The GOP has been capitalizing on the growing U.S. support for energy independence and offshore drilling following the recent run-up in oil prices, trying to shift national support to overthrow bans on traditionally forbidden zones such as Alaska’s ANWAR province. However, McCain, who while supports increased offshore oil and gas development in most areas, opposes the opening of the Alaskan preserve for E&P.

With that in mind, many Republicans are taking a breather on their E&P ambitions and instead are throwing in their lot with McCain, seeing him as the candidate that will at least get the foot of the expanded offshore drilling issue in the door. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have both recently been vocal about opening offshore drilling, but the GOP remains firm that McCain’s policies are the better of the two.

So, it looks like ANWAR is going to dodge a bullet again, though who’s telling how long that may last if we get $150 oil again next summer.

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

Mark Chiles is bravely maintaining order on the live-streaming video. And my fellow OGI members are bringing you the finest in interviews and up to date information.

Looking around the convention center, I’m pleased with the strange mix of quiet, blissful commerce in action as well as the occassional carnival atmosphere that only a group of dedicated buisnessmen can engage in. So I hope you can all watch this on the web, because we have some good info for you.

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

While carefully couching their language to make sure they’re not on record as saying prices are in fact being manipulated, writers Ari Officer and Garrett Hayes all but point out the ways companies can control the market to raise prices when they so choose.

They claim: “The futures market that serves as a price discovery mechanism for the physical oil market is open only to the elite. We trust these elites to determine the prices, but who are they? Who are the so-called experts? Hedge funds, oil companies, OPEC — the very people who profit from massive, consistent increases in prices. Notice a conflict of interest?”

While I agree that seemingly little power is in the hands of oil consumers, the article sidesteps the issue that this whole situation is being created by the consumers as well. Just who would these “elites” be offering oil to if people didn’t want it?

Also: “It is in every oil supplier’s best interest for prices to go up. Oil is a finite commodity. The world will eventually become more efficient and develop alternative energy sources. In the meantime, suppliers want to squeeze out as much profit as possible from their limited resources. Even if they know that the price of oil is too high (to the point of reducing demand) it is not in their interest to correct it. By setting prices in the smaller but more “trusted” futures market, oil producers realize multiplied gains on their physical oil sales.”

Again, weird paranoid stuff, but it is true that oil suppliers, if by suppliers they mean oil producing countries, would want as much money as possible while they can still get it. But if “oil suppliers” is a code-word for big oil companies, they’re mistaken. Even ExxonMobil, which just posted record quarterly profits, would like to avoid out-of-control oil prices as this in turn raises their production costs.

“The American market system, purportedly a free market despite its flaws and gross inefficiencies, has opened this vulnerability. The oil suppliers may tighten the noose, but we tied it around our throats long ago. Hiding behind the wall of anonymity, the perpetrators profit and achieve their own ends, bringing down America in the process.”

Okay, the article DOES make room for allowing American consumer behavior for being the ultimate source of demand, but then they come out with this strange “bringing down America in the process” allegation. What is this, some James Bond movie?

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

We Americans may be addicted to oil, but someone else is addicted to our oil dollars. Chavez is going to need a lot of bank to fund his social programs, government expenses, slush funds for FARC and general subsidizing a domestic oil industy that sinks lower and lower into oblivion. That’s a lot of cheddar, and he can’t afford to have someone cut his cheese.

And once again the market pounces on any excuse to raise oil prices, as the cost of a barrel jumped up to $115 today simply based on the announcement, with no inclination that it will be followed. Anyway, Venezuela plans on bringing up the issue of cutting production at the next OPEC meeting in September. They argue that the drop in prices from $147 to $112 in just over a month is clear evidence of market tampering by speculators. They also argue that production costs have in turn raised to reflect $150 oil, and they need revenue from $100 oil to function.

Odds are the fellow cartel members will laugh off his suggestion, but it does show the serious flaw in Chavez’s financial plans. He tried to bribe his way into the people’s hearts, and as long as prices were artificially high, he was emboldened and empowered. Now that his allowance is being cut, he’s going to scramble to keep things going.

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

Naturally, oil prices that had jumped up earlier in the day have since receded to $112.87.

You can understand Fay’s concern. Who wants to head toward that nasty green Gulf water when you have Florida right there calling for you? She has the culturally rich communities in Miami and Boca Raton to visit, making her way north through Tampa Bay and then Orlando where she can hang out at Universal Studios and Disney World.

When she finally exits Florida on Wednesday afternoon, I’m sure she’ll be all the happier for it. Whether or not Floridians will be is another matter.

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

But Headline News Personality Glenn Beck warns that this isn’t a good thing. Beck believes this will instead have an adverse effect on the economy.

Beck says, “When we use less energy, that means our economy is contracting, not expanding. That`s incredibly dangerous for our future. And here`s how I got there. Environmentalists love it, love it when we use less energy, but economists see it just a little differently. Think about it, when an economy is growing, businesses are expanding, jobs are being created, more people in their cars driving to work. As a result, we use more energy. Makes sense. In this case, lower gas prices aren`t about the strong dollar, or a healthy financial forecast, nope, really just an indicator of how bad our and the world`s economy really are tanking.”

