California, Oregon and Washington (also known as the Left Coast) are some of the most progressive parts of the United States. And one particularly rabid part of their agenda is green energy. They have been punishing the oil companies for anything and everything they could think of for more than the last twenty-five years.
And now they’ve succeeded in convincing the oil companies to get outta Dodge. That right. California used to be a large-scale extractor and refiner of petroleum. But those days are over and now the state no longer produces enough oil to cover the gasoline and other petroleum energy products it needs. And this is even worse for Oregon which has a very tenuous lifeline of gasoline that travels through a single pipeline. Oregon has literally zero oil refining capacity. Oregon’s woman governor sent a letter to Shell Oil begging them to return to the state. She promised tax subsidies and protection from environmental harassment. They said no thanks. After losing money on all their ventures on the Left Coast they’ve permanently moved on to working with the more lucrative LNG projects elsewhere on the planet.
Now Washington state has a less dire situation but only by comparison. These states convinced themselves that electric cars and solar panels were the imminent future of transportation and energy production. But none of that turned out to be true. Now they’ve realized late in the game that they’ve chased away they petroleum industry and left themselves without the fuel stocks they need just to keep their economies running. Now isn’t that special!
So, what’s my point? Well, basically I’m just gloating. Schadenfreude is a large part of the pleasure for us on the Right, here in the era of Trump. I extract enormous satisfaction from watching morons like Newsom and Oregon’s Governor Tina Kotek panic when they discover that fossil fuels still provide the power that keeps their fantasylands from collapsing back into the stone age. And that they’ve effectively driven away the people who provide these extremely valuable resources. Listening to them beg grown-ups to give them another chance just does my heart good.
If you watch that first video, you’ll hear that Oregon predicts that if there is a pipeline problem anytime soon $9-$12 a gallon gasoline will be very likely. Now think about what that will do to the cost of living. All I can say is it couldn’t happen a nicer bunch.
Alright, I guess that’s enough gloating for now.
The oil companies are doing to the Left Coast what the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant did for Vermont. They said: “Fine, you win, we’re leaving. Goodbye and rotsa ruck!”
A fine example of Karma and “Be careful what you wish for.”
Actions have consequences. If what you believe is out of step with reality it may end up biting you on the butt. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of chumps.
I have a little firsthand knowledge of Oregon. The political situation is very close to identical to that seen ad nauseum in so many other blue states: Except for hard blue geographically relatively small but dense population center(s), these states are inhabited by normal people.
As a fellow blue-state conservative I sympathize with them. I know what it means to be trapped behind enemy lines permanently.
The domino effect will be huge. Blue state politicians think there will be an increase in taxes, while never realizing the loss of income for individuals leads to flight from their states, an unwillingness to finance their bonds without high interest rates, jeopardized pensions, and entire cities facing bankruptcies without any hope of bail-outs.
Large population centers have now become metastasized cancers on blue states.
Jess, I know the consequences personally and painfully. New England is right there with these Left Coasters. High fuel costs, high taxes and failing cities is what I suffer under. But these people are invincibly stupid.
When I lived in Vermont, I often referred to it as “California-East”. I finally escaped the People’s Republic in 2014.
I would have escaped years ago but it’s very difficult to separate a deeply maternal woman from her children and grandchildren.
I so love the concept recently epitomized by FAFO.
There is no funnier sight than of a green energy populace getting the zero carbon reality they fantasized about. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
“Oregon predicts that if there is a pipeline problem anytime soon $9-$12 a gallon gasoline will be very likely.”
I think we can count on a problem with the pipeline.
Its almost a certainty.
I hope so. I can think of nothing funnier than Portlandia forced to beg for fossil fuels and not getting them. Antifa forced to walk to Walmart appeals to me.