvious. Just look at the President's hydrogen fuel program. He proposes to produce a hydrogen car but there are a couple of different ways to make hydrogen. He proposed to make it from petroleum. Sure that a great help isn't it? Anything to continue oil usage.

What has happened to the leaders of this country over the last twenty years or so? Have they been sitting in a chair with a bag over their heads? It sure seems this way. The oil situation is worse than ever. This president isn't doing anything to resolve the problem. The past few presidents didn't do anything either. For those of you that heat with oil or gas, this winter is going to be the shock of your life. Many of you may have to go without things to be able to heat your homes, or worse yet, keep the house cool. I ask you, is this fair to the American citizen? Remember while you are suffering, big oil is getting fat on your money and those in power don't seem to care. Oh and by the way, I didn't mention nuclear power on purpose because of the problem storing the waste.

*National Inventory of Dams
**New York City is exploring this right now