Better than Next Week's Berkowitz w/Obama and Daley: Berkowitz w/ 16th CD Dem. Nominee Abboud, Cable and Streaming
Jeff Berkowitz: Gas prices. Make a prediction. You and the Democrats maintain power [thru] 2010. What do you think the price of gasoline will be two years from now?
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): If we enact the Abboud energy plan, in twenty-four months, gas prices will be half of what they are today. Done. Period.
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Robert Abboud: I am not fundamentally against drilling at all.
Jeff Berkowitz: Really, so you would favor expansion of off-shore drilling?
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Jeff Berkowitz: So, you haven’t decided. You’re agnostic on that?
Robert Abboud: I am relatively agnostic, I want to see--
Jeff Berkowitz: You might favor drilling in ANWR, you might not. You are not committing on that?
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Now posted on our Youtube page (top left hand corner] is this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of "Public Affairs," featuring 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud (Barrington Hills), who is taking on 16 year Republican incumbent Don Manzullo (Egan). Watch the "Public Affairs" show with Robert Abboud here.
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Tune in to this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of "Public Affairs," to watch Show Host and Executive Legal Recruiter Jeff Berkowitz discus and debate with 16th CD Dem. Nominee Robert Abboud candidate Abboud's energy plan to reduce gas prices $2/gallon by 2010, whether the U. S. should permit drilling in ANWR and off-shore, whether it is important to win in Iraq and what winning means, how to improve education and many other domestic and foreign public policy issues. [See, below, for a more detailed list of show topics].
You can watch the show with 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud on your computer, 24-7. It is anticipated the show will also air next week on the Illinois Channel across the state of Illinois, including within many portions of the 16th CD. [Specifics on airing schedule to follow]
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The Public Affairs Chicago Metro suburban, Chicago and Aurora airing schedule is included, below.
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A detailed list of show topics is included, below.
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A Partial Transcript of this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of Public Affairs, featuring 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud (D-Barrington Hills) is included, below:
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Jeff Berkowitz: People would know you’re the Village President of Barrington Hills. You have a nuclear background as long as Kareem Abdul-Jabaar was tall, or Michael Jordan, or whatever you want to say.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): It’s the first time I’ve ever been compared to them.
Gas and oil prices.
Jeff Berkowitz: There you go. Big background. But, let’s go right to gas prices. That’s something you’d know something about with your background in energy, and so forth. And, as we’re taping, oil prices are coming down, but gas prices, not so much. I think they’re still in the four dollars per gallon [range]-
Robert Abboud: That’s right.
Jeff Berkowitz: Four dollars and twenty five cents.
Robert Abboud: Unless you’re buying diesel fuel, and then it’s still four sixty or four seventy a gallon.
Jeff Berkowitz: Tell me. If you go to Congress--Robert Abboud, what will gas prices be in a year or two after you go to Congress? Can you have an impact? Can Congress have an impact? Can the President have an impact?
Robert Abboud: Absolutely.
Abboud’s energy plan to cut gas prices by 50% in two years
Jeff Berkowitz: Gas prices. Make a prediction. You and the Democrats maintain power [thru] 2010. What do you think the price of gasoline will be two years from now?
Robert Abboud: If we enact the Abboud energy plan, in twenty four months, gas prices will be half of what they are today. Done. Period.
Jeff Berkowitz: Really. Two dollars a gallon.
Robert Abboud: It will be in the two dollar a gallon range. Maybe less.
Jeff Berkowitz: And that will happen in two years.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): We can do that in twenty-four months.
Jeff Berkowitz: You can understand why people watching and listening to this might be a bit skeptical.
Robert Abboud: Sure. Absolutely.
Bringing back nuclear power?
Jeff Berkowitz: How are you going to overcome that skepticism? If they say, what are you going to do? You’re big on nukes. You’re going to bring in nuclear power, that could take five, ten years before you get those plants online, right?
Robert Abboud: Right.
Jeff Berkowitz: That can’t be the answer.
Robert Abboud: It certainly is very much part of the answer.
Jeff Berkowitz: For the two year period?
The distilled fuel market: an unregulated oligopoly?
Robert Abboud: Absolutely. But, the thing that you have to understand is how gas prices actually work, how oil prices actually work. Everybody’s focused on, for example, crude oil, the price of crude oil. The fact is, you don’t use crude oil in your car. You don’t burn crude oil in your car. You burn distilled fuel—gasoline, diesel fuel. You burn biofuels. Those are the commodities that we really have to be looking at. The fact is that the marketplace in the United States for distilled fuel is not an open, vibrant marketplace. It’s essentially an unregulated oligopoly with about five major players in there. There’re a few small ones.
Jeff Berkowitz: Who are they?
