Dominos fall in anti-fossil fuel movement

From the files of Marita K. Noon at Energy Makes America Great Inc.

Meet Marita Noon

Throughout the United States, especially in communities with existing or potential oil-and-gas development, outside groups have moved in with a vengeance and agitated the population—resulting in bans against all exploration for hydrocarbons and/or the use of hydraulic fracturing. Expensive lawsuits have been filed and courts have repeatedly declared such bans as “unconstitutional

” The newest domino to fall is in Texas where Governor Greg Abbott, on May 18, signed House Bill 40 (HB40)—also known as the Denton Fracking Bill—which clarifies that an “oil and gas operation is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state.”

As was the case in Mora County, New Mexico, the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund participated in pushing Denton, Texas’ fracking ban—passed in November by 59 percent of the voters. In Mora County, a federal judge declared its drilling ban “unconstitutional.”

Courts have handed down similar decisions against attempts to ban fracking in Colorado and Ohio. But the Texas legislature didn’t wait for the courts to decide in the challenges to the Denton ban.

Lawmakers introduced a total of 11 bills aimed at confirming that regulating oil-and-gas activity is the province of the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality and the Texas Railroad Commission. HB40 emerged as the final word—making Texas the first state to pass specific legislation limiting, not eliminating, local control.

The Oklahoma legislature has passed a similar bill and Governor Mary Fallin is expected to sign it. In New Mexico, the House passed a pre-emption bill, but it was never brought up for a vote in the Senate.

The Texas law allows communities to impose commercially reasonable ordinances that regulate above ground oil-and-gas activity such as traffic noise, lights, and setbacks—but do not “effectively” prohibit resource extraction.

In response to the new law, Ed Longanecker, President of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association said: “This is a balanced approach that protects the ability of municipalities to reasonably regulate surface activity related to oil and gas development, while offering the regulatory certainty necessary for our industry operations.”

HB40 was crafted with input from the Texas Municipal League—which, the Texas Tribune reports, “counts 1145 Texas cities among its members.” The Texas Municipal League was “initially among the bill’s fiercest critics,” but its involvement “added language listing areas cities could still regulate” and other changes that “the Municipal League found more palatable.”

David Holt, president of the Consumer Energy Alliance, which actively campaigned against the ban, believes “This bill struck the right approach. While local government should have some control over growth, energy development is a statewide issue. Tax revenues go to the entire state. The state agencies have been regulating production for almost 100 years.

An open robust discussion on the proper balance seems to be leading to good results in most local areas. Once folks have all the facts they can and do make good decisions. But those who simply say no energy production anytime or anywhere are doing a disservice to their neighbors and the nation.”

Denton, Texas, sits on top of one of Texas’ biggest natural gas reserves: the rich Barnett Shale— producing $1 billion in mineral wealth, according to the Associated Press, and pumping more than $30 million into city bank accounts. The Texas Tribune reports: “In some cases, neighborhoods are expanding closer to longtime drilling sites.”

The idea of fracking, like the Keystone pipeline, is less of a problem itself than what it represents: more fossil fuels.

In Texas, thanks to fracking, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), oil production has tripled in the past five years. The increase benefits Texas by providing the state with almost $6 billion worth of revenue in fiscal year 2014 through severance taxes. But it is not just fracking—which has been done safely and successfully for the past 65 years—that has created the new American energy abundance.

It is fracking combined with horizontal drilling. But horizontal drilling doesn’t sound bad and fracking does. Plus, the general population doesn’t know what fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, really is—making it easy to use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to scare the public.

In a 2013 report called Fracking by the Numbers, a group called Environment America redefines fracking. In a box on page 6, it states: “In this report, when we refer to the impacts of ‘fracking,’ we include impacts resulting from all of the activities needed to bring a shale gas or oil well into production using high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracturing operations that use at least 100,000 gallons of water), to operate that well, and to deliver the gas or oil produced from that well to market.

The oil and gas industry often uses a more restrictive definition of ‘fracking’ that includes only the actual moment in the extraction process when rock is fractured—a definition that obscures the broad changes to environmental, health and community conditions that result from the use of fracking in oil and gas extraction.”

This inaccurate definition allows for the recent spate of minor tremors to be blamed on “fracking,” when, in fact, if they are the result of oil-and-gas activity, they are reportedly caused by injection wells—which “inject” water that comes up as part of the drilling process, into wells miles below the surface. Injection wells, which may be far from the drilling site, can be used whether or not the well is stimulated using hydraulic fracturing.

The U.S. Geological Survey study states: “Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as ‘fracking,’ does not appear to be linked to the increased rate of magnitude 3 and larger earthquakes.” Yet, anti-fossil fuel groups continue to scare the public with such claims.

Ed Ireland, Executive Director of Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, told me his organization sent out five different mailings to 36,000 households to counter the misinformation spread by drilling opponents.

Supporters of the ban try to claim that it is not a drilling ban, just a fracking ban. However, since the natural resource underneath Denton is shale gas—meaning natural gas is trapped in tight little pockets within the rock—the shale must be fractured to allow the gas to flow out. Conventional drilling methods don’t work with shale. A ban on fracking is a ban on drilling.

While the Legislature has acted and the Governor has signed HB40, with it apt to be a pilot for the national issue and a template moving forward, we likely haven’t heard the last of municipal fracking bans—despite courts repeatedly shooting them down.

Earthjustice attorney Deborah Goldberg, in a CommonDreams.org story on the Texas legislation, says the people of Denton are not ready to give up yet: “We have been proud to represent the proponents of Denton’s ban and we know they will regroup and fight back against this legislative over-reach.”

Ireland says he won’t be surprised if drilling opponents engage in protests of some sorts because they have strongly suggested that they will.

One day after HB40 was signed, Colorado-based Vantage Energy announced: “that they were preparing for ‘frac work’ starting May 27.” According to the Denton Record-Chronicle (DRC), “neighbors reported seeing production equipment being moved to the company’s well site.”

In response, Adam Briggle, president of Frack Free Denton, which campaigned for the ban, told the DRC, he expects Denton residents to continue to fight. In a statement, Briggle said: “We cannot say how this story will unfold, but we do know this dark chapter shall not be the last one written.”

The DRC reports, in an interview regarding Vantage’s planned drilling, that Briggle added he: “couldn’t confirm whether people would stage protests at the site. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine it.”

