Program subsidies that support the extraction, production, and use of petroleum and petroleum fuel products total $38 to $114.6 billion each year. The largest portion of this total is federal, state, and local governments' $36 to $112 billion worth of spending on the transportation infrastructure, such as the construction, maintenance, and repair of roads and bridges.
Foremost among these is the cost of military protection for oil-rich regions of the world. US Defense Department spending allocated to safeguard the world's petroleum resources total some $55 to $96.3 billion per year.
Now this part is really funny! I guess your source is saying our military is protecting places like Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Aramco is a national oil company owned by the Saudi government, so if we’re “protecting” anything over there, it’s the Saudi government. Would it be better if we let Russia or China or Japan take Saudi Arabia under its protective wing? Same thing with all the Middle East and most Latin American producers. The government owns the oil and the national oil company. An outside company can invest, but it cannot own the oil or gas production.
Moreover in Desert Storm back in 1990, we attacked Iraq, who then was selling oil to the US, to protect Kuwait, who was then selling oil to Japan. If that really was an “oil war,” didn’t our government get it backwards?
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a federal government entity designed to supplement regular oil supplies in the event of disruptions due to military conflict or natural disaster, costs taxpayers an additional $5.7 billion per year.
Whoever wrote this don’t know spit about the SPRO. After the oil shortages in the 1970s (the first when the Muslim oil producers quit selling oil to the US and The Netherlands because of our support of Israel, the second when the fall of the shah in Iran caused a panic because everyone was afraid Iran’s oil exports would be disrupted--although they weren't), the Congress in its wisdom decided it would be smart to build an emergency stockpile of oil (they already had a stockpile of fuel oil in case of a really cold winter in the Northeast) to get the country through any future embargo. All of this was done in conjunction with the International Energy Agency in Paris who is supposed to coordinate everyone when time to dip into their emergency reserves. Now this is not counting the 357.7 million bbl of commercial crude inventories that the oil companies themselves had on hand in the week ended Apr. 1.
The US government did indeed build all that storage capacity along the Gulf Coast in large salt domes and bought most of the oil it has put in there (at one time paying a premium for Mexican crude to help out Mexico). For awhile, the government decided to take royalties from offshore wells “in kind” (oil produced from those wells) rather than cash, and that oil was added to SPRO. Anyway, your source seems to think that the government is just holding that oil to give out to “Big Oil” companies. But actually any release of oil is sold to the highest bidder. And if the government thinks no one has bid high enough, the oil isn’t sold. The idea, I think, was to get refined products (not oil) to consumers like yourself so you didn’t have to sit in line waiting for a fill-up on odd numbered days or freeze in a sleet storm.
The Coast Guard and the Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration provide other protection services totaling $566.3 million per year.
I’m not sure what protection services your source means although the Coast Guard does inspect the maritime part of drillships and semisubmersible rigs that move under their own power, just as it does for other US ships of all kinds. I don’t think they spend as much money or effort on that part of their operations as on running down drug runners or even rescuing wealthy yachtsmen.
Of course, local and state governments also provide protection services for oil industry companies and gasoline users. These externalized police, fire, and emergency response expenditures add up to $27.2 to $38.2 billion annually.
Guess what he’s saying here is if a service station gets robbed, the police shouldn’t investigate. I always thought the police, fire department, and emergency response teams were for the protection of all local citizens, not just a select few based on their employment. Over the years of running fires and crime scenes, I can tell you I’ve covered many more fires in big warehouses and department stores than in refineries, which have their own fire and emergency response teams and their own security. These efforts to make the oil industry responsible for every public expense are foolish.