a barrel of oil costs about a hundred bucks. when this comes off of public land the company pays the federal government a royalty of about $15, but when this gold comes off of public land, and much of it does, the company says a zero percent royalty, nothing. gold is selling for $1,500 an ounce. looser is you and our deficit. rather than amend the law so that taxpayers get something for our minerals, senator reid has fought reform. even the new york times has called him an obstacle shall quote to change. senator reid through the years has aligned himself with those interests to thwart mining law reform time and time again. reporter: the debate is over royalties, oil companies pay an 18.7% royalty on off-shore oil, 12% when it s drilled onshore, the same rate as coal companies pay. gold, silver uranium companies pay nothing, a zero percent
lean on you again tomorrow, okay? we ll see where we are then. chuck nash out of washington. martha: you were talking about the uncertainty that surrounds this effort in libya and that has not gone downnoticed by the oil markets because prices are up once again and that means higher costs at the gas pump as well. take a price at of crude oil, $104. just to put that in perspective, that is up $19 since the middle of february. that is a huge climb for oil, and it comes as the president pledges $3 billion to help brazil with its off shore oil reserves, and that is raising a lot of eyebrows here at home in the united states. let s sort this out with none other than stuart varney, of course, from the fox business network. stuart, good morning. very significant moves in oil prices here. look, you ve got confusion over the goal, the leadership, and the duration of the military events in libya. there s confusion about that. so people are looking at the
situation, saying wait a minute, we re not going to get any oil out of libya for a long time to come. that takes oil continues taking oil off the market so the price of oil has gone up again. you just showed the price of oil at $104 a barrel, the news martha is this morning, it s gone to $105 a barrel and the price of gasoline, since february 16th, when the libyan events began, has gone from 3.13 a gallon to 3.55, 3.56. that s where we are today. so you ve got the price of oil going up a little bit more because of the confusion surrounding the events in libya and martha you re absolutely right, the world is absolutely astounded to hear that president obama is committing $3 billion of american money in a credit to the brazilians so that they can go and exploit their off shore oil at precisely the moment when we re not allowed, it is illegal to exploit our off shore oil reserves, so you ve got this real contradiction in the world market price, the price is