Robert Abboud: Principally, they’re Dutch Royal Shell, BP—I should know the list.
Jeff Berkowitz: But five major oil companies.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Just five major oil companies.
Jeff Berkowitz: Exxon would be one of them.
It’s the refineries, stupid?
Robert Abboud: Exxon would be one of them. Citgo, so you know it’s that group that controls the major portion of the refining operations that are going on. Gasoline, for the most part, is not traded internationally. Gasoline, for the most part, stays domestically, although we do ship quite a bit of gasoline to Mexico, which is-
Jeff Berkowitz: But oil’s traded internationally.
Robert Abboud: But oil’s traded internationally.
Jeff Berkowitz: And gasoline comes from oil.
Robert Abboud: Gasoline comes from oil, but right now our refinery capacity is running right near ninety seven percent. So, you can make all the-
Jeff Berkowitz: Who’s to blame for that? Why don’t we have more refineries?
Robert Abboud: We are to blame for that.
Jeff Berkowitz: The United States?
Robert Abboud: We as a country. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: Right, and who in particular?
Robert Abboud: We’re all to blame.
Who’s to blame for the lack of refinery capacity in the U. S.
Jeff Berkowitz: Who in particular? Is the Democratic Party to blame? Because Republicans say those folks keep raising barriers, they don’t want to have new refineries. They say they do, but whenever there’s a law that would say “ease up on permit processes,” and so forth-
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Easy thing to say.
Jeff Berkowitz: Republicans say Democrats-
Robert Abboud: First thing I would tell you is the Republicans have been in power since late ‘90s-
Jeff Berkowitz: In [the House], they were there from '94 to 2006.
Robert Abboud: Yeah, exactly. So where have they been-
Jeff Berkowitz: Democrats have had the helm in Congress for [the last] two years.
Robert Abboud: Don Manzullo’s been in there—I mean, that’s the guy I’m running against—Don Manzullo’s been in there since ’92.
Jeff Berkowitz: Sixteen years.
Sixteen years, what has Cong. Manzullo done on the issues?
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Sixteen years, where’s he been on this issue? He offers a twelve point energy plan, about two weeks, week and a half, after we issue ours. Where’s he been for sixteen years? And I think anyone who’s been in the energy industry--whether you’re on the electric side, whether you’re on the oil side, gas—has known that the real problem is that we don’t have a real solid energy policy in this country, and we haven’t had one.
Jeff Berkowitz: Some of your policy is to advance nuclear energy. You’re in favor of that?
Robert Abboud: That’s part of it, absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: Your background is in nuclear energy.
Robert Abboud: That’s right.
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Jeff Berkowitz: So you know something about nuclear, and you say this country should go nuclear. We haven’t had a new plant in what, thirty years?
Robert Abboud: The last new plants came online in the ‘80s, and then, since then, we’ve actually been adding new nuclear capacity, but we’ve been adding it by improving the performance of the existing plants. So we’ve really upgraded about twenty percent worth of new capacity.
Jeff Berkowitz: But now you’re saying—one part of your program, one prong—is to do something to advance many more nuclear plants. Advance a number of nuclear plants.
Robert Abboud: That’s right. We’re about twenty percent nuclear in this country, and in order for us to move ahead, we essentially need to double that inventory.
Jeff Berkowitz: Okay.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): And in order to do that, what I’m proposing is something called the American Power Authority. The American Power Authority is a federal authority that functions much the same way as Tennessee Valley Authority does, the authority that built the great dams out west. Essentially what you create is a government planning structure which is financed by private capital—so this isn’t new tax dollars that come in. It forms a long-term planning horizon and has multi-jurisdictional capability, so we don’t get into this problem of state authority vs. local authority vs. federal authority.
Jeff Berkowitz: And one thing it’s going to do is radically ramp up the number of nuclear power plants, right? That’s one thing.
Robert Abboud: That’s one thing. That’s correct.
Jeff Berkowitz: Is it also going to do something about solar?
Robert Abboud: Absolutely. The whole point of the American Power Authority is to bring new power capability and energy capacity to the marketplace. And, principally, that means nuclear, for making electricity, refineries, for making distillate fuel from crude oil and from biofuels, and the biofuel component is extremely important, and for alternate sources of, principally, electricity, which are primarily through wind and solar.
Jeff Berkowitz: And all those things, I guess—I should say, we’ve invited Congressman Manzullo here; he’s unable to be here today, but he’s committed to be here in the very near future, so we’ll take him at his word that he will be here, and we’ll interview him separately. We look forward to having Congressman Manzullo on with his opponent, Robert Abboud. And you, of course, would be agreeable to that?
Robert Abboud: Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: Any time, anywhere?