Perhaps it is a good thing, for now, that lower oil prices are providing what WSJ calls “a natural cooling off period.”

When Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signs its “preemption” bill into law, it will be the next domino to fall.

____________________________

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy.

Marita also hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.

_____________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Oil and Gas exports with many benefits

From the files of Marita K. Noon at Energy Makes America Great, Inc.

Meet Marita Noon at Energy Makes America Great

“Businesses that sell to foreign markets put more people to work in high-quality jobs, offering more Americans the chance to earn a decent wage,” claimed the Obama administration’s Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker in a March 18 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) opinion piece.

She makes a strong case for U.S. exports: “jobs in export-intensive industries pay up to 18% more than jobs not related to exports.” Her premise is: “The U.S. economy ended 2014 on the uptick, and exports added to the momentum.”

Noticeably absent is any mention of the potential for “high-quality jobs” and economic “uptick” that would come from the export of America’s abundant oil-and-natural gas resources—something an executive order could expedite; something her office could champion.

Pritzker states: “From large enterprises and multinational corporations to small startups and local manufacturers, an increasing number of businesses are realizing that their customer base is no longer around the corner, but around the world.

They understand that 95% of the world’s customers live outside the U.S., and to succeed in the 21st century, they must find a way to reach consumers in ever-expanding markets.” Penny, this is especially true for American energy!

Due to the modern technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing—developed and refined within our borders—the U.S. is producing more oil and natural gas than in decades. So much that we are nearly out of places to store it. We know how to produce it safely and cheaply.

But, unlike the airplanes Pritkzer’s co-author Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing Co., builds, the oil-and-gas industry is prevented from sending its abundance to “foreign markets”—including our allies in Europe who are dependent on energy from a source that uses it as a weapon against them.

The same day WSJ published Pritzker’s piece, it featured a news story announcing: “some of the world’s biggest oil companies are starting to give up” on “hydraulic fracturing wildcatting in Europe, Russia and China.” This, despite the fact: “Eastern European officials who were eager to wean their nations off of Russian gas welcomed the explorers.”

It explains: “Wells in Poland and China can cost up to $25 million each, while American wells on average cost about $5 million”—resulting in overseas costs to produce a barrel of shale oil that are higher than what it can be sold for with the current world-wide low prices.

In trade negotiations, the U.S., according to the New York Times (NYT), “typically argues that countries with excess supplies should export them.” We have excess supplies of both crude oil and natural gas that has driven down prices—resulting in “trouble for an industry that has done much to keep the national economy afloat in recent years.” We “should export them”—but we aren’t.

“Why can’t we export crude oil and natural gas?” you might ask—especially when the U.S. can export refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The NYT explains: “In 2011, the country pivoted from being the world’s largest importer of petroleum products to becoming one of the leading exporters.” At that point, for the first time in 21 years, refined petroleum became our number one export product—though Pritzker never mentioned that.

The “energy world changed.” But, as NYT points out, exports could soak up the excess production, “but there are still political hurdles.”

For crude oil, the problem is energy policy enacted before the “energy world changed.” Signed into law in 1975, after the 1973 Arab oil embargo shook the U.S. with high oil prices, the goal of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, according to the International Business Times, was “to stifle the impact of future oil embargos by foreign oil producing countries.”

The result was a ban on most U.S. oil exports—though some exceptions can be made and the Commerce Department has recently given export licenses to two companies for particular types of oil. The WSJ reports: “Ten companies have applied for similar ruling to export oil.”

For natural gas exports, the problem is two-fold. Exporting natural gas is not prohibited, but it is not encouraged or made easy. In order to export natural gas, it must be converted into Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)—which is done at multibillion-dollar facilities with long lead times for permitting and construction that require purchase contracts to back up financing.

Many potential customers for U.S. LNG are non-Free Trade Agreement (FTA) countries. Currently, Breaking Energy (BE) reports, “the Department of Energy (DOE) has issued five final and four conditional approvals for LNG export to non-FTA countries.” The Financial Times says about two dozen U.S. LNG export facilities have been proposed with four “already under construction, which have contracts to back up their financing.”

Last month, according to Reuters, looking to reduce dependence on supplies from Russia, Lithuania signed an agreement to purchase LNG from the U.S.’s first export terminal: Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass, which is expected to send its first cargoes by the end of this year.

Fortunately, as I predicted in November, there are fixes in the works that, as energy historian Daniel Yergin said, symbolize “a new era in U.S. energy and U.S. energy relations with the rest of the world.”

In January, Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) introduced the LNG Permitting Certainty and Transparency Act to expedite DOE decisions on LNG export applications.

It specifically requires a decision on any LNG export application within 45 days after the environmental review document for the project is published. Currently, applications to export natural gas to non-FTA countries require the Secretary of Energy to make a public interest determination which includes a public comment period.

Not surprisingly, “environmental groups are lobbying the Obama Administration to veto the bill.” BE states: “The bipartisan bill could garner enough votes to gain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.”

A month later, Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), along with 14 co-sponsors, introduced a bill to end the crude oil export ban: HR 702. On March 25, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will meet to debate and vote on the bill—though its passage is not as optimistic as the LNG bill.

Bloomberg sees that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are weary, fearing “that they’d be blamed if gasoline prices climb after the ban is lifted.” Oil producers support lifting the ban, while refiners oppose it.

In October, David Goldwyn, the State Department’s coordinator for international energy affairs in the first Obama administration, said: “The politics are hard.” He added: “When the economics become overwhelming the politics will shift.” The NYT stated: The telltale sign of a glut will be a collapse in the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price, the principal American oil benchmark, which is currently [October 2014] about $3 below the world Brent price.”

It continues, “If the spread cracks open, the economic arguments for free export of domestic crude will probably win the day.”

That day may have come. On March 13, the WSJ editorial board announced: “WTI now trades 20% below the world market price.” Holman Jenkins, who writes the Business World column for the WSJ, says: “Oil producers are already being denied a premium of $12 a barrel by not being allowed to export this oil.”

Thomas Tunstall, research director at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Institute for Economic Development, reported: “Before the rapid increase in U.S. oil and gas production, WTI historically sold at a slight premium to Brent, typically about $1-$3 per barrel.”

“U.S. pump prices are mainly tied to the price of Brent crude, which is freely traded on the world market and is higher than it might otherwise be because of the ban on U.S. exports,” explains the WSJ. “If U.S. producers were allowed to compete globally, prices of Brent and WTI would converge over time, and U.S. gasoline prices would come down, all things being equal.”

Now, the “industry that has done much to keep the national economy afloat” is in trouble. There have been some 74,000 layoffs in the U.S. oil patch since November.

If Congress could muster up the political will to lift the arcane oil export ban, the U.S. could emerge as a major world exporter, which according to the NYT, would result in the “return to a status that helped make the country a great power in the first half of the 20th century.”

Yergin adds: “Economically, it means that money that was flowing out of the United States into sovereign wealth funds and treasuries around the world will now stay in the U.S. and be invested in the U.S., creating jobs. It doesn’t change everything, but it certainly provides a new dimension to U.S. influence in the world.”

Pritzker brags that the Commerce Department has “worked with the private sector to help businesses reach customers overseas; … to open new markets for U.S. goods and services; to reform the export-control process; and to overcome barriers to entry.”

For U.S. oil-and-gas producers the biggest barrier to reaching customers overseas and opening up new markets is our own energy policy—something the administration and Congress have taken steps to fix.

According to Bloomberg, if they knew the public was with them, lawmakers could easily save American jobs and investment, lower gasoline prices, help balance our trade deficit, aid our allies, and increase U.S. influence in the world.

____________________________

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.

_____________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Bury the ethanol fuel standards now

I Come to Bury Renewable Fuel Standards by Paul Driessen at CFACT.org

Read the Driessen Files at CFACT.org

Why praise ethanol mandates that kill jobs, raise food costs and hurt poor families as well as wildlife?

They say politics makes strange bedfellows. In a perfect example, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) are cosponsoring the “Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act,” to abolish the corn ethanol Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires that increasing volumes of this biofuel be blended into gasoline. Let’s hope it passes, as an am
amendment or stand-alone bill.

The RFS was a mistake when enacted ten years ago. Since then, despite attempts to curtail it, the program has expanded and had more lives than Freddy Krueger. Perhaps the senators are now paraphrasing William Shakespeare and Marc Antony, saying “I come to bury the ethanol RFS, not to praise it.”

Renewable fuels advocates are predictably fighting back. They say ethanol is vital to agricultural sector jobs and revenues, “homegrown fuels” diversify our energy mix and reduce foreign imports, and biofuels help prevent “dangerous manmade climate change.” The claims do not withstand scrutiny.

Ethanol has already “hit the blend wall,” the senators point out. Even current ethanol production mandates result in more ethanol than can be used safely in gasoline. That and fewer miles driven of late means refinery “blend targets” have already been met for E10 (10% ethanol) gasoline. More ethanol would impair automotive engine systems and void warranties. All this results in surplus ethanol, increasing corn grower demands for E15 mandates or permits (15% ethanol), and worse market and ecological effects.

And still federal law requires that the ethanol mandate must keep rising: from 9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2008 to 14 billion now and 36 billion gallons by 2022. That would exacerbate all these problems.

America is already plowing an area larger than Iowa to grow corn for ethanol, and turning nearly 40% of all its corn into ethanol. The guaranteed income incentivizes farmers to take land out of wheat and rye, conservation easements, pasture land and wildlife habitat – and grow corn instead.

Converting these vast fields of corn into ethanol requires enormous amounts of irrigation water, fertilizers, pesticides, and gasoline or diesel fuel to grow, harvest and ship the corn … and more gasoline, diesel and natural gas to produce and transport the ethanol.

Corn growers make money, since they are protected by annual ethanol blend mandates that guarantee a demand, market and high price for their output. But there is no comparable “renewable protein standard” to guarantee a market for statutorily mandated quantities of poultry, pork, beef, eggs and fish.

Thus U.S. corn prices skyrocketed from $1.96 per average bushel in 2005 to as much as $7.50 in autumn 2012 and $6.68 in June 2013, before dropping in 2014 due to record yields and lower demand for corn and ethanol.

Since the RFS was implemented, feed costs for chicken, turkey, egg and hog farmers have been nearly $100 billion higher than they would have been in the absence of the RFS, National Chicken Council president Mike Brown estimates.

These protein farmers have been compelled to subsidize corn farmers by almost $1.35 per gallon of ethanol; beef and dairy farmers have been forced to pay similar subsidies. All these costs have been passed on to American families.

Since 2007, high and volatile feed costs forced many meat and poultry producers to cut back or cease production, file for bankruptcy or sell their operations to other companies. Biofuel mandates also mean international aid agencies must pay more for corn and wheat, so more starving people remain malnourished longer

Energy per acre of corn is minuscule compared to what we get from oil and gas drilling, conventional and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) alike. Moreover, corn-based ethanol requires 2,500 to 29,000 gallons of fresh water per million Btu of energy, the US Department of Energy calculates; biodiesel from soybeans consumes an unsustainable 14,000 to 75,000 gallons of water per million Btu. By comparison, fracking requires just 0.6 to 6.0 gallons of fresh or brackish water per million Btu of energy produced.

New seismic, deepwater drilling, hydraulic fracturing and other technologies have led to discoveries of enormous new reserves of oil and natural gas – and enabled companies to extract far more petroleum from reservoirs once thought to have been depleted. All these newly abundant oil and gas supplies could easily replace ethanol and other biofuels, and slash U.S. oil imports even further.

This resurgence of hydrocarbons has obliterated the Club of Rome “peak oil” notion that we are rapidly exhausting the world’s petroleum, made Big Green environmentalists apoplectic, and caused resource depletion alarmists to make a 180-degree policy turn on natural gas.

Just four years ago the Sierra Club used $75 million from Aubrey McClendon and Michael Bloomberg to finance an anti-coal campaign which insisted that coal-fired power plants could be replaced with natural gas facilities.

Now the Sierrans despise natural gas and want to totally ban the technology that created our newfound abundance of gas: hydraulic fracturing. They disregard the benefits of lower gas prices for families and factories, ignore the need for coal and natural gas-based electricity as backup power generation for wind and solar facilities, and concoct all kinds of fanciful “dangers” from fracking operations.

Meanwhile, the prominent environmental think tank World Resources Institute just issued a new report that concluded: turning plant matter into liquid fuel or electricity is so inefficient that it is unlikely to supply a substantial fraction of the world’s energy demand – ever.

Perhaps worse, spending countless more billions on this misguided strategy will result in more millions of valuable, fertile acres being devoted to “growing energy” instead of helping to feed malnourished and starving people.

Adding to the reasons the RFS deserves an F on its report card, ethanol gets 30% less mileage than gasoline, so motorists pay the same or more per tank but can drive fewer miles. It collects water, gunks up fuel lines, corrodes engine parts, and wreaks havoc on lawn mowers and other small engines.

Ethanol production also kills marine life. Much of the nitrogen fertilizers needed to grow all that corn gets washed off the land into waterways that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, where they cause enormous summertime algae blooms. When the algae die, their decomposition consumes oxygen in the water – creating enormous low-oxygen and zero-oxygen regions that suffocate marine life that cannot swim away.

Regarding jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines “green jobs” as any that make a company “more environmentally friendly.” The BLS even includes people who drive pilot natural gas, biofuel or hybrid buses.

The Solar Energy Society includes accountants, lawyers and landscapers involved even part time with making or installing solar panels. One suspects that even burger flippers could qualify as having green jobs, anytime they sell a meal to a truck driver who happens to be hauling corn to an ethanol plant.

That brings us to “climate chaos” as a last-resort rationale for costly Renewable Fuel Standards. However, Climategate and other IPCC scandals clearly demonstrate that the “science” behind climate disaster claims is conjectural, manipulated and even fraudulent.

And actual observations of temperatures, storms, droughts, sea levels and Arctic ice have refused to cooperate with computer models and Hansen-Gore-EPA-IPCC disaster hype and scenarios. The catechism of climate cataclysm – what blogger Jim Guirard calls the Branch Carbonian Cult – can no longer be allowed to justify misguided standards and subsidies.

About the only thing “green” about the ethanol RFS is the billions of dollars it takes from taxpayers and consumers – and funnels to politicians, who dole the cash out to crony corporatists, who then return some of it as campaign contributions, to get the politicians reelected, to perpetuate the gravy train.

It’s time to bury the RFS – and stop forcing motorists to buy gasoline that refiners are compelled to blend into motor fuels. Crony capitalist arrangements benefit too few at the expense of too many.

_________________________________________  

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.

__________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Obama takes credit for falling gas prices

Obama has an "I Built That" Moment and Takes Credit for Falling Gas Prices from the art studios of A.F. (Tony) Branco at Comically Incorrect.com

Get a Daily Dose of Humor from A.F. (Tony) Branco at Comically Incorrect.com

Check out some of the websites listed below that publish the A.F. (Tony) Branco Political Cartoon features.

• Editorial cartoonist
• Net Right Daily
• Legal Insurrection
• Liberty Alliance
• ConservativeDailyNews.com

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

U.S. light dims with Obama energy policy

U.S. light dimmed with Obama energy policy from Marita Noon at Energy Makes America Great, Inc.

Meet Marita Noon at Energy Makes America Great

The unity march, following the brutal attacks in Paris, reminded us all of America’s absence on the global stage.

I wondered: “How has the state of our Union gone from being the shining city on the hill, to a country whose light has dimmed?”

I thought about the policies and initiatives President Obama—the leader of the free world—has put in place.

I could think of none that have increased our international influence, but many that have minimized it by hurting America economically.

At Tuesday night’s State of the Union Address (SOTU), he will likely tick off a list of accomplishments designed to polish up his legacy and make us feel good, while distracting us from reality—a look-here-don’t-look-there tactic.

Within that list he will likely include, as he did last year, America’s growing energy independence—every president’s goal for the past several decades. He will address how America’s energy abundance has lowered gasoline and heating oil costs for consumers.

Both are true—though no thanks to his policies, but rather in spite of them. We probably will not hear that while oil production under President Obama is up 61 percent on state and private lands, it is down 6 percent on the federal lands his policies influence.

Expect the SOTU to tout his environmental bona fides, but not to mention that he has committed the U.S. to extreme cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, while the world’s biggest offenders carry on increasing emissions—business as usual.

“The Indian government has launched a crackdown on Greenpeace and other U.S.-linked environmental groups after intelligence officials accused climate activists of harming the country’s economic security,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The story adds:

“groups are being targeted for campaigning against India’s coal-based energy industry, the source of 80% of the country’s domestic power production and a linchpin of the government’s economic development plans.”

And:

“India rejects arguments by green activists that it must move away from coal energy, saying the alternative would be to keep its citizens in poverty.” India’s government has begun “to chip away at the regulations that domestic and foreign industries claim have stifled investment and economic growth.”

India obviously understands that abundant, available, and affordable energy forms the linchpin of economic growth. While India chips away at regulations, the Obama administration continues to pile them on—first against coal-fueled electricity generation, and now aimed at the oil-and-gas industry.

His policies, such as the Clean Power Plan (CPP), and the new methane regulations announced on January 14 (just to name two) will kill jobs and raise energy costs. (Both the CPP and the new methane regulations aim to reduce so-called greenhouse gases that alarmists claim are the drivers of climate change. The CPP: carbon dioxide; the methane regulations: methane that leaks from oil and gas wells.)

The CPP, announced in June, will ultimately cause hundreds of coal-fueled power plants to shut down prematurely. These power plants supply America with reliable and cost-effective energy—and our comparatively low-priced electricity helps gives us a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

In addition to job losses and higher rates, the CPP poses risks to electricity reliability. In November, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) released a review of the CPP which, according to Reuters, states that “such a rapid transition will damage capacity margins, make it harder to maintain aspects of power quality and leave the grid vulnerable to extreme weather.”

The review found that due to the planned transition, which would change coal from providing base-load power to a “load-following role,” the CPP “could actually raise emissions”—negating the supposed benefits the CPP claims to create. NERC concluded: the CPP “is pushing too far too fast and does not pay sufficient attention to the question of electricity reliability, pushing up costs and increasing the risk of power failures.”

Karen Lugo, Founding Director of Alliance of Resolute States, told me: “At its core, the Clean Power Plan transfers power over state energy priorities to the federal government and leaves states as mere branch offices. If this is finalized, the states will be subject to the tyranny of federal agency fads like the Social Cost of Carbon index, the pseudo-science that drives the Clean Power Plan.”

Regarding the newly announced methane rules, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) states: “To regulate new oil and gas sources, the EPA is using the same part of the Clean Air Act it already uses to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.”

The new rules, scheduled to be finalized sometime next year, are “designed to help the administration meet a commitment it made in Beijing in November to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

However, even the Energy Information Administration admits that, while domestic oil production has nearly doubled and natural-gas production is up by about 50 percent since 2005, “methane emissions from the sector have dropped roughly 15 percent over that period through 2012.”

Because methane is a valuable commodity, innovations in the industry have successfully captured it and ongoing improvements will continue the emissions downward trend.

In response to the EPA’s announced methane rules, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) issued the following statement

 “Studies show that while our energy production has significantly increased, methane emissions have continued to decline. This is something that should be celebrated, not bound by new red tape. Our success has been—and should continue to be—rooted in new efficiencies created through technology and innovation, a commitment to continued safety enhancements, and greater permitting certainty

Our goal should be to modernize our energy infrastructure for the 21st century and continue to welcome successes in reducing emissions and delivering new sources of affordable energy to consumers who need it. These should be the priorities that we focus on, not creating new layers of bureaucracy that could smother such promising innovation.”

Others “argue that the administration has created a solution in search of a problem.”

The Washington Times states:

Obama is “once again placing himself firmly on the side of environmentalists and opposite the oil-and-gas industry.”

It adds:

“The announcement also sets up yet another political fight with Congressional Republicans, who, along with many in the energy industry, panned the proposal as another unnecessary federal overreach that will stunt economic growth and hamper fuel production.”

USA Today’s reporting includes:

“The oil-and-gas industry has objected to the new regulations, saying they would curb what have become record levels of energy production.”

Yet, the EPA claims the new rules “wouldn’t hamper the growth of the oil-and-gas industry.”

The WSJ reports:

“In addition to directly regulating methane, the EPA plans to expand a rule it imposed on the oil and gas industry in 2012 that focuses on reductions of traditional pollutants” and “the administration left the door open for more expansive regulation later on.”

It is expected that the SOTU will push for an increase in the minimum wage—though I doubt he’ll address the loss of quality jobs in the energy sector, as a result of his policies.

While the oil-and-gas industry sheds jobs as a result of the low price of oil (somewhat a victim of its own success), Obama could announce some initiatives that could help stem the losses. In the SOTU, President Obama could offer his support to Congress’ plans to lift the 4-decade-old oil export ban, which would provide additional customers for U.S. oil and give our allies a friendly source to meet their needs.

Likewise, he could call on the Department of Energy to expedite approval of applications for liquefied natural gas export terminals—something a new Senate bill proposes.

The SOTU would be a perfect time to address drilling on federal lands. One of the reasons the oil industry is reeling, is that most of America’s new production is “nonconventional”—meaning that it requires expensive technologies, such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling to extract.

But, easy-to-access, i.e. cheap, oil in off-limits federal lands awaits leasing and development. Opening up some of those sites could transfer production to lower-cost locales—saving jobs and increasing our energy security in the process.

Instead, we’re apt to hear about GM introducing new electric cars—despite the high cost and the public’s resistance. Expect to hear a touting of growing implementation of renewable energy, but not about wind energy projects going bankrupt once the government subsidies dry up.

The list of policies that have plunged America into darkness on the global stage could go on and on. I’ve addressed just a few impacting our energy status and security. Being a bright light in the world requires a strong economy—which, as India knows, needs energy.

A version of this feature appeared at Red State.com

____________________________________________

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE).

She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Merchants of Environmental Smear

Merchants of Smear from the files of Paul Driessen at CFACT.org

Read the Driessen Column at CFACT.org

Obama, Gore other climate alarmists refuse to debate, but love to vilify – and love their money

Manmade climate disaster proponents know the Saul Alinksy community agitator playbook by heart. In a fight, almost anything goes. Never admit error; just change your terminology and attack again. Expand your base, by giving potential allies financial and political reasons to join your cause. Pick “enemy” targets, freeze them, personalize them, polarize them and vilify them.

The “crisis” was global cooling, until Earth stopped cooling around 1976. It was global warming, until our planet stopped warming around 1995. The alarmist mantra then became “climate change” or “climate disruption” or “extreme weather.” Always manmade. Since Earth’s climate often fluctuates, and there are always weather extremes, such claims can never be disproven, certainly not to the alarmists’ satisfaction.

Alarmists say modern civilization’s “greenhouse gas” emissions are causing profound climate change – by replacing the powerful, interconnected solar and other natural forces that have driven climate and weather patterns and events since Earth and human history began.

They insist that these alleged human-induced changes are already happening and are already disastrous. Pope Francis says we are already witnessing a “great cataclysm” for our planet, people and environment.

However, there is no cataclysm – now or imminent – even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have gone well past the alleged 350 parts-per-million “tipping point,” and now hover near 400 ppm (0.04%). There has been no warming since 1995, and recent winters have been among the coldest in centuries in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, despite steadily rising levels of plant-fertilizing CO2.

As of January 12, 2015, it has been 3,365 days (9.2 years!) since a Category 3-5 hurricane hit the US mainland. This is by far the longest such stretch since record-keeping began in 1900, if not since the American Civil War. Sea levels are barely rising, at a mere seven inches per century. Antarctic sea ice is expanding to new records; Arctic ice has also rebounded. Polar bears are thriving. In fact:

Every measure of actual evidence contradicts alarmist claims and computer model predictions. No matter how fast or sophisticated those models are, feeding them false or unproven assumptions about CO2 and manipulated or “homogenized” temperature data still yields garbage output, scenarios and predictions.

That’s why alarmists also intoned the “peak oil” and “resource depletion” mantra – until fracking produced gushers of new supplies. So now they talk about “sustainable development,” which really means “whatever we advocate is sustainable; whatever we despise and oppose is unsustainable.”

USEPA Administrator Gina McCarthy also ignores climate realities. Her agency is battling coal-fired power plants (and will go after methane and gas-fired generators next), to “stop climate change” and “trigger a range of investments” in innovation and a “clean power future.”

What she really means is: Smart businesses will support our agenda. If they do, we’ll give them billions in taxpayer and consumer money. If they oppose us, we will crush them. And when we say innovation, we don’t mean fracking.

As to responding to these inconvenient climate realities, or debating them with the thousands of scientists who reject the “dangerous manmade climate change” tautology, she responds: “The time for arguing about climate change has passed. The vast majority of scientists agree that our climate is changing.”

This absurd, dismissive assertion underscores citizen investigative journalist Russell Cook’s findings, in his perceptive and fascinating Merchants of Smear report. The climate catastrophe narrative survives only because there has been virtually no debate over its scientific claims, he explains.

The public rarely sees the extensive evidence debunking and destroying climate cataclysm assertions, because alarmists insist that “the science is settled,” refuse to acknowledge or debate anyone who says otherwise, and claim skeptical scientists get paid by oil companies, tainting anything they say.

The fossil-fuel-payoff claim is classic Alinsky: Target and vilify your “enemies.”

“No one has ever offered an iota of evidence” that oil interests paid skeptical researchers to change their science to fit industry views, “despite legions of people repeating the claim,” Cook notes. “Never has so much – the very survival of the global warming issue – depended on so little – a paper-thin accusation from people having hugely troubling credibility issues of their own.”

The tactic is intended to marginalize manmade global warming skeptics. But the larger problem is mainstream media malfeasance: reporters never question “climate crisis” dogmas … or allegations that “climate denier” scientists are willing to fabricate studies questioning “settled science” for a few grand in illicit industry money.

Pay no attention to the real-world climate or those guys behind the curtain, we are told. Just worry about climate monsters conjured up by their computer models. “Climate change deniers” are Big Oil lackeys – and you should turn a blind eye to the billions of dollars in government, industry and foundation money paid annually to researchers and modelers who subscribe to manmade climate disruption claims.

In fact, the US government alone spent over $106 billion in taxpayer funds on alarmist climate research between 2003 and 2010. In return, the researchers refuse to let other scientists, IPCC reviewers or FOIA investigators see their raw data, computer codes or CO2-driven algorithms.

The modelers and scientists claim the information is private property, even though taxpayers paid for the work and the results are used to justify energy, job and economy-killing policies and regulations. Uncle Sam spends billions more every year on renewable energy programs that raise energy prices, cost jobs and reduce living standards.

None of these recipients wants to derail this money train, by entertaining doubts about the “climate crisis.” Al Gore won’t debate anyone or even address audience questions he hasn’t preapproved.

As to claims of a “97% consensus,” one source is responses from 75 of 77 “climate scientists” who were selected from a 2010 survey that went to 10,257 scientists. Apparently, the analysts didn’t like the “consensus” of the other 10,180 scientists.

Another study, by a University of Queensland professor, claimed that 97% of published scientific papers agree that humans caused at least half of the 1.3o F (0.7o C) global warming since 1950; in reality, only 41 of the 11,944 papers cited explicitly said this.

“Skeptical” scientists do not say climate doesn’t change or humans don’t affect Earth’s climate to some (small) degree. However, more than 1,000 climate scientists, 31,000 American scientists and 48% of US meteorologists say there is no evidence that we are causing dangerous warming or climate change.

Two recent United States Senate staff reports shed further light on other shady dealings that underlie the “dangerous manmade climate change” house of cards. Chains of Environmental Command reveals how Big Green activists and foundations collude with federal agencies to develop renewable energy and anti-hydrocarbon policies. EPA’s Playbook Unveiled shines a bright light on the fraud, deceit and secret science behind the agency’s sue-and-settle lawsuits, pollution standards and CO2 regulations.

The phony “solutions” to the imaginary “climate crisis” hurt our children and grandchildren, by driving up energy prices, threatening electricity reliability, thwarting job creation, adversely impacting people’s health and welfare, and subsidizing wind turbines that slaughter birds and bats.

They perpetuate poverty, misery, disease and premature death in poor African and Asian countries, by blocking construction of fossil fuel power plants that would bring electricity to 1.3 billion people who still do not have it.

The caterwauling over climate change has nothing to do with real-world warming, cooling, storms or droughts. It has everything to do with an ideologically driven hatred of hydrocarbons, capitalism and economic development, and a callous disdain for middle class workers and impoverished Third World families that “progressive” activists, politicians and bureaucrats always claim to care so much about.

House and Senate committees should use studies cited above as a guide for requiring a robust pollution, health and climate debate. They should compel EPA, climate modelers and scientists to testify under oath, present their evidence and respond to tough questions. Congress should then block any regulations that do not conform to the scientific method and basic standards of honesty, transparency and solid proof.

_____________________________________________

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Jobs - prosperity - security from oil exports

Jobs, prosperity and security via oil exports from the CFACT.org files of Paul Driessen

Read the Driessen Files at CFACT.org

Ending the antiquated ban on oil exports will also spur US production and keep oil prices low

The midterm elections underscore how much Americans value energy, job and economic revival – and how much they want less Washington control of their lives, livelihoods, and dreams for their children and grandchildren. They also reflect the waning influence of radical Obama and Steyer climate change and anti-energy environmentalist elites. If ever there was a time to end the ban on oil exports, it’s now.

With U.S. demand for oil products falling, production rising, and myriad studies making a strong case for selling American crude abroad, the president and Congress should terminate the ban as soon as possible.

The nation’s demand for crude oil fell by 3.5% in September versus the same month a year ago. Gasoline demand fell by 3.0% because of efficiency gains in cars and trucks, coupled with a still weak economy, abominable 62.8% labor force participation rate, and too many people forced to work part-time, for lower wages and fewer benefits.

Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil production soared in September, climbing to its highest level in 29 years – and demolishing claims that we are rapidly exhausting Earth’s petroleum. During September, the United States produced 8.8 million barrels of oil per day – an increase of nearly 14% over the previous year and 58% since 2005. In fact, the United States has now replaced Saudi Arabia as the world’s #1 oil producer.

The International Energy Agency predicts that U.S. oil production will likely exceed 9 million barrels per day by the end of the year, with imported energy liquids reaching a remarkable low of 21% of our consumption in 2015, compared to 60% in 2006. Hydraulic fracturing played the key role in this.

That brings us to the price component of Economics 101. Declining demand and rising supplies tend to drive prices down, and indeed crude prices plunged 28% – from $105 per barrel in January to $76 in November 2014. Prices for gasoline, heating oil and other petroleum-related commodities also dropped significantly. That’s a huge boon to consumers, from families to refiners to petrochemical makers.

