Canadian Oil now going to go to the Chinese

What a shocker.

Here, several hundred people gathered for hearings on whether a pipeline should be laid from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific in order to deliver oil to Asia, chiefly energy-hungry China. The stakes are particularly high for the village of Kitamaat and its neighbors, because the pipeline would terminate here and a port would be built to handle 220 tankers a year and 525,000 barrels of oil a day.

But the planned Northern Gateway Pipeline is just one aspect of an epic battle over Canada's oil ambitions — a battle that already has a supporting role in the U.S. presidential election, and which will help to shape North America's future energy relationship with China.

Thanks to Obama's buddies in global warming cult, oil from our allies next door may be going to China. This puts puts more of our own oil to be imported from folks that don't like us very much. Hugo Chavez, Saudi Arabia. This may be Obama's worst act of all as Chief Executive. I don't blame Canada for this. Obama told them to eff off. They need to look out for their own best interests and if the US doesn't want their oil, someone would take it. This is NO good reason for denying the pipeline. NONE. There are plenty of good reasons to support the permit. Jobs. More energy here. Pipeline going through one of our newest and biggest energy fields in North Dakota.

"But what about global warming."

Besides the fact that any 125 (at most) year study is beyond worthless (due to length) at judging long term planet climate which has changed several times in the past billions of years, the fact is that energy will be used. If it isn't used by us, someone will use it.

Obama needs to reverse course on this traitorous decision ASAP.

Obama's oil plan. If he follows through, a good small first step.

Are these encouraging signs or more commission/task force style of bullshit?

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration, on the defensive amid higher gasoline prices, on Saturday said it will pursue policies that could boost domestic oil production.

President Obama, in his weekly radio address, said his administration would expand drilling opportunities in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, speed up continuing evaluation of oil resources in the Atlantic and provide incentives to oil companies to develop energy on the leases they currently own.

In his weekly address, President Obama addresses the pain at the pump for Americans and how he plans to jumpstart domestic oil production. Video courtesy of NewsCore.

"These spikes in gas prices are often temporary, and while there are no quick fixes to the problem, there are a few steps we should take that make good sense," Obama said.

Republicans dismissed the president's measures and continued to criticize his administration over its oil and gas drilling policy, saying it has failed to encourage domestic drilling.

Calling the spate of initiatives "not terribly substantial," Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said "this reversal is striking since his administration has consistently blocked American-made energy."

Senior administration officials said the Interior Department will start to conduct annual lease sales in the Petroleum National Reserve, west of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. Lease sales had been conducted in this reserve before, but the sales were irregular, officials said. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, however, is "off the table," an official told reporters on a phone call Friday.

As Obama's a bald faced liar, I'll believe it when I see it. At worst, this is all talk and no action. At best, if this is a true flip flop, is an 18 month reprieve from the current disastrous policy and some half-assed support (as ANWR is blocked). Why 18 months? Does anybody think that Obama's support for high gas prices won't be back if he's re-elected?

However, as we all know, there's one issue that trumps everything among independent voters. No, it's not the mythical "fiscal conservative/social liberal" the media loves, nor the social conservative Reagan Democrat although there are examples of both of them. The issue that unites all of them is the economy. Period. It is going in the right direction or not. That's number one, two, and three. High gas prices are among the worst factors possible in the economy as it leads to big inflation - shipping costs, energy costs, commuting costs, and everything dependent on it.

Obama knows that. He may be an idiot on a lot of things, but not campaigning. There is not a long list of presidential incumbents losing (although elections have been mostly close the last 10 years.) Most of them since Reconstruction have something in common as a big issue. The economy.

1888 - Cleveland lost to Harrison (tariff issue)
1892 - Cleveland defeated Harrison (tariff issue)
1912 - Taft lost to Wilson, with help from Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose (economic splits among all three)
1932 - Hoover lost by 17% due to the depression.
1980 - Jimmy Carter was the worst president in my lifetime. He was swept out Hoover style.
1992 - Clinton defeated George HW Bush due to the recession. He probably would have even without Perot.