Robert Abboud: Any time, any place, doesn’t matter, any subject.
Jeff Berkowitz: He [Cong. Manzullo) presumably, from what I understand, favors nuclear energy, probably favors biofuels, and probably favors electric plug-in, and hybrids. So, all of that, you’d be similar on, but he also favors—extensive, from what I understand—extensive increase in off-shore drilling. You, not so much, right?
Abboud not fundamentally against drilling?
Robert Abboud: I am not fundamentally against drilling at all.
Jeff Berkowitz: Really, so you would favor expansion of off-shore drilling?
Robert Abboud: well, here’s the argument. As I said before, oil is traded internationally. You drill anywhere on this planet, and it winds up in the oil pool.
Jeff Berkowitz: The world market.
Robert Abboud: In he world market. As an engineer, I feel confident, we can drill anywhere on this planet. There are some places that are far more complicated to drill than others, and off-shore is a very complicated place to drill. Talk about drilling in the ANWR, it’s also another complicated place.
Jeff Berkowitz: Although it’s a lot better than it was ten years ago, the oil companies argue, and more environmentally clean.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Technology gets better. The whole bit. The real question is, does it do what you want to do? And what is it you want to do? You want to lower gas prices. Just going out and drilling for more oil doesn’t do anything for gas prices in the United States, because, as we said before, the refinery capacity is not there to bring more distillate fuel into the marketplace. Why do the oil companies want to drill more? Because when you’re an oil company and you get a new lease, you go and log that well. The value of that well goes up against your balance sheet. And so, essentially what you did was, you just suddenly made your company worth a whole lot more in assets, versus the existing debt that you have, and that improves your stock price.
Jeff Berkowitz: If there’s actually expected to be oil there, if it can be drilled at a price that works.
Robert Abboud: And that’s what logging is all about.
Jeff Berkowitz: But then if you do that and people know about it, there are futures markets—you know about that.
Robert Abboud: Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: So if this oil is coming online, and everybody can see it, including OPEC, and other buyers and sellers, it could affect prices in the next few years, right? Because of what it does in the future.
Robert Abboud: I think of it as a marginal opportunity to improve crude oil pricing, but as I said, the problem with doing that, it’s going to be a very small, relatively small increment. Even the Department of Energy, their latest study has shown that it’s a relatively small increment.
Jeff Berkowitz: We don’t know. They could be right, they could be wrong. The point is, why not do it? Maybe they’re wrong and the price goes down dramatically as a result.
Robert Abboud: Well, because of the real cost of doing it.
Off-Shore Drilling as part of a larger energy package?
Jeff Berkowitz: In conjunction with doing all these other things—in conjunction with all these other things that you’ve mentioned as well? It’s not to the exclusion of that.
Robert Abboud: Here’s the problem. If all you do is go and drill-
Jeff Berkowitz: No, but you don’t. Say you do all the things that you’ve mentioned but you throw in off-shore drilling, expand that radically. You hope all work, you’re not sure. But, throw everything--
Robert Abboud: Sure.
Jeff Berkowitz: Would you favor that?
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): If we were able to bring forward the capacity to be able to use those domestic resources. And, you also have to look at, what are we doing with those domestic resources? Remember, this is oil that’s within our control. And there’s oil that is elsewhere in the world right now that maybe we want to think about using first.
Jeff Berkowitz: But you’ve got to look at the transportation costs. Presumably if the transportation costs of something closer to the US, even though it’s a world market-
Robert Abboud: Oil is-
Jeff Berkowitz: It’s costly to ship. You got accidents. Tankers go down.
Robert Abboud: Shipping is pretty—
Jeff Berkowitz: Not a big deal? Okay.
Robert Abboud: I mean, once you get, if you’re drilling in ANWR, once you get it to the port, whether you travel an extra six thousand miles with it, low incremental cost.
Abboud agnostic on Drilling in ANWR and off-shore?
Jeff Berkowitz: Well, hypothetically, ANWR, people say that’s really a fertile region up there [for oil], it’s a small part of Alaska, it’s not going to affect the environment much, would you buy into that—drilling in ANWR?
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Well, John McCain didn’t. It’s only recently that he suddenly flip flopped on that subject.
Jeff Berkowitz: But, he said the price changed. The price [of oil] went up radically in the last six months, or year—it’s almost doubled. Might that be reasonable to change your position. People are concerned about the environment, but when the cost is very high in terms of the opportunity cost of not drilling--
Robert Abboud: Right.
Jeff Berkowitz: You know something about economics…
Robert Abboud: Our family does know a little bit about economics
Jeff Berkowitz: They know a lot about economics.
