Road Trip Report, Day Eight
CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod hit the road to chart pain at the pump. Here's his Web-exclusive daily road diary.
Here we are, starting week two of the CBS News Cross-Country Price Patrol in Wamsutter, Wyo. The spiking price of oil is breathing new life into boom towns long gone bust such as Wamsutter. Well, if not exactly new life into the town, at least into the oil fields surrounding the town.
Oil companies are turning over every last stone looking for oil in fields that were thought to be tapped out. They are not only uncapping old wells, but using new technologies like injecting carbon dioxide into the ground to try to push the last bits of oil out of the ground.
The high price of gas may mean bad things for a limo driver in New York, a farmer in Nebraska, or an RV owner in Indiana. But in Wyoming, the oil spikes mean jobs. They want to drill between 300 and 600 new oil and natural gas wells in Wyoming. Each one requires a minimum of 22 workers. To make sure there are enough roughnecks — the oil business term for the rig workers — the state of Wyoming has started a school to train them. It's a one week course with 100 percent placement in jobs with starting salaries in the $40,000 or $50,000 range.
I just spent the morning in class, including getting training in climbing a rig. We'll show you that tonight on the CBS Evening News. It was much harder than I could have imagined — although I'm not exactly what you'd call mechanically inclined. I consider changing a roll of toilet paper a home repair.
We are 2,235 miles into our trip. We've spent $331 on gas so far. Wyoming today is where we've seen our trip's cheapest gas ($2.39 per gallon). Utah tomorrow, Nevada Wednesday. Then we head for California and a story on hybrids. The big finale, Gorda, Calif. — and gas that was pushing $4.00 a gallon — is Friday.
It's been an amazing trip. Every reporter who works for a national broadcast ought to be required to drive the country. There's just too much America between the coasts to simply fly over — too many different kinds of people, too many different issues that you can't understand unless you've talked to the folks they effect personally. You want to understand America? Drive.