It's similar with governors when incumbents win. The only one to lose in my lifetime was Blanchard in 1990, right when a recession was about to hit. Before that, the last to lose was John Swainson nearly 50 years ago. While some who likely would have lost a 2nd term if they ran (Pierce, LBJ), most who run for a 2nd term win, even when the other party despises the incumbent. George W Bush won despite the economy, partly due to luck. John Kerry was literally every bad stereotype about democrats. Clinton benefited from the dotcom boom.

As for Obama's chances, it depends on the economy and the GOP opponent. If it's Romney, Trump, Palin, Newt, Santorum, or Roemer, I don't like our chances. Huckabee. Maybe (Hell of a communicator). Huntsman (despite my own problems with some of his stances), Pawlenty, or Daniels. Good odds. Daniels I think is the most electable as of now.

I think this is a pure election ploy at best. At worst, it's all bullshit, just like his record deficits while talking against them. Based on his track record, I'm not sold. He's lied way too many times to earn my trust.

Energy Policy needs to be America first

I agree with 70% of this article in New Geography, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite policy journals. I don't agree with it on nuclear policy, but I can see its argument. I still think we need to pursue nuclear energy as long as our reactors aren't on fault lines and subduction zones. We need an all the above energy policy.

From New Geography

The two largest crises today — the Japanese nuclear disaster and the widening unrest in the Middle East — prove it’s time to de-fetishize energy policy. These serious problems also demonstrate why we must expand the nation’s ample oil and gas supplies — urgently.

The worsening Japanese nuclear crisis means, for all intents and purposes, that atomic power is, if not dead, certainly on a respirator.

Some experts may still make the case that nuclear power remains relatively safe. Some green advocates still tout its virtues for emitting virtually no greenhouse gases.

But the strongest case against nuclear power is now rooted in grave public fears about radiation. Imagine trying to site or revamp a nuclear plant today anywhere remotely close to an earthquake fault or a major city.

Right now, I'm sure nuclear energy's popularity is dipping.

The other shoe dropping relates to the growing chaos in the Middle East, from North Africa to the Gulf. The price of oil is likely to continue climbing, unless the world economy slides back into recession — and perhaps even then. The governments that emerge from the current Mideast upheavals are likely to be far less pliable to Western interests than the authoritarian potentates that Washington long supported. Disruptions in supply, higher energy taxes and emergent environmental movements could constrain markets for months, even years, to come.

These realities upset all the “best” obsessions of our rival political classes. Much of the progressive community, for example, had embraced nuclear fuel as key to ultimately replacing fossil fuels as a source of electricity — including the long-awaited electric cars. Green advocates often overestimated the readiness of renewable fuels — still far more expensive than fossil fuels and highly dependent on subsidies.

Wind power, for example, produces, at best, some 2.3 percent of the nation’s electricity. But in addition to wiping out whole flocks of birds, it receives subsidies many times higher per megawatt hour than fossil fuels. In contrast, the dirtiest fuel, coal, still produces close to 50 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Meanwhile, solar panel production, touted as a wellspring of job creation, seems to be shifting inexorably to China. Algae-based biofuels and other types look promising — but could take decades to become practical.

Many conservatives, on the other hand, have espoused the nuclear option — in part, because the industry has powerful corporate backing, which is always an influential factor to Republicans. But even red-state denizens are probably looking at the scenes of Fukushima with understandable horror.

So if the “best” agendas of both parties are flawed, it may be time to look at the “good.” The pragmatic way out of this emerging energy mess means focusing on our increasingly abundant supplies of oil and gas.

“Peak oil” enthusiasts may not have noticed, but recent discoveries and improvements in technology have greatly expanded the scope of U.S. energy resources. New finds are occurring around the world, but some of the biggest are in the United States.

Shale oil deposits in the northern Great Plains, Texas, California and Colorado could yield more oil annually by 2015 than the Gulf of Mexico. Within 10 years, these finds have the potential to reduce U.S. oil imports by more than half.

Even more promising, from the environmental standpoint, are huge natural gas finds. Discoveries in Texas, Arkansas and Pennsylvania could satisfy 100 years of use at current demand levels.

What is great about American energy? Jobs. Money not going to the Middle East. Control.

Producing domestic energy also creates the potential for hundreds of thousands of new U.S. jobs — everything from engineering to high-paying blue-collar work in the fields.

