The Real Reason Conservatives Oppose the Iran Deal? Oil!

The news is full of stories of economic woe in oil-producing states. From North Dakota:

The benchmark crude price has declined to $42 per barrel, after rallying in June to $60. North Dakota’s crude oil trades at a discount to the Oklahoma benchmark because of the higher cost of shipping most of it by rail. Helms said Friday’s North Dakota wellhead price estimate was $28.50 a barrel, down nearly $11 from last month.

From Texas:

“People didn’t have to work anymore [during the height of the fracking boom],” said Elliott Skloss, a sign maker for the county road and bridge department. “Now they’ll have to work or panhandle if the oil price doesn’t go back up.” His family farms had five oil and gas wells that earned monthly checks worth $50,000 just a year ago, but they now earn one-tenth as much because of the decline in prices and well production. 

From Alaska:

The result, historians and economists say, is beyond the experience of this state, or probably any other in modern times: more than half of the tax base — predicated on crude oil selling at around $110 a barrel — is simply gone in the whirlwind of $50 oil, as though it never existed. A spending plan of $6.1 billion for 2015, passed by the Legislature last year, will fall $3.5 billion short, or more, if oil prices keep falling. Alaska collects no state sales or income taxes to pick up the slack; a savings fund from past oil earnings will help, but it cannot fully fill the gap either. 

If the Iran nuclear deal goes through, the sanctions that keep Iranian oil off the world market will be lifted. Iranian oil will flood the market and oil prices will plummet to even lower levels. Oil industry analysts are predicting major savings:

"Once we get past Labor Day, we should see gas falling by 10 to 15 cents a month," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service. "By December a lot of places are going to see gasoline at $2 or less."

Remember Sarah Palin's salacious "Drill, baby, drill!" innuendo? Michelle Bachmann's "I'll bring back $2 gas" promise? Well, it's happening on Barack Obama's watch.

This is the real reason conservatives are opposed to the Iran nuclear deal. This is the real reason conservatives are opposed to renewable energy such as wind and solar power, which are quickly becoming cheaper than oil and natural gas even at historically low fossil fuel prices. This is the real reason conservatives oppose fuel economy and power plant emissions regulations, which save consumers money and and save lives.

The oil and pipeline billionaires dictate domestic and foreign policy to the Republican Party based on what's profitable for them, regardless of what's good for the economy and the environment.