Off the Editor’s Desk 9-13-2023

He told me that gas prices were going up and they did!

Early last week I was told that I should fill my car up with gasoline because the price of a gallon of fuel is set to rise by up to seventy cents. This information came from a reliable source (some one that operates a gas station).

That reliable source also informed me that the price of a gallon gasoline would be at five dollars by Christmas.

At the reliable source’s fill up station the price jumped forty cents by the weekend to $4.09.9. I was in Hudson late Sunday and the price for a gallon was at that price. Along the Interstate, it was a dime less.

My reliable source blamed the price rise on middle-east oil producing countries and Russia. I could not agree with that statement, and I lay the blame right on our president.

One of the first acts Biden did as president was to put a stop to more oil production in the United States. At that time we were pumping all the crude oil that we needed and were not relying on some foreign county for our oil needs.

This was his attempt to get our attention off our fossil fuel burning vehicles and his attempt to get the American public to turn to electric powered vehicles, in his quest over the green agenda. Well, that idea has backfired on the president. Under President Trump, we had the crude oil we needed and the price at the pump was something we could live with. If it gets to five bucks, can we live with that? It will not only make our travels more costly, but every thing else we need to live.

Over the weekend, President Biden, urged major producing countries with spare oil reserves to increase production. He hopes to pressure OPEC countries and Russia to increase the supply of oil.

While looking for information about our oil supply, I came upon this little bit of information.

“The Biden administration is trying to increase the global supply of crude oil and reduce gasoline prices by tapping the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the federally owned stock of emergency crude oil. About one million barrels of crude oil from the reserve are being made available each day for sale to the highest bidding company.”

I may not be too bright. But, I can’t see what the difference is if we burn up a million barrels of crude a day taken from the countries reserves, or if that crude comes from working oil wells. I also found out that “America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves” is a collection of underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana that can hold 700 million barrels of oil, although it is not currently full.

So, if the president sells off a million barrels a day, how much will be in the reserve by the time he leaves office in January of 2025. That’s assuming he gets voted out in November 2024.

The president wishes that we purchase an electric vehicle. But there are too many negatives with those at this time. I know firefighters have many issues when one catches on fire. I watched a short film at the fire station recently, which showed an electric vehicle on fire and when one of the batteries exploded, debris was shot many feet into the air.

While attending the Minnesota State Fair last week, I visited the GMC sales area and saw a new 2023 GMC Hummer electric vehicle. It’s an EV Pickup that weighs over 9,000 pounds, does 0-60 miles an hour in three seconds and boasts 1,000 horsepower, and you can get over 300 miles on a charge. The young lady at the GMC booth told me that the sticker price was $106,000 and that only 1,000 were being built. However, a person in the knowing told me, “you can’t buy it for that price, it will be about $175,000.” How many would you like? Thanks for reading!     ~Carlton