"these external costs total $558.7 billion to $1.69 trillion per year"

So "oil" costs half of the US budget?  These numbers seem _highly_ suspect.

especially with nebulous statements like this:

"Approximately $39 billion per year is the lowest minimum estimate made
by researchers in the field of transportation cost analysis, although
the actual total is surely much higher and may exceed $600 billion."

so an environmentalists said it costs that much in damage so that's included in Gasoline's "real cost"?

Ted Kennedy's number is even more ridiculous, but this report is completely hilarious.

That little Bobby made an outrageous claim regarding subsidies to the oil industry is to be expected. It's been his MO for years.

However the silence from Chevron's David O'Reilly is puzzling at best and troubling at worst. Maybe I'm too much of a cynic, but it may be that O'Reilly did not want to be dragged into a debate about exactly what subsidies Chevron DOES receive. Perhaps silence was better than telling Bobby and King's dinky listening audience an actual number (direct or indirect).

"Chevron... dumps billions and billions of gallons of highly toxic production waste every year into Cook Inlet."

Really?  Several BILLION gallons of highly toxic waste would turn the area into an environmental wasteland, devoid of life.  Kennedy is pulling figures from his own methane outlet.  But then he is a liberal, so facts aren't important. 

"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him." -Muhammad

Every Bloody word that a Kennedy says has direct externaliities that aren't covered by the taxes those losers/liars/theives pay......the policies advocated by the methane bloated Teddy has cost this country plenty...anyone care to add up the direct and indirect costs of the Great Society and his Inmmigration Act of 1965???

Also..I have never heard a comment about the Kennedy Bothers "Two Step"..One, Dumb Robert, is advocating shutting down all oil..coal and gas production while the other ..Ugly Joe .. is in the oil biz with the Fart Chavez in Venezuela....this coming winter the hoi polloi are going to freeze in New England with heating oil at 5.00 per gallon and the Kennedys will be selling heating oil at a big mark up from Chavez's discoubnts that the Kennedys get from old Fart Face...What a scam....the Kennedy's always find new ways to screw the country while making out like the bandits they are....

Paarl of Rhodesia

I'm waiting for the first mention of a quadrillion dollars.  Now that's real money.

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Here's what Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said about the condition of Cook Inlet last August when the federal government was considering adding the Cook Inlet beluga whale to the endangered species list:

I am especially concerned that an unnecessary federal listing and
designation of critical habitat would do serious long-term damage to
the vibrant economy of the Cook Inlet area. Hundreds of
thousands of people who live in this area know that we are taking
excellent care of the environment and habitat there. For example,
annual salmon runs in recent years are higher than they were when the
beluga population was larger, in the 1970s. This wouldn’t be possible
without effective conservation efforts.

Somebody is lying about Cook Inlet. I doubt it's Gov. Palin.

When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.

There was another segment to that panel discussion when they spoke about offshore drilling. Once again Kennedy made up talking points but the Chevron CEO ws clearly frustrated and countered Kennedy and made him out to be a ignorant fool (which he is).

RFK Jr. cannot be taken seriously. He acts psychotic and presents false facts to get his point across.

The article begins, "During June 30th's "Larry King Live," Robert F. Kennedy Jr., senior attorney at the National Resource Defense Counsel...."

That would be Natural Resources Defense Council.

And rather than taking a sidetrip to talk about where Kennedy got his figures, why not grapple with the point he is making---that the American energy industry is hardly a sterling example of a free market?

I agree with Stossel that the oil and gas companies should be given hero status for the job they do in bringing supply in from the four corners of the globe.

Kennedy, on the other hand, is a damn liar.  The facts are plain that without massive subsidies, not to oil and gas, but to wind, solar, and synthetic fuels, they would not be viable in the market place.  They are just too inefficient.

If one knows a little bit about the Cook Inlet area they would easily disprove Kennedy's assertion that Chevron is dumping billions of gallons of waste in the Cook Inlet.  Cook Inlet, like few places on earth, exhibits what is known as a Tidal Bore.  This is a wave like action of the sea moving toward land and in this locale up river when there is a huge tidal difference.  In this case, the Tida Bore can reach a height of 30 feet and travel up to 15 mph approximately twice a day.  The point is that this tide, if it was highly contaminated, as Kennedy claims, would pollute the entire basin and the rivers that empty into the Inlet, the Susitna and Matanuska Rivers, for miles and miles up river.  This is plainly not happening as the river supports some of the best king, silver, chum, red and pink salmon fishing in Alaska not to mention the Dolly Varden and Rainbow trout. 

My guess is that Kennedy is rattling the cage of the envirowackos with his lies.  The question is why?  Well, there may be two reasons.  One, Agrium, the largest producer of fertilizer in the United States, wants to build a coal gasification plant near the site of its fertilizer plant because natural gas is both expensive and running out in the immediate area.  The other is that the largest known reserves of coal in the United States are in the area and both the state government and several coal companies have expressed an interest in beginning mining operations there. 

So, of all the areas that Kennedy might have targeted in his diatribe.  He choose this location because it is my bet that his organization and that of the entire envirowacko orgs in the United States will be out to shut these two initiatives down. 

Reading that report about the "Evironmental, health and other bull-$41t related subsidies", I can come to only one conclusion:

They're making crap up! No one could read that and take it serious.

Such stats as $39-$942 billion...now that's approaching government skill in statistics!

We've watched this family of bluebloods deteriorate before our eyes for 60 years.  Longer than I've been on this earth.

Ever since I saw RFK Jr. sitting on that bridge picking a banjo in "Deliverance", I've wondered why he didn't parlay that role into something bigger.

Somehing like Robert Duval after he played Boo Radley in "Kill a Mockingbird"

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