Robert Abboud: I think the issue of off-shore drilling and drilling in the ANWR is a relatively small piece of the over-all energy plan and it is a piece that I am going to look at in that light.
Jeff Berkowitz: So, you haven’t decided. You’re agnostic on that?
Robert Abboud: I am relatively agnostic, I want to see--
Jeff Berkowitz: You might favor drilling in ANWR, you might not. You are not committing on that?
Robert Abboud: I want to make sure that we have the ability to be able to take advantage of that. What I don’t want to see is us drilling in ANWR and that oil winds up in India or in China. That’s the part that concerns me. I don’t want to see domestic resources winding up in someone else’s refinery.
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Thanks to "Public Affairs," intern Amy Allen for preparing a draft of the above partial transcript of this week's suburban edition of "Public Affairs."
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Jeff Berkowitz, show host and executive legal recruiter, debates and discusses with Robert Abboud, 16th Cong. Dist. Democratic Nominee and Barrington Hills Village President, domestic and foreign policy issues including what the price of gas will be in two years if the Abboud Energy Plan is enacted, how gas and oil prices are determined, why refineries are not being built in the U. S., the role nuclear plants should play in future energy production, the concept of an American Power Authority, potential expansion of off-shore drilling, potential drilling in ANWR, the impact on gas prices of expanding off-shore drilling and drilling in ANWR, along with other proposals for alternate energy production.
Additional topics include whether it is necessary for a good economy that the manufacturing sector be maintained at the top of its game, whether Candidate Abboud would have supported NAFTA in 1994 or CAFTA in 2005, whether Abboud supports free trade or “fair trade,” whether our trade agreement with China is reciprocal and whether Abboud is running as an anti-war Democrat, whether it is important for the U. S. “to win,” in Iraq and what winning in Iraq means, did the Surge work?
Yet more topics include school vouchers-school choice and charter schools; is Abboud a centrist Democrat or an independent? How many times has Abboud taken a Democratic Primary ballot in the last 18 years? Was Abboud ever a Reagan Republican? Can Abboud self-finance?
For more information about the 16th Cong. Dist. campaign of Robert Abboud, please go here.
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Public Affairs Chicago Metro suburban airing schedule.
The show with Robert Abboud is airing this week in the North and Northwest Chicago Metro suburbs in its regular slot:
Tonight (Tuesday) at 8:30 pm on Comcast Cable Channel 19 in Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, parts of Inverness, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles, Northfield, Palatine, Rolling Meadows and Wilmette
and Tonight (Tuesday) at 8:30 pm on Comcast Cable Channel 35 in Arlington Heights, Bartlett, Glenview, Golf, Des Plaines, Hanover Park, Mt. Prospect, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Prospect Heights, Schaumburg, Skokie, Streamwood and Wheeling.
and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8:30 pm airing on Comcast Cable Channel 19 in Bannockburn, Deerfield, Ft. Sheridan, Glencoe, Highland Park, Highwood, Kenilworth, Lincolnshire, Riverwoods and Winnetka.
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Public Affairs City of Chicago and City of Aurora airing schedule, featuring Robert Abboud this coming Monday night.
The "Public Affairs," show with 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud will also air throughout the City of Chicago this coming Monday night, Aug. 11, at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21 (CANTV) and that same night on cable in Aurora and surrounding areas at 7:30 pm on ACTV-10. The Aurora station, Aurora Community Television, Comcast Cable Ch. 10, reaches all of Aurora, Bristol, Big Rock and parts of Oswego, Sandwich, Sugar Grove and Montgomery.
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Jeff Berkowitz, Show Host/Producer of "Public Affairs," and Executive Legal Recruiter doing legal search can be reached at JBCG@aol.com. You may watch "Public Affairs," shows with Presidential Candidates Obama and McCain, this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of Public Affairs w/16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud(Barrington Hills Village President), last night's Chicago and Aurora edition of Public Affairs with Cook County Cmsr. and Republican State's Attorney Nominee Tony Peraica and shows with many other pols (including some archived as far back as 2005 at www.PublicAffairsTv.com
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Recently posted shows on the Public Affairs YouTube page include this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of Public Affairs w/ 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud, who is taking on 16 year, 16th CD Republican incumbent, Cong. Don Manzullo; last night's Chicago and Aurora edition of Public Affairs with Cook County Cmsr. and Republican State's Attorney Nominee Tony Peraica, and other recent shows featuring the Real Clear Politics' Tom Bevan , 13th CD Demoratic Nominee Scott Harper,State Rep. Candidate Tim Stratton (R-Glencoe, 58th Dist.), Sen. Kwame Raoul(D-Chicago), Senator John Cullerton (D-Chicago)- ; State Rep. candidate Joan Solms (R-Aurora), Comm. Forrest Claypool (D-Chicago) on the Obama Presidential campaign and shows with many other pols.