Instead of oil prices dropping under the current status quo, Beck would prefer they remain high enough to continue the incentive for further offshore drilling, which 70% of the American population supports lifting the ban according to Rasmussen Reports and CNN. Even traditionally environmental politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have made some concessions toward this, however, this is a fragile support that could just as quickly evaporate both in Washington and the rest of the nation should prices drop too low and the American public become comfortable again.

Beck also supports seeking additional energy sources such as wind, solar, nuclear and gas, and would prefer that Americans have access to as many sources as possible.

So will this demand erude once we drop below $100 oil? Or has the movement already been placed into motion?

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil will be offering land for E&P, and representatives from Duke University and environmental groups Save America’s Forests and Land is Life are protesting the move. They argue that development will cause irreparable harm to these sections of the jungle, which is for the most part untouched by human development.

So this brings up an interesting scenario. The Amazon forest covers 1.6 million square miles, which accounts for 40% of South America. About 20% of the Amazon has already been slashed, burned and developed. So naturally, the thought of further destruction to the Amazon Forest, which is held in near mythic regard by most environmentalist, would be criminal to such groups.

And let’s face it, South American countries don’t have the best policies for converting wilderness to civilization. Oil production is in particular a nasty business, with many state-run NOCs using horribly outdated equipment and spilling petroleum all over the place during production. The fields can sometimes look like ecological nightmares.

However, we must not forget that South Americans are trying to develop oil reserves not because they hate rainforests and like destroying them, but rather because they want to make money. Money is needed for development, for social programs, for building infrastructure and generally for bringing your country out of the Dark Ages.

And lest we forget, we bleeding heart Americans shouldn’t forget that our recent past was full of environmental tampering.  If Greenpeace had been around in the 19th century and seen the pollution billowing from factories, the dynamiting of mountains to create tunnels for trains, the strip mining, the deforestation… they would have pitched a royal fit. But these things we did, not out of evil but out of a desire for progress. And gradually we refined our work and reduced our footprint on the land.

So the question arises of just what right we have, with the ecological skeletons in our closet, to demand other developing nations to not better themselves and eventually learn the lessons we did? We can’t have it both ways, demanding to have freeways, mass-produced goods and money that comes from developing our local oil and gas reserves while at the same time condemning other people for wanting the same thing.

I agree that South Americans can learn a thing or two from our development processes, and reduce the damage done to the forests. That’s a given. But to tell them they can’t have it at all is at the least ridiculous, and at worst, blatantly hypocritical.

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

Oh, pardon me. You’ll have to excuse those references, because I was back in 1982. Apparently, U.S. oil demand has had its largest drop in 26 years.  U.S. oil consumption fell by an average 800,000 barrels per day in the first half of the year.  The helped offset a 1.3-million barrel per day increase in petroleum consumption in nonindustrial countries during the first half of the year, which was one of the main contributors to running up oil prices even as U.S. gasoline consumption continued to fall.

U.S. oil consumption is expected to fall a total 480,000 barrels this year after oil consumption begins to rise following lower prices,  and then drop another 120,000 barrels next year. The Energy Information Administration is estimated U.S. oil demand in 2009 will average 20.08 million barrels per day, the lowest level since 2003.

So bring out your Atari 2600 and turn up the “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” soundtrack, because we’ve entered a time warp back to the era of Reagan and dweebazoids.

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

But what Obama was really getting at, once you placed the quote in context, was that it wasn’t just the job of the govenrment and big business to fix our energy crisis. It isn’t the government and Exxon using all the gasoline everyday–people like you and me are the ones filling up our gas tanks the most. With people complaining about paying through the nose for gas, the least they can do is make sure they’re getting the best fuel efficiency possible.

Look, making sure your tires are properly inflated won’t solve dependency on foreign oil. But every little bit certainly helps.  And since a good chunk of the world considers us to be such a wasteful society, we shouldn’t feed into their stereotypes. Our governments and businesses should take iniative into solving these problems, but everyone should do their part as well. To swipe a line from an old World War II poster, “Victory Begins At Home.”

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com

One of these include the establishment of a civilian militia, whose job is to keep a watchout for enemies of Chavez’s glorious revolution. Kids, turn in your parents and win some candy! Der Furher commands your obedience! Sieg Heil!

Chavez is also planning to punish merchants who do not sell food at the state-mandated prices. The Russians tried to pull that too. They ended up with all the good food being bought up in droves, and then nothing left for the rest of the season. Good thinking, comrade! Learn a little bit of basic human psychology: people will kill themselves if given too much freedom and not enough guidance. That includes eating very well today and starving tomorrow.

Chavez continues his hit parade with his new power to expropriate goods from private business owners without approval from the National Assembly. Basically, rob from the rich, and give to the entitled.

So come on Danny Glover, Kevin Spacey, Harry Belafonte and Sean Penn! You guys were so cozy with Chavez not so long ago! Let’s have another rant about how Bush is such a crook and Chavez is a noble liberator and champion of freedom and democracy. Here’s your photo op, standing on the backs of broken Venezuelans.

God bless you, Hugo Chavez. You give me so much material to work with. You can call me Mr. Danger anytime….

–Stephen Payne, Editor, Oil and Gas Investor This Week; www.OilandGasInvestor.com; spayne@hartenergy.com