The Consequences of Obama and the Obamacrats

Conoco-Phillips announced to day that it is putting its massive refinery in Trainer, Pennsylvania up for sale. The company further announced that if it is unable to sell the refinery in a short time, it would just shut the facility down. According to Conoco-Phillips, the costs of bringing the refinery up to necessary standards is just to much for them to keep it running.

In order to understand the full importance of this announcement, we need to add a few facts. First, there have not been any new refineries built int the USA in over 30 years. Second, America is at a point where it no longer has the capacity to produce all of the refined fuel that it needs on a day to day basis. Third, closing the American refineries will not reduce demand for fuel in the USA, but it will reduce the number of jobs available to Americans. Fourth, closing an American refinery will likely result in an increase in global air pollution since the restrictions on refineries outside the USA are much less intrusive than those in America.

So what do we have here? An enormous refinery which is a big part of the local economy along the Delaware River in Delaware County, Pennsylvania is in need of an upgrade to meet ever tightening environmental standards. IF there is no one who wants to take on the task of trying to run this refinery at a profit, the plant will close, large numbers of folks will lose their jobs, fuel production will shift abroad, air pollution will increase, the US economy will be hurt, and no good will come of this. If the environmentalists are able to look at the big picture, they should realize that over-regulation of American facilities simply drives the plants overseas where there is little or no regulation. A place like Trinidad would be only too happy to increase the size of its refineries so as to ship more gasoline to the USA. We need to have a government that sees the big picture, not one that is just beholden to a rigid ideology. Obama has to recognize that there are times when his ideology just hurts so many Americans that he has to do the right thing, not the ideologically pure one.