In anticipation of normal winter temperatures, the next insult to the Middle Class is the petroleum industry. AGAIN.

It doesn't matter the product, the petroleum industry, in all their wisdom to drill and frack 'at home' still exploits a nation entrenched in carbon based fuels rather than alternatives.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Households (click here) will spend more for heating oil and natural gas this winter than last, as temperatures return to "roughly normal" compared with the unusually warm winter seen last year, according to the Energy Information Administration's monthly Short-Term Energy and Winter Fuels Outlook report released Wednesday....

Where is Howard Hamm and Romney on this. The idea a glut of any petroleum product will reduce the price is hideous. Currently, there is more natural gas being produced than needed in the USA. So much is being produced in the USA that Howard Hamm and his buddies want to sell it abroad. 

Supposedly, in a FREE MARKET SYSTEM, if a product is in more abundance than demand the price falls. Not the case in the petroleum industry. Just the opposite happens.

Posted on October 12, 2012 at 5:30 am by  Bloomberg in General, Natural Gas

...Gas may reach (click here) $4 per million British thermal units for the first time since September 2011 as winter heating demand picks up after mild weather a year ago, according to Mizuho Securities USA Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Prices have jumped 8.7 percent to $3.488 since July as electricity generators used record amounts of the fuel.

A production boom that’s put the nation on course for energy independence drove gas to below $2 per million British thermal units in April for the first time in 10 years, encouraging power plants to buy the fuel instead of coal. Gas jumped 18 percent July through September as record heat in the lower 48 states stoked air-conditioning use. The market surged 33 percent in the previous three months....

So, for the Cheney Energy Committee extending regulation free fracking has the citizens of the USA gotten reasonable energy costs? NOooooo. They received seismic activity, dirty water supplies and higher energy prices. 

Wake up America. The Romney energy plan isn't about providing cheaper energy prices to consumers it is about lining the pockets of cronies.

The Democrats are "Right on the Money," the country needs competition from alternative energies to bring better prices to the consumer. It is well worth the money to develop Alternative Energies before the cost of energy takes Americans paychecks.

Natural Gas has the lion share of the energy to heat homes. A change in price to the natural gas supplies will enhance or remove economic growth. The more expensive natural gas is the economy will reduce its consumer vitality in all other areas. Food prices increase, too.

Energy consumption in the USA

Natural gas

Households: 58.7 million

Change from last year: Up 0.6 percent

Share of total: 49 percent

Electricity

Households: 45 million

Change from last year: Up 2.6 percent

Share of total: 38 percent

Heating Oil

Households: 7 million

Change from last year: Down 2.8 percent

Share of total: 6 percent

Propane

Households: 5.6 million

Change from last year: Down 1.8 percent

Share of total: 5 percent

Wood

Households: 2.6 million

Change from last year: Up 3 percent

Share of total: 2.2

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration