Tag Archives: Topic: Energy

CBS Chicago: Hold on to your wallets: we are in the middle of a gas price spike, and experts say it will only get worse. CBS 2′s Courtney Gousman learned several factors might push the price in our area to more than $4 a gallon.

NCPA Policy Digest: The renewable fuel standard (RFS) is increasing the biofuel-blending requirements. This change can give rise to numerous damaging spillovers throughout the economy, says Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow in environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institu

Washington Post: For the chairman and chief executive of Murray Energy, an Ohio-based coal company, the reelection of President Obama was no cause for celebration. It was a time for prayer – and layoffs.

Wall Street Journal: President Obama is campaigning as a champion of the oil and gas boom he’s had nothing to do with, and even as his regulators try to stifle it. The latest example is the Interior Department’s little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The area is called the National Petroleum Reserve because in 1976 Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the “energy needs of the nation.

CBS 5: Obama had led by 22 points in the CBS 5 tracking poll released four weeks ago. Obama now leads by only 14 points, an 8-point improvement for Romney.

LA Times: Gov. Jerry Brown took “emergency steps” Sunday to try to bring down record gas prices in the state. He directed the California Air Resources Board to increase the fuel supply by allowing the immediate sale and import of cheaper and more available winter-blend gasoline.

USA Today: In the nation’s densest motoring Mecca, some southern California gas stations are starting to run out of gas. And $5-a-gallon gas could be on the way.

Reuters: Mitt Romney’s support of the coal industry during his debate with President Obama sent coal company stocks higher on Thursday, analysts said.

Reuters: Crude oil should be at least $150 per barrel, Iran’s oil minister was quoted as saying on Sunday, and the sanctions-hit country’s OPEC governor said current oil prices were not high enough to threaten the world economy.

Ron Paul: Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it– not even a pretense of gold convertibility! Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind-boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence backed the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite radical Islamic movements among those who resented our influence in the region.

NCPA Policy Digest: For instance, if a pipeline in Phoenix were to burst and prevent supplies to the city, Phoenix could not look to Tucson for supplies because there are different EPA standards for the blend of fuels they each use.

Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy quoting from a Wall Street Journal article: For most of the 20th century, the United States was a single market for gasoline. Today we have a series of fragmentary, regional markets thanks to dozens of regulatory requirements imposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state regulators.

CNSNews: report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that lifting the ban on federal oil drilling in certain areas could increase U.S. petroleum reserves by 30 percent, including an estimated 8 billion barrels of oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Human Events: “This effectively kills coal in America,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), author of the measure.

San Francisco Chronicle: Venezuela surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest holder of proven oil reserves, a resource that President Hugo Chavez promises to tap if he gets re-elected in October.

Breitbart embeds the CNBC interview with Trump. The last quarter of the interview discuss the international oil situation and this story.

Rael Jean Isaac at the Wall Street Journal (via Google): Unless Europe radically rethinks its obsession with carbon-dioxide emissions and the anti-fossil fuel energy policies that flow from it, growth is likely to remain elusive.

Findlaw: Colorado Mining Association President Stuart Sanderson wants the Supreme Court to reverse the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. Sanderson claims, “If allowed to stand, the roadless rule will effectively prevent future mining operations on roadless lands, leading to a decrease in mineral and coal production, job losses and sharp decreases in taxes and revenues from the coal mining industry that are critical to local governments and public school systems,” the Denver Post reports.

NCPA Policy Digest: However, a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) undermines the president’s assumption. Focusing on the Green River Formation in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, GAO Director of Natural Resources and Environment Anu Mittal told Congress recently that just one small part of the United States is capable of out-producing the rest of the planet.

Phyllis Schlafly at Townhall: The stunning repudiation of Sen. Richard Lugar’s, R-Ind., bid for a seventh term has sent shock waves through Washington’s internationalist lobby . . . Americans today are in no mood for subordinating U.S. sovereignty, plus seven-tenths of the world’s surface area, to another entangling global bureaucracy, so advocates are using Orwellian talking points to pretend that LOST would do the opposite.

The HIll: Al Armendariz, the Environmental Protection Agency official under fire for comparing enforcement of environmental laws to crucifixion, has resigned.

Education News (includes video): Schools brainwash children into preferring non-existence. A 12-year-old girl has responded with the stunning “I wish we didn’t exist” to questions about how she feels about pollution and humanity’s impact on the earth, according to a new video released by Brian Sussman, author of “Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda will Dismantle America.”

The HIll: Salazar, in one of his most fiery speeches in months, accused Republicans of creating a false divide over energy policy that doesn’t reflect public sentiment and stretches the facts to suit their political agenda.

The Hill: Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Wednesday is expected to introduce an omnibus energy/federal land use bill combining several bills that have passed the House over the last year but have stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition.

The HIll: Senate Democrats will hold firm and reject House Republican demands to include approval of the Keystone oil pipeline in transportation funding legislation, their leader said Tuesday.

The Hill: All but 14 Republicans, with support from 70 Democrats, voted 293-197 for legislation that falls far short of Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) earlier plan to move a sweeping five-year, $260 billion package.

AP: In a bold move to gain control of Argentina’s energy reserves, President Cristina Fernandez pushed forward a bill to renationalize the country’s largest oil company on Monday despite fierce criticism from abroad and the risk of a major rift with Spain.

Christian Science Monitor: Sudan’s government vowed on Thursday to deal swiftly with South Sudan’s occupation of an economically vital oil field near the border but the south said it would not pull out until the threat of attacks by the northern army had gone.

The Hill: The coal industry will suffer the same fate as Osama bin Laden under new climate regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the head of the United Mine Workers of America said this week.

One News Now: “This is a lose-lose for the American people,” he decides. “We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, and yet President Obama through the EPA is preventing us from using that natural resource.”

AP: Exxon Mobil is no longer the world’s biggest publicly traded producer of oil.

Rasmussen: What can your country do for you? A plurality (48%) of Americans thinks the federal government should eliminate the federal gas tax until gas prices come down.

Financial Times: Tehran has warned Saudi Arabia several times over the last two months not to increase its oil production to offset the impact of the US and European sanctions on Tehran’s crude exports.

The Hill: The White House scrambled Monday to contain the political damage from rising gas prices, which have emerged as a primary threat to President Obama’s reelection.

The Hill (includes video): North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) called on Congress to quickly pass legislation to green-light the Keystone XL oil pipeline, arguing that the Obama administration is “killing energy development.”

Fox News: Chu was asked if he drove a Chevy Volt, a car he praised during the hearing, but claimed he didn’t own a car ‘at the moment’

The Hill: The Senate has rejected a GOP plan to approve construction of the Keystone oil pipeline after President Obama made personal calls to Democrats urging them to oppose it.

Bloomberg: President Barack Obama, seeking to head off an election-year showdown over energy policy, has been calling wavering Senate Democrats to lobby against a Republican measure that would force approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, according to a Democratic aide.

Washington Post: Late Wednesday, Senate leaders agreed to hold 30 votes on a series of related and unrelated amendments, including measures to cut taxes, authorize offshore continential oil drilling and two proposals related to the Keystone XL Pipeline. Votes are likely to continue into early next week, Senate aides said.

Boston Globe (AP): Egyptian security officials say militants have again blown up a gas pipeline in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula that transports fuel to neighboring Israel.

The Hill: Republican candidate Newt Gingrich said President Obama should fire Energy Secretary Steven Chu following his remark this week that reducing gas prices is not the “overall goal” of his agency.

Heritage Foundation The Foundry: But for Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu, those steep prices aren’t even a concern. In fact, he says his goal is not to get the price of gasoline to go down.

The Daily Caller: The November decision to reject the construction plan “was the result of a decision made, to honor, the concerns of those in Nebraska, including the Republican governor … [that the pipeline] would threaten the water supply in Nebraska,” Carney said.

The Hill: Three House Democrats urged President Obama Wednesday to consider releasing oil from the country’s emergency stockpiles in order to lower gas prices.

Tampa CBS Local: Talk about pain at the pump! Some Florida drivers are spending nearly $6 a gallon to fill up their gas tanks.

OneNewsNow.com: Rick Santorum says he questions President Barack Obama’s worldview, but not whether he’s a Christian.

WorldNetDaily: Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.

News from The Associated Press: When federal regulators approved a 39-mile natural gas pipeline through northern Pennsylvania’s pristine Endless Mountains, they cited the operator’s assurances that it would make sparing use of eminent domain as it negotiated with more than 150 property owners along the pipeline’s route.

Bloomberg: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a telephone call yesterday, told Obama “Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports,” according to details provided by Harper’s office. Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said relying less on the U.S. would help strengthen the country’s “financial security.”

The Hill: The Obama administration will reject the Keystone XL pipeline Wednesday afternoon, according to a source closely following the issue.

The Hill: But they face vehement opposition from Republicans and industry groups, who argue the rules will harm the economy, force the closure of coal-fired power plants and threaten the reliability of the country’s power grid.