A new gas-led energy boom would also spark increases in demand for manufactured goods like oil rig equipment, tractors, pipelines and refineries. And those are sectors that the United States still dominates.

Would we rather this economic growth take place in Iran, Saudi Arabia or, for that matter, Vladimir Putin’s Russia?

The time has come for both political parties to give up their “best” energy options for the good. A green economy that produces millions of new jobs is a laudable goal. But the renewable sector cannot develop rapidly without massive expenditures of scarce public dollars. To fully develop these technologies, we need lots of money and time.

Republicans, too, need to give up their “bests” — including the notion that no policy is always the best, usually a convenient cover for the narrow interests of large energy corporations. Allowing private corporations to unilaterally determine our energy policy makes little sense. After all, most of our key competitors — China, Brazil and India — approach energy not as an ideological hobby horse but as a national priority.

I know that oil has a "world price" but this goes beyond economics. We need to look at reality and control what we can control here at home. Global warming may or may not be happening (Certainly not happening in Michigan last few years - and I've seen nothing like 1988 or even 1996 lately), and may not be a concern. There is no consensus there, and those who say there is forget science 101 about testing.

Reality however consists of rising gas prices, rising shipping costs and inflation, unrest in the Middle East, China and India industrializing, and more pain, partly directly caused by the government. We need an all of the above energy policy here, and it starts by taking advantage of our own resources.

The economic bright spot. North Dakota

We keep hearing about cool cities and Richard Florida's creative class stuff about the future of the economy. That thinking has been wrong, is wrong, and always will be wrong outside of the engineers and trustafarians. Engineers are important, but the latter are frankly worthless to society.

What's key is jobs, and if there is an economic recovery right now going on, it is in what is considered one of the most "uncoolest" places in the US. North Dakota. North Dakota. Home of extreme temperature ranges, farmland, ranches, little "diversity" (German, Scandinavian, or Sioux mostly), and energy. All things that the Barack Obama/Rahm Emmanuel snob class doesn't like.

From New Geography

Already fourth in oil production behind Texas, Alaska and California, the state is positioned to advance on its competitors. Drilling in both Alaska and the Gulf, for example, is currently being restrained by Washington-imposed regulations. And progressives in California—which sits on its own prodigious oil supplies—abhor drilling, promising green jobs while suffering double-digit unemployment, higher utility rates and the prospect of mind-numbing new regulations that are designed to combat global warming and are all but certain to depress future growth. In North Dakota, by contrast, even the state's Democrats—such as Sen. Kent Conrad and former Sen. Byron Dorgan—tend to be pro-oil. The industry services the old-fashioned liberal goal of making middle-class constituents wealthier.

Oil also is the principal reason North Dakota enjoys arguably the best fiscal situation in all the states. With a severance tax on locally produced oil, there's a growing state surplus. Recent estimates put an extra $1 billion in the state's coffers this year, and that's based on a now-low price of $70 a barrel.

North Dakota, however, is no one-note Prairie sheikdom. The state enjoys prodigious coal supplies and has—yes—even moved heavily into wind-generated electricity, now ranking ninth in the country. Thanks to global demand, North Dakota's crop sales are strong, but they are no longer the dominant economic driver—agriculture employs only 7.2% of the state's work force.

Perhaps more surprising, North Dakota is also attracting high-tech. For years many of the state's talented graduates left home, but that brain drain is beginning to reverse. This has been critical to the success of many companies, such as Great Plains Software, which was founded in the 1980s and sold to Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 billion. The firm has well over 1,000 employees.

That is an actual diversified economy, in the real sense - not abandoning it's primary historical industry (Agriculture). The energy is also diverse - coal, oil, wind, and natural gas.

I've long said that we need an all the above (minus the tyrannical and economic treason of cap and trade and anti-automobile CAFE increases) energy policy to promote energy independence from the Middle East. That includes oil, gas, coal, nuclear(not in subduction zones), wind, solar, non-food ethanol (Don't use corn), bio-diesel, and hydroelectrical. The dumbest argument I've ever seen is by those opposed to opening up ANWR because "it would take 10 years." I don't give a damn if it takes 20 years. Do we want to have our oil at worst in reserves, or do we want the Saudis to have us by the balls? Let's not forget the rapidly industrializing China and India with 2+ Billion people going to increase their consumption of oil/gas.