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Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): If we enact the Abboud energy plan, in twenty-four months, gas prices will be half of what they are today. Done. Period.
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Robert Abboud: I am not fundamentally against drilling at all.
Jeff Berkowitz: Really, so you would favor expansion of off-shore drilling?
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Jeff Berkowitz: So, you haven’t decided. You’re agnostic on that?
Robert Abboud: I am relatively agnostic, I want to see--
Jeff Berkowitz: You might favor drilling in ANWR, you might not. You are not committing on that?
******************************
Now posted on our Youtube page (top left hand corner] is this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of "Public Affairs," featuring 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud (Barrington Hills), who is taking on 16 year Republican incumbent Don Manzullo (Egan). Watch the "Public Affairs" show with Robert Abboud here.
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Tune in to this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of "Public Affairs," to watch Show Host and Executive Legal Recruiter Jeff Berkowitz discus and debate with 16th CD Dem. Nominee Robert Abboud candidate Abboud's energy plan to reduce gas prices $2/gallon by 2010, whether the U. S. should permit drilling in ANWR and off-shore, whether it is important to win in Iraq and what winning means, how to improve education and many other domestic and foreign public policy issues. [See, below, for a more detailed list of show topics].
You can watch the show with 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud on your computer, 24-7. It is anticipated the show will also air next week on the Illinois Channel across the state of Illinois, including within many portions of the 16th CD. [Specifics on airing schedule to follow]
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The Public Affairs Chicago Metro suburban, Chicago and Aurora airing schedule is included, below.
********************************************************************
A detailed list of show topics is included, below.
*******************************************************************
A Partial Transcript of this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of Public Affairs, featuring 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud (D-Barrington Hills) is included, below:
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Jeff Berkowitz: People would know you’re the Village President of Barrington Hills. You have a nuclear background as long as Kareem Abdul-Jabaar was tall, or Michael Jordan, or whatever you want to say.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): It’s the first time I’ve ever been compared to them.
Gas and oil prices.
Jeff Berkowitz: There you go. Big background. But, let’s go right to gas prices. That’s something you’d know something about with your background in energy, and so forth. And, as we’re taping, oil prices are coming down, but gas prices, not so much. I think they’re still in the four dollars per gallon [range]-
Robert Abboud: That’s right.
Jeff Berkowitz: Four dollars and twenty five cents.
Robert Abboud: Unless you’re buying diesel fuel, and then it’s still four sixty or four seventy a gallon.
Jeff Berkowitz: Tell me. If you go to Congress--Robert Abboud, what will gas prices be in a year or two after you go to Congress? Can you have an impact? Can Congress have an impact? Can the President have an impact?
Robert Abboud: Absolutely.
Abboud’s energy plan to cut gas prices by 50% in two years
Jeff Berkowitz: Gas prices. Make a prediction. You and the Democrats maintain power [thru] 2010. What do you think the price of gasoline will be two years from now?
Robert Abboud: If we enact the Abboud energy plan, in twenty four months, gas prices will be half of what they are today. Done. Period.
Jeff Berkowitz: Really. Two dollars a gallon.
Robert Abboud: It will be in the two dollar a gallon range. Maybe less.
Jeff Berkowitz: And that will happen in two years.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): We can do that in twenty-four months.
Jeff Berkowitz: You can understand why people watching and listening to this might be a bit skeptical.
Robert Abboud: Sure. Absolutely.
Bringing back nuclear power?
Jeff Berkowitz: How are you going to overcome that skepticism? If they say, what are you going to do? You’re big on nukes. You’re going to bring in nuclear power, that could take five, ten years before you get those plants online, right?
Robert Abboud: Right.
Jeff Berkowitz: That can’t be the answer.
Robert Abboud: It certainly is very much part of the answer.
Jeff Berkowitz: For the two year period?
The distilled fuel market: an unregulated oligopoly?
Robert Abboud: Absolutely. But, the thing that you have to understand is how gas prices actually work, how oil prices actually work. Everybody’s focused on, for example, crude oil, the price of crude oil. The fact is, you don’t use crude oil in your car. You don’t burn crude oil in your car. You burn distilled fuel—gasoline, diesel fuel. You burn biofuels. Those are the commodities that we really have to be looking at. The fact is that the marketplace in the United States for distilled fuel is not an open, vibrant marketplace. It’s essentially an unregulated oligopoly with about five major players in there. There’re a few small ones.
Jeff Berkowitz: Who are they?
Robert Abboud: Principally, they’re Dutch Royal Shell, BP—I should know the list.
Jeff Berkowitz: But five major oil companies.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Just five major oil companies.