Washington Times: The bill doesn’t actually amend the 2007 law, but does prohibit the administration from spending any money to carry out the light bulb standards — which amounts to at least a temporary reprieve . . . The GOP tried but failed to attach restrictions on the Obama administration’s nuclear waste policy, its international family planning policy and major restrictions on the president’s environmental agenda.

NCPA Policy Digest: Electric bills have skyrocketed in the last five years, a sharp reversal from a quarter-century when Americans enjoyed stable power bills even as they used more electricity, says USA Today.

Washington Times: Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said the Republican governors of the Midwestern states who back the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline should bypass the federal government altogether and make the agreements necessary to get the $7 billion project up and running.

CNN: The United States is awash in gasoline. So much so, in fact, that the country is exporting a record amount of it.

Daniel Henninger at WSJ.com: The decision by the Obama administration to “delay” building the Keystone XL pipeline is a watershed moment in American politics. The implication of a policy choice rarely gets more stark than this. Put simply: Why should any blue-collar worker who isn’t hooked for life to a public budget vote for Barack Obama next year?

Breitbart: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Sunday that he was looking at exporting more oil to China after the United States delayed a decision on a controversial pipeline.

NYTimes.com: The Obama administration is preparing to delay a decision on the contested Keystone XL pipeline while it studies an alternate route, effectively pushing any action past the 2012 election, officials and lobbyists who have been briefed on the matter said on Thursday. An announcement is expected as early as Thursday afternoon.

The Hill: A newly leaked World Bank report calls on 24 OECD countries to boost tax burdens on their oil and gas sectors—eventually by as much as $40-$60 billion annually—in order to funnel part of the money raised to carbon-trading and other environmental concerns.

The Daily Caller: A Daily Caller investigation has found that in addition to the failed company Solyndra, at least four other solar panel manufacturing companies receiving in excess of $500 million in loan guarantees from the Obama administration employ executives or board members who have donated large sums of money to Democratic campaigns

Report: Consumers spent less, earned less in 2010 – Yahoo! Finance:

Darren Samuelsohn at Politico: Solyndra executives repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment this morning as House lawmakers pressed them to answer questions about the company’s financial collapse and any hopes of repaying their $535 million federal loan guarantee.

Houston Chronicle: Schmidt filed the lawsuit Monday to block the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing the new rules.

News from The Associated Press: The governor is scheduled to announce this year’s amount Tuesday morning. Last year’s check was $1,281 per person.

Times Of India: The European Union, Japan and the United States are already providing $30 billion a year to help poorer nations combat global warming and this Green Climate Fund will be channeling $100 billion a year by 2020.

NCPA Policy Digest: One of the broad challenges to the new health insurance mandate is rebuffed by Fourth Circuit, finding it a premature attempt to block a federal tax provision. Federal courts have no jurisdiction to hear such a challenge, the 2-1 ruling said.

Department of State: Representatives from the United States and Mexico met in Washington, DC, on August 30 and 31 to begin formal negotiations on a transboundary energy agreement. The agreement is intended to govern the disposition and regulation of hydrocarbon reservoirs that cross our international maritime boundary.

Yahoo! Finance: Gasoline is near the highest it’s ever been for this time of year, just ahead of the Labor Day weekend. The run-up in oil prices this year, combined with a rash of refining problems throughout the U.S., has boosted pump prices. The national average on Thursday is $3.629 per gallon.

FoxNews.com: At issue is the renewal of a transportation spending bill that expires Sept. 30 . . . although the president describes the proposal as a transportation bill, its key component is the federal gas tax, which has been 18.4 cents per gallon for nearly two decades.

The Guardian: The Obama administration has given an important approval to a controversial pipeline that will pump oil from the tar sands of Alberta to the Texas coast.

The Washington Post: Exxon Mobil Corp. and the federal government are fighting over one of the largest oil discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico that could yield billions of dollars of crude in coming years, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

CNN: President Michele Bachmann has a promise: $2 gas. “Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again,” Bachmann told a crowd Tuesday in South Carolina. “That will happen.”

The Hill: udge Nancy Freudenthal ruled that the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service policies that scaled-back the exemptions were issued without proper public notice and comment.

Heritage Foundation Morning Bell: Americans are paying more for gasoline today than they were six weeks ago when President Obama released 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In the Gulf of Mexico, meanwhile, 10 drilling rigs — more than one-third of the fleet — have left on Obama’s watch.