The gas prices in 2008 were IMO the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to the collapse. It wasn't budgeted for. It wasn't planned. It increased shipping costs for everything causing inflation. Wages wern't increasing. Now we see gas prices creeping towards $4 again. If Obama wants a recovery, this isn't helping.

Hopefully, Obama and his EPA doesn't put the hammer down on North Dakota. More states need to learn from North Dakota and put jobs and America first, regardless of what Hollywood and the self proclaimed elite think. When Al Gore, Robert Redford, James Cameron, and RFK Jr give up their 20,000 sq ft homes, jets, hummer's, and their carbon footprints, I'll maybe start thinking about considering what they have to say when they run their mouths.

Obama's Katrina? No. It's worse.

We all know about the BP spill, and a month later, Obama exemplifies the Peter Principle, rising to his level of absolute incompetence. The going got tough, and he showed himself to be the bitch that he is. He proved that he's not man enough for the job. Quit, and take Biden with you.

What has been Obama's response to this, weeks after the fact. He's been complaining, running his mouth, talking about asses to kick (try not to laugh), talking about this and that, and doing nothing except some damn moratorium on new drilling (almost nothing). I take that back, he got BP to put 20 Billion away in some claims fund. Wow. Good job. Between the damages to the economy, fines, and tort liability, BP's probably already on the hook for at least that in damages anyway due to negligence claims in several states. So, he did nothing.

Guess what's still happening. The oil's still leaking. I'm just a small business owner, but what do you do if you have a major leak going on. What's the first order of business. Stop the damn thing. The damage is still going on and increasing. Bush's big mistake in Katrina was poor preparations, not taking charge, and then giving away a bunch of money in handouts because he felt guilty. Obama not only isn't prepared, he hasn't responded, turned down aid, and just flys a copter and runs his mouth some more, and calls it taking charge.Worse, the coast guard just stopped Louisiana from trying to do things themselves to protect their coast.

Talk is cheap. Actions matter, and Obama's actions show what happens when you send a punk to do a man's job. While the well would have leaked anyway, different tactics should have mitigated some of the damages.

Then there's BP and Congress. What Tony Hayward needed to do is to go out on side, set up base, and make sure this thing gets fixed. When Congress had their sham hearing, he needed to show up to bitchslap them.  "I'm out there trying to do my job, while you are wasting time puffing yourselves up so you can look good for the cameras. Do you want this fixed or not? If so, I'll be going to back to work. Stop wasting my time dealing with you idiots." Hayward didn't do himself favors. 

Heads need to roll at BP. Heads also need to roll in government. The first order of business is fixing the damn leak. The rest needs to come later.

Lansing insiders want to raise the gas tax.

The lastest studies by the political class concluded one obvious solution that comes to them. Taxes! More of them. My least favorite tax. The gas tax. With gas prices STILL high, and likely to go back to their rates three months ago with Washington DC unlikely to allow more exploration of supplies, along with increased industrialization of India and China, the last thing we need is another artificial price increase thank to Washington or Lansing.

The worst tax in the country is the gas tax. I blame the gas prices as one of the major contributors to the economic collapse. People did not budget for $4.00+ gas. People always must pay the gas taxes or they miss work. This raises the costs for shipping and of every single product on the market, especially food costs. It devastates the Big 3. People lose jobs, are foreclosed, etc.

I will seriously consider a primary challenge against anyone from our county who votes for this tax if they are not term limited out. I would run on this issue, number one.

The lefties at AP had this out titled 'Mich. gas tax, registration fees may have to rise'. First off, have to rise? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Jennifer Granholm and lawmakers should consider eliminating Michigan's 19-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax and replacing it with a tax on the wholesale price of gas, according to a report being released Monday.

Swapping the taxes would let revenues rise or fall with changing fuel prices rather than tying gas revenues to consumption, which is falling as motorists drive more fuel-efficient cars or cut back on buying gas to cope with prices that at one point topped $4 per gallon.

The change could boost transportation funding in the long run and might ensure that a bigger share of taxes paid at the pump actually go toward Michigan's deteriorating roads, advocates say.