Jeff Berkowitz: Exxon would be one of them.
It’s the refineries, stupid?
Robert Abboud: Exxon would be one of them. Citgo, so you know it’s that group that controls the major portion of the refining operations that are going on. Gasoline, for the most part, is not traded internationally. Gasoline, for the most part, stays domestically, although we do ship quite a bit of gasoline to Mexico, which is-
Jeff Berkowitz: But oil’s traded internationally.
Robert Abboud: But oil’s traded internationally.
Jeff Berkowitz: And gasoline comes from oil.
Robert Abboud: Gasoline comes from oil, but right now our refinery capacity is running right near ninety seven percent. So, you can make all the-
Jeff Berkowitz: Who’s to blame for that? Why don’t we have more refineries?
Robert Abboud: We are to blame for that.
Jeff Berkowitz: The United States?
Robert Abboud: We as a country. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: Right, and who in particular?
Robert Abboud: We’re all to blame.
Who’s to blame for the lack of refinery capacity in the U. S.
Jeff Berkowitz: Who in particular? Is the Democratic Party to blame? Because Republicans say those folks keep raising barriers, they don’t want to have new refineries. They say they do, but whenever there’s a law that would say “ease up on permit processes,” and so forth-
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Easy thing to say.
Jeff Berkowitz: Republicans say Democrats-
Robert Abboud: First thing I would tell you is the Republicans have been in power since late ‘90s-
Jeff Berkowitz: In [the House], they were there from '94 to 2006.
Robert Abboud: Yeah, exactly. So where have they been-
Jeff Berkowitz: Democrats have had the helm in Congress for [the last] two years.
Robert Abboud: Don Manzullo’s been in there—I mean, that’s the guy I’m running against—Don Manzullo’s been in there since ’92.
Jeff Berkowitz: Sixteen years.
Sixteen years, what has Cong. Manzullo done on the issues?
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Sixteen years, where’s he been on this issue? He offers a twelve point energy plan, about two weeks, week and a half, after we issue ours. Where’s he been for sixteen years? And I think anyone who’s been in the energy industry--whether you’re on the electric side, whether you’re on the oil side, gas—has known that the real problem is that we don’t have a real solid energy policy in this country, and we haven’t had one.
Jeff Berkowitz: Some of your policy is to advance nuclear energy. You’re in favor of that?
Robert Abboud: That’s part of it, absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: Your background is in nuclear energy.
Robert Abboud: That’s right.
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Jeff Berkowitz: So you know something about nuclear, and you say this country should go nuclear. We haven’t had a new plant in what, thirty years?
Robert Abboud: The last new plants came online in the ‘80s, and then, since then, we’ve actually been adding new nuclear capacity, but we’ve been adding it by improving the performance of the existing plants. So we’ve really upgraded about twenty percent worth of new capacity.
Jeff Berkowitz: But now you’re saying—one part of your program, one prong—is to do something to advance many more nuclear plants. Advance a number of nuclear plants.
Robert Abboud: That’s right. We’re about twenty percent nuclear in this country, and in order for us to move ahead, we essentially need to double that inventory.
Jeff Berkowitz: Okay.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): And in order to do that, what I’m proposing is something called the American Power Authority. The American Power Authority is a federal authority that functions much the same way as Tennessee Valley Authority does, the authority that built the great dams out west. Essentially what you create is a government planning structure which is financed by private capital—so this isn’t new tax dollars that come in. It forms a long-term planning horizon and has multi-jurisdictional capability, so we don’t get into this problem of state authority vs. local authority vs. federal authority.
Jeff Berkowitz: And one thing it’s going to do is radically ramp up the number of nuclear power plants, right? That’s one thing.
Robert Abboud: That’s one thing. That’s correct.
Jeff Berkowitz: Is it also going to do something about solar?
Robert Abboud: Absolutely. The whole point of the American Power Authority is to bring new power capability and energy capacity to the marketplace. And, principally, that means nuclear, for making electricity, refineries, for making distillate fuel from crude oil and from biofuels, and the biofuel component is extremely important, and for alternate sources of, principally, electricity, which are primarily through wind and solar.
Jeff Berkowitz: And all those things, I guess—I should say, we’ve invited Congressman Manzullo here; he’s unable to be here today, but he’s committed to be here in the very near future, so we’ll take him at his word that he will be here, and we’ll interview him separately. We look forward to having Congressman Manzullo on with his opponent, Robert Abboud. And you, of course, would be agreeable to that?
Robert Abboud: Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: Any time, anywhere?
Robert Abboud: Any time, any place, doesn’t matter, any subject.
