re: With crude prices low, now is a great time to kill the ethanol mandate of 2007.

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You do realize you can still buy ethanol free gas?

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So adding ethanol to gas makes it cheaper? 'cause the ethanol free stuff costs a good bit more.

Lower energy output, lower mpg, really screws up some motors...nah, you are right....let's just keep it.

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Don't worry the oil and gas lobby and oil and gas companies aren't going to allow prices to remain low for much longer.

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You quoted the article about Exxon shutting down a FCC unit like it is some kind of conspiracy. It’s just business sense. If people aren’t buying gasoline as much and you have limited storage capacity, you have to shut down production. When it cost more to make a gallon of gasoline than what you can sell it for, you shift production to something else or shutdown production.

I’m not sure how much lobbying can help with the price of oil since oil is a world wide commodity. Base prices are global, with variances based on the type of crude. The US refusing to buy oil from one country isn’t going to change the price of oil from other countries. Also, refiners use whatever oil their refineries are best designed for. Different crudes create varying product slates based on the design of the refinery and also require different metallurgies of the equipment depending on the corrosivity of the crude. Refineries run the optimum crude for their facility based on the properties and price of the crude. Regardless of the profitability or lack thereof of the upstream (oil production division), refineries operate as independent business units and purchase crude from the best source. While Exxon or Chevron may produce oil in the US, their refineries may run crude from Mexico or Canada.

The US is fortunate that oil is only traded in US dollars. This means that countries that buy or sell oil must use US dollars. If the US decided to place a tariff on a major OPEC nation, which would make no sense for the previously stated reasons, OPEC could decide that they want to switch to oil being based on the Euro. This would limit the US economic influence when it wants to punish nations for justifiable reasons.