EoinC said:
Although this is currently correct, there are factors in there which create some dynamism. Canada is your largest source of imported Oil, but runs at a relatively low projected reserves vs. production ratio. It's current R/P rating (Number of years that it could continue to operate at current production levels and current demand levels, without discovering or enhancing reserves) is around 10 years. USA's current R/P rating is around 20 years. Saudi Arabia has a R/P rating of over 80 years. Saudi Arabia is currently the only Country in the World with significant spare production capacity. Mexico has legislation in place prohibiting it from exporting more than 50% of its production to USA. Venezuela is operating at full capacity. The 5th big supplier to USA is Nigeria, which has a degree of instability that makes it a difficult Country to operate in, and rely upon. There are ongoing occurences of facilities (particularly offshore Rigs) being taken over.
US companies are making a very large push, with government support, to increase their stakehold in the hydrocarbon resources of the Nations making up the Gulf of Guinea. There is a recognition of a need to dilute the reliance of imports upon the Big 5.
Domestic production continues a slow decline as domestic consumption continues a slow, but steady, increase. Whilst there have been significant developments in Federal offshore waters, there are very large costs associated with the extraction (deepwater), and risks associated with exposure to hurricaines. One of the biggest developments is BP's Thunderhorse Field. This has just experienced a major setback with the sinking of the World's largest Semisubmersible PDQ. It came out of the Shipyard about 12 months ago and is now, I am told, sitting on the bottom in about 6,000' of water.
According to the DOE, USA has managed to increase its Crude Oil Inventory back to its levels of 5 years ago, but this is expected to decline over the next 2 years and, as the daily consumption levels have risen over the same period, the effective number of days consumption that the Inventory represents has fallen.
Whilst the people of the United States may not be concerned about the dynamics of the oil supply (other than the cost of fuel at the pumps), it is apparent that their Government is very concerned and does not see long-term solace in the current market spread.
Very instructive. Thank you.
I think that the ******'s over here that have driven SUV's solely for vanity are coming @ to seeing that thier pocketbooks are hurting whilst driving those aforementioned behemoth's.
See:
(Apoligize for the length of the article but it makes very good points.)
Unless you drive one of the largest SUVs, such as the Chevy Suburban, the Cadillac Escalade, or the Ford Excursion, I'll bet you've watched them thundering down quiet residential lanes and wondered to yourself:
Why is that monster allowed on this little street?
Well, here's a surprising piece of news. It may not be. Cities throughout California—the nation's largest car market—prohibit the heaviest SUVs on many of their residential roads. The problem is, they don't seem to know they've done it.
I discovered this secret ban after noticing the signs at both ends of my narrow Los Angeles-area street (a favorite cut-through route for drivers hoping to avoid tie-ups on bigger roads). The signs clearly prohibit vehicles over 6,000 pounds.
I knew a 6K pound limit ruled out a lot of the larger trucks that routinely rumble by my house, unpursued by traffic cops.
But then I got to thinking: Could some of those bigger SUVs exceed 3 tons? So I did some research, and I hit the mother lode.
It turns out every big SUV and pickup is too heavy for my street. Here's just a sampling: The Chevy Suburban and Tahoe, the Range Rover, the GMC Yukon, the Toyota Land Cruiser and Sequoia, the Lincoln Navigator, the Mercedes M Class, the Porsche Cayenne S, and the Dodge Ram 1500 pickup (with optional Hemi). What about the Hummer, you ask? Hasta la vista, baby!
It's no accident the automakers churn out so many SUVs that break the 6K barrier. By doing so, these "trucks" (and that's how they're classified by the U.S. Department of Transportation) qualify for a huge federal tax break. If you claim you use a 3-ton truck exclusively for work, you can write it off immediately. All of it. Up to $100,000 (in fact, Congress raised the limit from $25,000 just last year). Heavy SUVs qualify for similar state tax breaks in California (up to $25,000) and elsewhere. These vehicles are also exempt from the federal "gas guzzler tax" because they're trucks. (And you probably know that many SUVs are exempt from the tougher gas mileage and safety standards of cars because they're classified as trucks, but that's another story.)
Tax advisers actually warn their clients to make sure they buy vehicles that are heavy enough to qualify for the tax breaks. Some offer helpful lists of which SUVs will tip the IRS's scales.
Banned for good reason
Here's what few people seem to realize: By weighing in at more than 6,000 pounds, big SUVs are prohibited on thousands of miles of road in California. Cities across the state—including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Santa Monica—use the 3-ton cutoff for many or nearly all of their residential streets.
State law gives them the ability to do this for very straightforward reasons: The heavier the vehicle, the more it chews up the roads, endangers pedestrians and smaller vehicles, and makes noise.
This isn't an arbitrary weight limit. 6,000 pounds has long been a recognized dividing line between light and heavy trucks. (For example, the Clean Air Act defines "heavy duty vehicle" as a truck with a gross vehicle weight "in excess of six thousand pounds.")