The recommendation is one of many listed in a Transportation Funding Task Force report set for release Monday. The Associated Press got an advance copy of the 85-page report.

"We may need to shift away from a 19th- or 20th-century tax on motor fuels," said Rich Studley, task force co-chairman and head of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. He warned that the current system is becoming "obsolete."

Rich Studley is a good guy, but one siginificant power at the state chamber is the roadbuilders who have been pushing this for a long long time. That's not a slam, but a fact.

The 13-member task force was created by a state law asking for recommendations to improve roads, bridges, airports and public transportation and come up with new ways to pay for them.

The panel, which includes four legislators — two Democrats and two Republicans — decided to pass up delivering a preliminary report due Oct. 31 and release the final report months ahead of schedule.

The report says Michigan must double its transportation spending and warns that one or two incremental fee increases won't be enough to meet the need.

States have been struggling to find ways to raise enough money to fix crumbling roads and bridges and fund airports and public transportation. Gasoline sales nationally are down, so state and federal gasoline taxes are drawing in less money. Michigan continues to get back less in federal transportation dollars than it sends to Washington.

Matt Helms of the Free Press has this

Among the options:

• Increasing vehicle registration fees. Task force member Mike Nystrom of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association said his group would favor a progressive increase that would be higher for more expensive vehicles.

• Changing the state's gas tax from a per-gallon rate to a percentage rate, similar to the sales tax, helping stabilize gas tax revenues. Nystrom said one idea to offset the impact to drivers would be to lower the percentage when gas prices are high.

• Looking at public-private partnerships that could include leasing roads to for-profit companies that could build toll lanes, or public-private collaborations on light-rail systems.

• Raising the diesel tax to 19 cents per gallon from 15 cents, to make it equal to the state gas tax.

As far as I'm concerned, registration fees are another tax. As far as "expensive" vehicles, does that go for the original price or the current value? My truck was probably about $28,000 when the original owner bought it. I paid about $11,000 3-4 years ago. Used. Will I be paying a tax on a $28,000 truck, $11,000 truck, or about $6000 or so it would be worth today. Heads up.


As far as toll roads go, I'm not adverse to them - as long as they are NEW roads, and not on existing roads. Same goes with HOV lanes.

The biggest problem is this false premise that all state road money did, does, and always will only come from the gas tax. That idea needs to be squashed and we all need to send that message to our reps now and hope that once again, Lansing doesn't bend us all over during the lame duck session with term limited reps which got us all those fee increases in 2004. As Kevin Bacon's famous Animal House Quote goes - "Thank you sir may I have another!" Time to call Chris, Joe, and Valde and tell them no tax increases. With gas at about $2.00, now is the time the tax hikers are going to strike. They will not do this when it goes back to $4.00 - and it will likely do so next summer.

Now one of the few things I think that government should spend money on is infastructure. Michigan has one of the highest gas taxes in the country. It's not 19 cents like the media says. It's 19 cents, and then another 6% of the entire cost. So if the raw price of gas is $1.62.6, add 18.4 cents for the federal tax. $1.81 add 19 Cents for the state tax. That makes it $2.00 Now add the 6% sales tax. 12 more cents. $2.12. Right now if gas is $2.12 per gallon, 50 cents of that is going to the gas tax. Almost 25% of all costs. If the raw price was $3.62, the main taxes increase it to $4.00 Add .24 cents per gallon in sales tax. Now taxes are 62 cents per gallon going to the government. The diesel tax recommendation is as bad if not worse. Pay more in shipping costs if this happens.

One recommendation I have is this - all money from the sales tax for gasoline is earmarked for roads and not the general fund. That can be paid for by eliminating needless government pork, like MSU trustee Joel Ferguson's State Police building, Dan Mulhern's paid staff and figurehead position, cutting these trips for government officials, and taking a scalpal to the budget. Another idea I have is consolidating townships and eliminating duplication. If you want to talk about "moving to the 21st century" there's a start. Back in 1837, it would probably take me all day to get from Green Oak to Lansing by horse. Now I can do it in about an hour by truck.

This false premise on the gas tax being the only way to fund roads needs to get sent to Hell.

