With the shale gas boom in full swing, gas prices are at 10-year lows. We have the realistic prospect of abundant domestic supplies of a clean-burning fuel for the foreseeable future, who doesn’t like natural gas? Ask the Sierra Club. This week, the venerable environmental organization announced its “Beyond Natural Gas” initiative, to go along with their “Beyond Coal” and “Beyond Oil” campaigns. Of course, | Read More »
EPA has concerns for pipeline near coast HOUSTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is concerned that permitting for the southern segment of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could be insufficient and has asked for a more extensive review. An official in the EPA’s region that oversees Texas [*] wrote a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers saying 61 water crossings near Galveston | Read More »
In a rational world, the Federal government would act as a motivated lease owner who was interested in promoting the safe and environmentally responsible development of his mineral resource, consistent with sound conservation practice. That’s why there’s a permit process in the first place. Since Macondo, that’s backwards. Operating practices must conform to the permitting process that has, um, evolved in a purely political environment: | Read More »
Take the world’s most paranoid/delusional Stalinist regime, add nuclear ambition and stir. Turn the whole mess over to a 29-year old who, by rights, should be playing video games in his parents’ basement; what’s the worst that could happen? This, for starters, from the Telegraph (UK): 30 North Korean officials involved in South talks die ‘in traffic accidents’ In its annual study, Amnesty International claimed | Read More »
This week, President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar returned to familiar territory, once again chastising energy companies for maintaining an inventory of undrilled Federal leases. Obama challenges oil companies to drill existing leases WASHINGTON – The White House on Tuesday pushed back against the oil and gas industry’s claims that the Obama administration is blocking domestic energy development, releasing a new analysis showing that 46 | Read More »
As long as our system rewards an interesting personal narrative over character, achievement or intelligence, we will have a problem with people embellishing their resumes to gain an advantage. Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren are only the most recent examples. The yellowed Hawaiian newspaper clipping is good enough for me. Obama is a natural-born American citizen. But to Occidental, Columbia and Harvard, the story of | Read More »
Vermont is not an oil and gas state. Check that. Vermont is not an oil and gas producing state. According to the state geologist’s website, a total of six wells have been drilled targeting oil and gas since the Green Mountain Boys trod its, uh, green mountains. All of the wells were dry holes, and the last one was drilled in 1984. But VT is | Read More »
Obama’s energy policies are a key vulnerability in the November elections, which has his staff scrambling to make it look like he’s actually done something to support domestic energy production. Since neither he nor anyone in his Administration knows the first thing about oil and gas, that can lead to some pretty ridiculous claims. Like, for example, the following graph, found at Obama For America‘s | Read More »
Rep. William Cassidy (R-LA) common-sense approach to increasing the role of natural gas as a vehicle fuel, without the grandiose involvement of the Federal government. Unlike the Pickens Plan, this plan does not rely on massive government subsidies or direct payments for vehicle conversion. Instead, it would change the definition of “independent producer” in the tax code, to get around their current prohibition from making | Read More »
A couple of weeks back, my boss asked a question that I could not immediately answer: The ethanol tax credit expired on December 31. The price of ethanol should have gone up afterward. Did it? How much has that affected the price of gasoline? I turned to my friends at the American Petroleum Institute for help. Their surprising answer, in part: API declined to answer | Read More »
UPDATE 4/30/2012 via Fox News: Top EPA official resigns after ‘crucify’ comment A top EPA official has resigned after coming under scrutiny for 2010 remarks in which he compared the agency’s enforcement strategy to Roman crucifixion. Al Armendariz, the top environmental official in the oil-rich South and Southwest region, resigned in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Sunday, saying he did not want | Read More »
Apologies to John Lennon. Concept by Al Armendariz, Administrator of EPA Region VI. Repair Man Jack posted the video with analysis here. No apology is necessary, Mr. Armendariz. In a perverse way, your comments reveal the tactics of your agency, and more importantly, the philosophy which motivates Mr. Obama’s entire Administration. It also speaks of the arrogance of a government that thinks its citizens are | Read More »
Happy Earth Day 2012, everyone! One day we may look back on this as the time when the tide began to recede – that being the tide of Anthropogenic Global Warming hysteria. The canary in this metaphorical mine is the Discovery Channel, long a mass purveyor of AGW porn. In its new seven-part series “Frozen Planet” Discovery confronts distraught polar bears and calving glaciers in | Read More »
All these years? Poetic license. It’s been two years since the disastrous explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Eleven rig workers were killed in a valiant but failed attempt to control BP’s Macondo well located 50 miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River in Gulf waters 5,000 feet deep. The ensuing blowout seemed to last an eternity. The finger pointing and legal action | Read More »
In the March 24 Louisiana presidential preference primary, Democratic challenger John Wolfe, Jr. scored 17,804 votes. Wolfe is a lawyer from Chattanooga, TN and a virtual unknown in Louisiana. Party rules award delegates to the national convention for any candidate whose vote exceeds 15% in a congressional district. Wolfe racked up almost 19.6% in the 1st District, 17.2% in the 3rd and 22.0% in my | Read More »
From Business Week: Exxon’s top exec got a 17pct. pay raise in 2011 Exxon Mobil gave its top executive a 17 percent increase in compensation last year, as the oil giant posted one of its most profitable years on record. Rex Tillerson, 60, received a pay package worth $25.2 million, up from $21.5 million in 2010, according to an AP analysis of a regulatory filing | Read More »
Blaming natural phenomena on fracking is this year’s fad, reminiscent of the mood ring, the pet rock or Anthropogenic Global Warming. Item 1. Vice-President of the United States Joe Biden may not know what hydrofracking is, but he does know that it sounds plenty scary. “… There’s a thing called fracking. They’ve got to go crack the rock in order to get [oil and gas] | Read More »
With 3/4 of the precincts reporting, Rick Santorum is leading with nearly 50% of the Republican vote. Romney has 26%, Gingrich 16%. Update 10:18 pm CDT: That margin looks like it will hold. See TheHayride’s analysis here. Incumbent President Barack Obama has 72% of the Democratic vote against a powerful field that includes Bob Ely, Darcy G. Richardson and John Wolfe. Unofficial tally here. Open | Read More »
What better place to start the correction of history than in the pages of The New York Times: U.S. Inches Toward Goal of Energy Independence Taken together, the increasing production and declining consumption have unexpectedly brought the United States markedly closer to a goal that has tantalized presidents since Richard Nixon: independence from foreign energy sources, a milestone that could reconfigure American foreign policy, the | Read More »
In his Thursday energy/pipeline speech at Cushing, OK, President Obama opened his mouth and revealed a total lack of understanding of our nation’s energy supply picture. And I’ve been saying for the last few weeks, and I want everybody to understand this, we use 20 percent of the world’s oil; we only produce 2 percent of the world’s oil. Hmmm. “We only produce 2 percent | Read More »
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