But local officials either don't realize they've banned big SUVs, or they're hoping no one will make a stink. For example, San Francisco and Los Angeles ban 6K vehicles on numerous streets (including one of San Francisco's main tourist draws, the famously twisty Lombard Street).
When I informed Hahn that all the big SUVs also break the 6K barrier, she seemed surprised. "That's interesting," she said.
She's right—it wasn't the intent. But that's because these weight limits generally predate the
1990s SUV craze that lured suburbanites out of their lighter sedans and minivans. It's the vehicles that have changed, not the law.
These ordinances remain on the books and they're not obscure. They're clearly marked on signs in many California cities. In fact, three of L.A.'s affluent neighborhoods have the signs almost everywhere you look.
In Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena, vehicles over 3 tons are prohibited on every street unless specifically allowed. (Click here for a caveat about Beverly Hills.) The exemptions are a handful of larger roads meant to be used as truck routes.
That's right—every single residential street.
It probably won't shock you to learn that Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena are also home to a large number of heavy luxury SUVs.
(Similar bans exist not only in cities across California but in other places around the country. Some examples I found online: Minneapolis and Edina, Minnesota; cities in Wisconsin including Wausau, Kenosha, and Brillion; and the Brooklyn Bridge, along with countless smaller bridges all over the nation. [Click here for more on other states.] The penalty in California is usually a fine.)
However, as I can attest from standing on my front porch, prosecution of the Golden State's ban on big SUVs isn't what you'd call robust. In fact, it's a contender for the least enforced traffic regulation in America. Since realizing the connection between weight limits and SUVs, I've noticed streets all over the L.A. area—including major ones like Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica and Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood—where the drivers of metal monsters thunder past clearly posted 6K limit signs without a glance.
"I would be surprised if it's routinely enforced against SUVs," Santa Monica's transportation planning manager, Lucy Dyke, told me.
I suspect the biggest impediment to enforcing these bans is political will—SUVs are wildly popular, and it will take brave city and state officials to challenge the right of residents to use their own streets. (Of course, like a FedEx truck, heavy SUVs are allowed to use local roads for a few blocks if they have business there—like going to or from a house. But in general, they're supposed to take the shortest possible path between designated truck routes.)
Still, some proponents of heavy SUVs will argue that these weight limits are outdated or that they should apply only to registered commercial vehicles. Nonsense.
Six-thousand pounds does the same damage to roads (not to mention pedestrians) that it did before the SUV craze.
I don't know about your state, but California's ongoing budget crisis doesn't exactly leave cash to burn for road repair. (California's Legislative Analyst's Office estimates the average L.A. driver pays $700 a year in vehicle repairs because of crummy roads.) Yet despite the increased road wear their vehicles cause, heavy SUV owners can take tax breaks that mean they pony up much less to the tax system that funds street maintenance.
As it stands now, big-SUV drivers have it both ways: They use their trucklike status when it benefits them, yet they ignore the more onerous restrictions that "real" truck drivers face.
I think the Golden State has stumbled on a way to end this hypocrisy, and the rest of the country should take notice. Six-thousand pounds is a reasonable and established dividing line between passenger vehicles and trucks. (I even think it's an instinctual dividing line between SUVs that seem large, like the Ford Explorer, and those that seem absurdly large, like the Ford Expedition.)
Why not classify SUVs under 3 tons as passenger cars and regulate them accordingly? Make them meet car gas mileage and safety standards, and let them drive anywhere cars can drive.
For vehicles over 6K, classify them as trucks, pure and simple. Let their drivers use more gas, roll over more often if they want, and take tax breaks. And ban them from residential streets. Make them stick to the truck routes, including truck lanes on highways. (Heck, maybe even require a truck driver's license to pilot one.) 
California cities can start by enforcing their current 6K bans, or at the very least making it clear they apply to SUVs. Just as most of us instinctively check our speed when we drive by a police car, these luxury truckers should think twice about cruising illegally down Wilshire past a Santa Monica cop. If a few Tahoe owners got slapped with tickets for driving while overweight, the rest of them might actually start learning where their vehicles are legal.
In other words, owners say their SUVs are over 6K when it benefits them and under 6K when it burdens them.
Here's my solution: Pick a number and stick with it. If owners of heavy SUVs prefer to use the lower curb weight, fine with me. I won't squawk about them cruising down streets with 6K limits, as long as the feds make them ineligible for 6K tax breaks. But if they want to hold onto their write-offs, and the ability to claim them using the GVWR, they shouldn't turn around and argue the GVWR doesn't apply in other governmental contexts as well.
Andy Bowers is a Slate senior editor.
Illustration by Robert Neubecker; photographs by Andy Bowers; photograph of Lincoln Aviator on Slate's home page by Ho/Reuters; photograph of Toyota on Slate's home page from Toyota Motor Sales USA.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2104755/