Speculators and drilling

Larry Kudkow at the National Review has a good piece about Bush's push for drilling. As I said in my last post, I wish this was done when gas hit $2 a gallon, but this here is a start. Congress is in the way as usual.

In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news conference, Bush repeated his new position, and slammed the Democratic Congress for not removing the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.

Now isn’t this interesting?

Democrats keep saying that it will take 10 years or longer to produce oil from the offshore areas. And they say that oil prices won’t decline for at least that long. And they, along with Obama and McCain, bash so-called oil speculators. And today we had a real-world example as to why they are wrong. All of them. Reid, Pelosi, Obama, McCain — all of them.

Traders took a look at a feisty and aggressive George Bush and started selling the market well before a single new drop of oil has been lifted. What does this tell us? Well, if Congress moves to seal the deal, oil prices will probably keep on falling. That’s the way traders work. They discount the future. Psychology and expectations can turn on a dime.

The congressional ban on offshore drilling expires September 30, so that becomes a key date. A new report from Wall Street research house Sanford C. Bernstein says that California actually could start producing new oil within one year if the moratorium were lifted. The California oil is under shallow water and already has been explored. Drilling platforms have been in place since before the moratorium. They’re talking about 10 billion barrels worth off the coast of California.

There’s also a “gang of 10” in the Senate, five Republicans and five Democrats, that is trying to work a compromise deal on lifting the moratorium. So it’s possible a lot of action on this front could occur much sooner than people seem to think.

Democrats are whining about this won't help short term. Maybe it will. Even if it is only long term, it is high time we start thinking both short and long term with our energy policies. I support nuclear energy and alternative energy as well as drilling. I also support energy independence from the Middle East so those country there stop having us by the nuts.

Where was this when gas hit $2.00 a gallon?

I was going to title this $3 a gallon, but make it $2, since I was mad when that happened. Bush is finally lifting the executive order ban on offshore drilling. I'm glad he's doing this, but this needed to be done a long time ago.

From Bloomberg

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said today he's lifting a presidential ban on drilling for oil and natural gas on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, setting up a showdown with Congress over a separate ban it put in place in the 1980s.

``Today I've taken every step within my power to allow offshore exploration of the OCS,'' Bush said in a statement at the White House. ``This means the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action by the U.S. Congress.''

Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress rejected the president's call, saying the move to end the moratorium would have no effect on prices and better options are available.

Pressure to permit drilling off the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean coastlines and in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico has been building as oil and gasoline prices have surged to records.

....
About 17.8 billion barrels and 76 trillion cubic feet of gas are off-limits to drilling as a result of congressional and presidential moratoria, according to the Minerals Management Service, an agency of the U.S. Interior Department.

The oil available would amount to just over two years of U.S. consumption. Bush today said the potential reserve from the restricted areas would last almost 10 years.

Democrats have blocked congressional efforts to lift the ban, arguing that Republican estimates of available energy resources are overstated and doing so would have no short-term effect. Democrats in both chambers are pushing legislation to force oil companies to start drilling on 68 million acres where they already hold leases.

I don't give a damn about short-term effect. Does this help long term? Yes it does. It increases the supply as the demand increases. Everyone knows about supply and demand.

Now drilling is not the only solution, but it is ONE IMPORTANT aspect of the solution as it helps dillute the power of countries that hate us, and also helps bridge an eventual transition away from oil.

Gas companies which don't import from Middle East?

I've been trying to find out for a long time which companies import from the Middle East or is owned Hugo Chavez (Citgo). I hope this is accurate.

Terror-Free Oil is a website which among other things, list companies which do not import oil from the Middle East - and some that do.

Ones in Michigan that do not import from the Middle East, according to this site are:

Sunoco
Cenex (Which has stores in the UP)
Holiday (North Michigan)
Flying J - Usually cheaper - Benton Harbor, Saginaw, and Lansing/Grand Ledge area.

They also list those that DO import from the Middle East. The three that surprised me are BP (I thought it was British and Canadian), Shell (Dutch), and Marathon. I remember Marathon ads bragging about "Made in America."

If you have any accurate (not chain email) information about which oil is home or at least not from the Middle East or from people like Hugo Chavez, let us know. I'd rather not pay money to places that finance people like Osama Bin Laden.