Jack Straw is the pen name of a well known Berks County activist.

Federal senators and representatives, network and cable TV, Newsfeed and NPR news producers, talking heads, on-air voices, and print journalists:

Please stop your support and positive coverage of government and energy industry calls and measures to reduce fuel prices by opening currently protected offshore and on-land regions to oil drilling.

These proposed measures are simply opportunistic boondoggles for the already heavily subsidized and tax-advantaged “old-source” energy industry.

These measures are part of President Bush’s failed and dangerous efforts to benefit his old friends even further than he has already by even further reducing our needed regulation of their profiteering and very polluting industries.

A. Estimated increase in supply due to proposed increased USA development and production is a very, very small proportion of the oil the USA uses, and the new production would not come on line for several years.

B. Prices of oil and refined fuels are currently less affected by supply than by

1. Political and security instability and uncertainty in oil-producing regions.

2. Trading in oil-related futures.

3. Refining capacity.

These factors are recognized by the oil industry, oil producers, consumers, and governments worldwide. Note the Saudis’ and others’ response to President Bush’s calls for increased production: “Our customers do not demand more production, and the price of oil is most affected by political uncertainty worldwide and in our region.” Note that in Europe, refining is managed to ensure adequate fuel supplies year-round.

Instability: Our intervention in Iraq and saber-rattling towards Iran are major factors in current high oil-price levels, as industry and market makers must plan using high risk factors due to destabilizing policies.

Trading: The current administration and Congress in the administration’s earlier years have opened trading in oil-related futures to participants such as hedge funds, whose only motives are financial gain, not the maintenance of orderly and broadly beneficial supply-and-demand relationships. This closely resembles massive intra-industry trading in energy instruments that catastrophically escalated electricity prices early in the current administration.

Refining: USA refiners year after year decline to invest in new plants, and use the insufficient capacity as a “valve” to adjust their season-to-season product flow to keep US fuel prices high. For instance, refiners very often put their plants offline for maintenance at the very times when we need more production to meet upcoming high-demand seasons. Inadequate supply leads to high prices.

The refining bottleneck “valve” also insulates the refiners themselves from supply-and-demand forces, since by refining less or more product they keep supply compared to demand in ratio ranges leading to price ranges they prefer, even when demand decreases very substantially, as is now happening.

There is no reason for, and there will be no beneficial effect from, opening protected regions to drilling except to increase business for oil exploration and production industries.

Please do not join President Bush’s renewed campaign to benefit his old friends even further than he has already by even further easing regulation of their industries.

J.S., MBA