Jeff Berkowitz: He [Cong. Manzullo) presumably, from what I understand, favors nuclear energy, probably favors biofuels, and probably favors electric plug-in, and hybrids. So, all of that, you’d be similar on, but he also favors—extensive, from what I understand—extensive increase in off-shore drilling. You, not so much, right?
Abboud not fundamentally against drilling?
Robert Abboud: I am not fundamentally against drilling at all.
Jeff Berkowitz: Really, so you would favor expansion of off-shore drilling?
Robert Abboud: well, here’s the argument. As I said before, oil is traded internationally. You drill anywhere on this planet, and it winds up in the oil pool.
Jeff Berkowitz: The world market.
Robert Abboud: In he world market. As an engineer, I feel confident, we can drill anywhere on this planet. There are some places that are far more complicated to drill than others, and off-shore is a very complicated place to drill. Talk about drilling in the ANWR, it’s also another complicated place.
Jeff Berkowitz: Although it’s a lot better than it was ten years ago, the oil companies argue, and more environmentally clean.
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Technology gets better. The whole bit. The real question is, does it do what you want to do? And what is it you want to do? You want to lower gas prices. Just going out and drilling for more oil doesn’t do anything for gas prices in the United States, because, as we said before, the refinery capacity is not there to bring more distillate fuel into the marketplace. Why do the oil companies want to drill more? Because when you’re an oil company and you get a new lease, you go and log that well. The value of that well goes up against your balance sheet. And so, essentially what you did was, you just suddenly made your company worth a whole lot more in assets, versus the existing debt that you have, and that improves your stock price.
Jeff Berkowitz: If there’s actually expected to be oil there, if it can be drilled at a price that works.
Robert Abboud: And that’s what logging is all about.
Jeff Berkowitz: But then if you do that and people know about it, there are futures markets—you know about that.
Robert Abboud: Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: So if this oil is coming online, and everybody can see it, including OPEC, and other buyers and sellers, it could affect prices in the next few years, right? Because of what it does in the future.
Robert Abboud: I think of it as a marginal opportunity to improve crude oil pricing, but as I said, the problem with doing that, it’s going to be a very small, relatively small increment. Even the Department of Energy, their latest study has shown that it’s a relatively small increment.
Jeff Berkowitz: We don’t know. They could be right, they could be wrong. The point is, why not do it? Maybe they’re wrong and the price goes down dramatically as a result.
Robert Abboud: Well, because of the real cost of doing it.
Off-Shore Drilling as part of a larger energy package?
Jeff Berkowitz: In conjunction with doing all these other things—in conjunction with all these other things that you’ve mentioned as well? It’s not to the exclusion of that.
Robert Abboud: Here’s the problem. If all you do is go and drill-
Jeff Berkowitz: No, but you don’t. Say you do all the things that you’ve mentioned but you throw in off-shore drilling, expand that radically. You hope all work, you’re not sure. But, throw everything--
Robert Abboud: Sure.
Jeff Berkowitz: Would you favor that?
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): If we were able to bring forward the capacity to be able to use those domestic resources. And, you also have to look at, what are we doing with those domestic resources? Remember, this is oil that’s within our control. And there’s oil that is elsewhere in the world right now that maybe we want to think about using first.
Jeff Berkowitz: But you’ve got to look at the transportation costs. Presumably if the transportation costs of something closer to the US, even though it’s a world market-
Robert Abboud: Oil is-
Jeff Berkowitz: It’s costly to ship. You got accidents. Tankers go down.
Robert Abboud: Shipping is pretty—
Jeff Berkowitz: Not a big deal? Okay.
Robert Abboud: I mean, once you get, if you’re drilling in ANWR, once you get it to the port, whether you travel an extra six thousand miles with it, low incremental cost.
Abboud agnostic on Drilling in ANWR and off-shore?
Jeff Berkowitz: Well, hypothetically, ANWR, people say that’s really a fertile region up there [for oil], it’s a small part of Alaska, it’s not going to affect the environment much, would you buy into that—drilling in ANWR?
Robert Abboud, 16th CD Dem. Nominee (Barrington Hills): Well, John McCain didn’t. It’s only recently that he suddenly flip flopped on that subject.
Jeff Berkowitz: But, he said the price changed. The price [of oil] went up radically in the last six months, or year—it’s almost doubled. Might that be reasonable to change your position. People are concerned about the environment, but when the cost is very high in terms of the opportunity cost of not drilling--
Robert Abboud: Right.
Jeff Berkowitz: You know something about economics…
Robert Abboud: Our family does know a little bit about economics
Jeff Berkowitz: They know a lot about economics.
Robert Abboud: I think the issue of off-shore drilling and drilling in the ANWR is a relatively small piece of the over-all energy plan and it is a piece that I am going to look at in that light.
