It will be a long time before Louisiana and the Gulf South recover from the devastation. I’m not referring to the oil spill. No, it’s the willful and senseless act of a President, desperately searching for some way to control events. It might have made sense to slow down, to reconsider safety procedures, or to step up regulatory vigilence. Instead, Obama leaped off a cliff | Read More »
In his two most recent appointments to his presidential commission on the BP oil spill, President Obama reveals that he’s got waaaay bigger fish to fry than finding out what went wrong of the Deepwater Horizon, and fixing it. Obama’s Oil Panel May Tackle Energy, Environment The new presidential commission investigating the Gulf oil spill will include two experts who have been active on the | Read More »
In one of the bigger ‘duh!’ headlines of the year, the Times-Picayune observes: Offshore drilling ban could be a blow to Louisiana economy The president and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s announcement late last week to halt all deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico “at the first safe stopping point” while the Interior Department figures out what regulatory changes are necessary for offshore oil prospecting | Read More »
Amidst the puffing, pontificating and finger-pointing in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, two large questions loom: Who will the Feds hold accountable? How can our government assure us that a big oil spill will never happen again? Quick answers, with a caveat (I’m an engineer, not a lawyer): BP, as operator. They can’t, and we should not expect them to.
For the last fifteen years, I’ve been the operations manager for a small Gulf of Mexico oil and gas company. I’ve had more than a few sleepless nights in that time, whether it be worrying about a problem well, a reported accident or an impending hurricane. Since Barack Obama has assumed full accountability for the outcome of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of | Read More »
It’s worse than a hurricane or an oil spill. This one’s intentional and man-made, done with the stroke of a pen. It will cripple our region. Sec. Salazar Details Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling Moratorium Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters this afternoon that the Obama Administration is ordering a moratorium on all off-shore oil and gas drilling activity from floating drilling rigs until the | Read More »
To a capitalist, the words “It’s different this time” are a notorious red flag. They’re usually uttered in the midst of a speculative boom, to explain why this boom is different from the last one that went disastrously bust. In a market driven by capitalist rules (supply & demand, creative destruction), they’re nearly always wrong. But in a centrally-planned system, where the government picks winners | Read More »
Never fear, Raul my friend, you have a friend in Washington. HAVANA — Cuba is still waiting for its offshore oil rush. It has been four years since U.S. experts said the island may sit atop nearly 10 billion barrels of deep-sea oil, revealing for Cuba an enormous economic Catch-22. Cuba needs the technical expertise of major Western oil companies to get to any of | Read More »
Thanks to crude oil prices that have fallen over $100 per barrel since July’s historic highs, there are no more windfall profits to tax. From the Houston Chronicle: President-elect Barack Obama has shelved a proposal to slap the oil and gas companies with a new windfall profits tax because oil prices have dropped so much in recent months, the transition team confirmed today. “President-elect Obama | Read More »
§ 713. Use of likenesses of the great seal of the United States … (a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States,… or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, | Read More »
This showed up in this afternoon’s email. Below the fold I give you the full email in all its glory, but if you read nothing else, here’s the red meat: You see, Mr. Obama, I’m the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I’m the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and | Read More »
Obama’s website http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy outlines the detail of his energy plan. It reeks of Central Planning and is committed to the core Democratic value of Solving A Problem By Throwing Dumptrucks Full Of Money At It. The centerpieces of the Obama-Biden New Energy Plan are: a Windfall Profits Tax/Middle Class Tax Credit that will never happen; $150 billion/10 year/5 million job make-work plan that is woefully | Read More »
During last night’s debate, Candidate Barack Obama perpetuated one of the most pernicious memes of the current energy debate, one that lets the candidate of “Yes, We Can!” wrongly declare “No, We Can’t!” when it comes to energy policy. The meme: The U.S. consumes 25% of the world’s petroleum, but contains only 3% of the world’s reserves. Therefore, there is no point in trying to | Read More »
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