The AAA motorists club estimates that every one-cent decline in the pump price of gasoline feeds an extra $1 billion into the USA economy. The 71-cent drop per gallon has injected $71 billion in actual stimulus money, adding much-needed disposable income to households whose budgets have been pinched by higher taxes and rising costs for food, clothing and healthcare.

Interestingly, the lower crude oil prices have occurred during a time of political unrest. In the past, crude prices have tended to climb rapidly when armies were on the march. Today, however, oil production in the United States and Canada appears to have ended the connection between military clashes and prices.

Despite ISIS butchery in Syria and Iraq, Israel-Palestinian dissension, disputes over the South China Sea, Russia’s incursions into Ukraine, Islamist murders and kidnappings in Nigeria, and saber-rattling in North Korea, the global price of crude oil has declined steadily all year.

Increased U.S. oil and natural gas production have also nearly single-handedly lifted America’s economy out of its recessionary doldrums. A U.S. Department of Energy report found that the number of oil and natural gas jobs grew 40 times faster than jobs in the rest of the economy from 2007 to 2012. Imagine how bad the Obama economy would be if it weren’t for the oil and gas industry that the President, his radical voter base and most of his cabinet secretaries still despise.

Since 2012, the good news has continued. In the booming Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, the number of labor hours worked rose by 40% from 2012 to 2013, marking a new all-time high. (New York could also share in this job and revenue bonanza, but its political elites continue to block any and all fracking, severely hurting blue collar and farm families in western NY State.)

Numbers like these make it easy to see the benefits of U.S. oil and natural gas production for the economy. Adding crude oil exports into the mix would multiply the benefits.

A recent study by the economic analysis firm IHS Global concludes that allowing crude oil exports would lower gasoline prices by an additional 8 cents per gallon and support an additional 964,000 jobs in 2018. Moreover, it said, repealing the ban on exports would benefit all 50 states, not just those that actively produce oil and natural gas.

The National Economic Research Associates (NERA) says eliminating the oil export ban would create high-paying jobs for almost 400,000 unemployed American workers, while the Brookings Institution calculates that ending the ban would boost America’s GDP by some $1.8 trillion!

A U.S. Government Accountability Office echoed these analyses. The GAO’s federal auditors found that oil exports would lower energy prices for U.S. consumers, incentivize more domestic oil production, boost the economy, and lower the U.S. trade deficit by further reducing the need for foreign oil imports.

The GAO also advised federal agencies to reexamine the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “in view of changing market conditions,” including America’s new position as a global energy superpower.

Though the GAO didn’t mention it, opening federally controlled onshore and offshore lands to leasing, drilling and fracking would also work wonders. Being energy-rich also gives America more leverage internationally. Consider the impact that crude oil and natural gas exports could have on Russia’s territorial ambitions. Up to half of Mr. Putin’s budget was fueled by energy exports in 2012.

If U.S. energy supplies could be exported to our allies in Eastern Europe, until they can launch their own fracking revolutions, Russia’s ability to use energy exports as a political weapon would be constrained, and Putin’s financial strength diminished. Japan, South Korea and other Asian economies are also hungering to import American crude.

Some major oil and gas users worry that even limited exports of U.S. crude would reduce supplies and send prices back up. Petrochemical and other manufacturers have created jobs and profited mightily from hydraulic fracturing, soaring domestic production, and sharply lower energy and feedstock prices, so one can understand their fears.

However, lifting the ban on crude oil exports will create new markets and convince more voters and politicians to support opening more areas to environmentally sound drilling and fracking, and thereby fostering further exploration and production that will help keep prices low.

Biofuel producers might also oppose ending the ban. The surge in oil and gas production makes it even harder to defend spending billions of taxpayer and consumer dollars on fuels that require some 40 million acres of farmland, plus vast amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides and fossil fuel energy to produce.

Their claims that biofuels help prevent climate change have become just as tedious and untenable. Global temperatures haven’t budged in 18 years, it’s more than nine years since a Category 3-5 hurricane made U.S. landfall, and any actual human influences on the global climate are not even detectable amid natural climate blips and fluctuations. It’s time to end biofuel mandates and subsidies, and focus on fossil fuels.

The U.S. prohibition on crude oil exports is a relic of the 1970s. It was enacted in response to the Arab Oil Embargo and gasoline lines that snaked through the streets of major U.S. cities. Those days are gone.

Today’s technologies are increasing the nation’s global strength and standing. Just imagine the jobs, security and prosperity we would enjoy if more states permitted fracking, and federal overseers issued Keystone pipeline permits and started allowing real energy production on lands they now keep off limits.

If oil and natural gas exports were allowed, the United States could exert its new energy influence throughout the world without firing a shot. This is a superb opportunity for a newly Republican and bipartisan Congress – and for a President who up to now has been more ideological and defiant than most American citizens can accept. Congress and President Obama should speed oil leasing and exports now.

_______________________________________________________

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the save-the-Earth money machine.

________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

The Obama war on pipelines

The Obama war on pipelines from the files of Paul Driessen at CFACT.org

Read the Driessen Files at CFACT.org

Expedite wind and solar – but block coal, oil, gas, pipelines, jobs and economic recovery

“This is not the same industry we had 15 years ago,” Natural Gas Supply Association VP Jennifer Fordham said recently. That’s an understatement. The oil, petrochemical and manufacturing industries are also far different from those of 15 years ago. Together, they’ve created hundreds of thousands of new jobs and generated countless billions of dollars in economic activity. No thanks to the Obama Administration.

From EPA to Interior and even the Energy Department, the Administration continues to display a strong animosity toward fossil fuels. Its war on coal has hounded mines, power plants, jobs and communities. Its opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline has thwarted the creation of tens of thousands of construction jobs.

Its bans on leasing, drilling and hydraulic fracturing on federal onshore and offshore lands have caused a 6% drop in oil production from those lands and a 28% plunge in natural gas output – costing thousands of jobs and tens of billions in bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues to the U.S. Treasury.

Nevertheless, you’d think Obama regulators and policy makers would support natural gas pipelines. Even the Sierra Club promoted this fuel as a “clean alternative to coal” just a couple years ago. But no.

The fracking revolution on America’s state and private lands has unleashed a gusher of mammoth proportions. In just six years, 2008-2014, it has generated a 58% increase in oil production (from 5 million to 8 million barrels per day) – and a 21% rise in natural gas production.