Jeff Berkowitz: So, you haven’t decided. You’re agnostic on that?
Robert Abboud: I am relatively agnostic, I want to see--
Jeff Berkowitz: You might favor drilling in ANWR, you might not. You are not committing on that?
Robert Abboud: I want to make sure that we have the ability to be able to take advantage of that. What I don’t want to see is us drilling in ANWR and that oil winds up in India or in China. That’s the part that concerns me. I don’t want to see domestic resources winding up in someone else’s refinery.
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Thanks to "Public Affairs," intern Amy Allen for preparing a draft of the above partial transcript of this week's suburban edition of "Public Affairs."
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Jeff Berkowitz, show host and executive legal recruiter, debates and discusses with Robert Abboud, 16th Cong. Dist. Democratic Nominee and Barrington Hills Village President, domestic and foreign policy issues including what the price of gas will be in two years if the Abboud Energy Plan is enacted, how gas and oil prices are determined, why refineries are not being built in the U. S., the role nuclear plants should play in future energy production, the concept of an American Power Authority, potential expansion of off-shore drilling, potential drilling in ANWR, the impact on gas prices of expanding off-shore drilling and drilling in ANWR, along with other proposals for alternate energy production.
Additional topics include whether it is necessary for a good economy that the manufacturing sector be maintained at the top of its game, whether Candidate Abboud would have supported NAFTA in 1994 or CAFTA in 2005, whether Abboud supports free trade or “fair trade,” whether our trade agreement with China is reciprocal and whether Abboud is running as an anti-war Democrat, whether it is important for the U. S. “to win,” in Iraq and what winning in Iraq means, did the Surge work?
Yet more topics include school vouchers-school choice and charter schools; is Abboud a centrist Democrat or an independent? How many times has Abboud taken a Democratic Primary ballot in the last 18 years? Was Abboud ever a Reagan Republican? Can Abboud self-finance?
For more information about the 16th Cong. Dist. campaign of Robert Abboud, please go here.
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Public Affairs Chicago Metro suburban airing schedule.
The show with Robert Abboud is airing this week in the North and Northwest Chicago Metro suburbs in its regular slot:
Tonight (Tuesday) at 8:30 pm on Comcast Cable Channel 19 in Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, parts of Inverness, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles, Northfield, Palatine, Rolling Meadows and Wilmette
and Tonight (Tuesday) at 8:30 pm on Comcast Cable Channel 35 in Arlington Heights, Bartlett, Glenview, Golf, Des Plaines, Hanover Park, Mt. Prospect, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Prospect Heights, Schaumburg, Skokie, Streamwood and Wheeling.
and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8:30 pm airing on Comcast Cable Channel 19 in Bannockburn, Deerfield, Ft. Sheridan, Glencoe, Highland Park, Highwood, Kenilworth, Lincolnshire, Riverwoods and Winnetka.
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Public Affairs City of Chicago and City of Aurora airing schedule, featuring Robert Abboud this coming Monday night.
The "Public Affairs," show with 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud will also air throughout the City of Chicago this coming Monday night, Aug. 11, at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21 (CANTV) and that same night on cable in Aurora and surrounding areas at 7:30 pm on ACTV-10. The Aurora station, Aurora Community Television, Comcast Cable Ch. 10, reaches all of Aurora, Bristol, Big Rock and parts of Oswego, Sandwich, Sugar Grove and Montgomery.
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Jeff Berkowitz, Show Host/Producer of "Public Affairs," and Executive Legal Recruiter doing legal search can be reached at JBCG@aol.com. You may watch "Public Affairs," shows with Presidential Candidates Obama and McCain, this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of Public Affairs w/16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud(Barrington Hills Village President), last night's Chicago and Aurora edition of Public Affairs with Cook County Cmsr. and Republican State's Attorney Nominee Tony Peraica and shows with many other pols (including some archived as far back as 2005 at www.PublicAffairsTv.com
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Recently posted shows on the Public Affairs YouTube page include this week's Chicago Metro suburban edition of Public Affairs w/ 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud, who is taking on 16 year, 16th CD Republican incumbent, Cong. Don Manzullo; last night's Chicago and Aurora edition of Public Affairs with Cook County Cmsr. and Republican State's Attorney Nominee Tony Peraica, and other recent shows featuring the Real Clear Politics' Tom Bevan , 13th CD Demoratic Nominee Scott Harper,State Rep. Candidate Tim Stratton (R-Glencoe, 58th Dist.), Sen. Kwame Raoul(D-Chicago), Senator John Cullerton (D-Chicago)- ; State Rep. candidate Joan Solms (R-Aurora), Comm. Forrest Claypool (D-Chicago) on the Obama Presidential campaign and shows with many other pols.
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