By the end of this year, U.S. crude oil production is projected to reach 9 million bpd. In the Marcellus Shale region, gas production is expected to reach 16 billion cubic feet a day, twice the volume of only two years ago.

However, this miraculous cornucopia is overwhelming the nation’s existing delivery systems and, far from striving to eliminate the bottleneck, the Obama Administration is creating new ones.

Not having the Keystone pipeline to transport Upper Midwest crude to refineries has forced oil companies to move that oil by train. Rail accidents have caused spills and deaths, but the regulatory focus has been on stronger tanker cars, with insufficient attention paid to track maintenance and safety – or pipelines.

Insufficient natural gas pipelines mean producers cannot deliver this vital fuel to homes, hospitals, factories and electricity generating plants, or to petrochemical plants that use it as a feed stock for literally thousands of products. Pipeline companies are clamoring for construction permits.

With supplies rising, prices for oil and natural gas are declining. Global crude oil prices have fallen more than $20 a barrel and are cheaper in the United States than in Europe. Natural gas prices in the Marcellus area have been about half the U.S. benchmark price, which is below $4 per thousand cubic feet (mcf), compared to prices as high as $9 or even $20 per mcf (or Btu) in Europe and Asia.

As a result, despite a clear need for gas, some drillers are re-examining their Marcellus plans, and an estimated 1,750 Pennsylvania natural gas wells are not currently producing because pipeline connections are not available.

Natural gas pipelines also ensure energy conservation and reduce air pollution. A North Dakota pipeline would collect gas produced with crude oil, eliminating the need to “flare” the gas. But permit delays, largely by federal agencies, mean enough gas to heat 160,000 homes goes up in smoke every month.

Why are pipelines lagging behind production? First, pipeline companies build new capacity only when there is a demonstrated need. Second, and most important, pipeline permit approvals are being delayed.

A 2013 INGAA Foundation study found that the number of interstate natural gas pipeline authorizations issued more than 90 days after federal environmental assessments were completed climbed from 8% to 28% since Congress passed the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Rather than streamlining permits, as Congress had intended, the law had the opposite effect.

It removed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s ability to keep project reviews on a strict schedule, allowed both state and federal agencies to drag their heels on pipeline permitting, and opened the door to more objections by environmental pressure groups.

Authorization delays were caused by conflicts among federal agencies, as well as inadequate or under-trained agency staff, applicant changes to projects requiring additional or revised environmental review (often in response to environmentalist or other third-party protests and demands), site-access problems, and FERC and other agency reviews of requirements for mitigating asserted environmental impacts, INGAA concluded. Increased partisanship at FERC has also increased delays.

The Obama Army Corps of Engineers slowed pipeline permits by citing the Clean Water Act. Its Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) cited the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to justify slow-walking permits. Its Environmental Protection Agency wants to control all “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), so as to exert regulatory authority over activities on federal, state and private lands – including drilling, fracking and pipelines – in the name of sustainability, climate change prevention and other eco-mantras.

The MBTA bans the “taking” (harassing, harming, killing, capturing or wounding) of migratory birds, their nests and eggs related to natural gas pipelines and other projects. Because building a pipeline requires clearing a right-of-way, excavating and other activities that could affect wildlife for a short time, a permit is required. But native grasses soon cover the route, and state-of-the-art steel, valves and safety features greatly reduce the likelihood of ruptures and spills, compared to earlier generation pipelines.

And yet the Obama FWS drags its feet on pipeline permits – while approving numerous renewable energy projects beloved by the President and his “green” base, including massive wind turbines that slaughter millions of eagles, hawks, bats and other threatened, endangered and migratory species every year.

The FWS also blessed the huge Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System on the Nevada/California border. It uses 300,000 mirrors to reflect the sun’s rays onto three 40-story water-filled towers to produce steam and generate electricity. Eagles, owls, falcons and other birds that fly between the solar panels and towers become “streamers,” because the 500-degree heat turns them into smoking, disintegrating corpses as they plummet to earth.

There’s little left to find or bury – making it easy for Big Solar regulators, operators and promoters to claim “minimal” wildlife impacts. In fact, during the Ivanpah project’s environmental review, the FWS focused on desert tortoises and missed the bird crematorium issue.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management unveiled a sweeping plan that would revise longstanding resource management plans, to install buffer zones around “sensitive” Gunnison sage grouse habitats, impose seasonal restrictions on oil and gas drilling and livestock grazing, and close roads and trails wherever grouse are present.

But in the midst of this effort, BLM and various state governments are also working to streamline “eco-friendly” solar, wind, geothermal and transmission line projects that they claim will reduce “dangerous” carbon dioxide emissions. Natural gas would do that, too, of course.

Natural gas is clean, affordable and reliable – if it can reach consumers through pipelines, which are the safest form of energy transportation. Unfortunately, the Obama principle seems to be: If it requires subsidies, raises energy prices, costs jobs, impacts thousands of acres, and butchers birds and bats – expedite approval. If it generates royalty and tax revenues, produces reliable, affordable energy, creates jobs, and has minimal impacts on endangered and migratory species – delay or ban it. Talk about crazy.

The administration’s fixation on ideological environmentalism is not helping the environment, the economy, or consumers. It is a political ploy designed to garner liberal votes and rake in more money from campaign donors like Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund manager who got his money from coal.

America needs more pipelines. The Obama Administration needs to let industry build them. Perhaps a reconstituted Senate (with Harry Reid as Minority Leader) can lead the way. America will prosper!

_____________________________________________________________ 

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the save-the-Earth money machine.

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

President plugs energy policy holes

Obama keeps trying to plug holes in a so-called energy policy from the art studios of A.F. (Tony) Branco featured at Comically Incorrect.com

Get Your Daily Dose of Political Humor from A.F. (Tony) Branco

Check out some of the sights listed below that publish the A.F. (Tony) Branco Political Cartoon features.

• Editorial cartoonist
• Net Right Daily
• Legal Insurrection
• Liberty Alliance
• ConservativeDailyNews.com

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Breaking the Russian energy stanglehold

Breaking Russia’s energy stranglehold from the files of Paul Driessen at CFACT.org

Europe cannot afford to have its foreign and domestic policies dictated by Putin’s blackmail

Read the Driessen Files at CFACT.org

European Union nations want to impose tougher economic sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine and providing the missiles that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. However, they are worried about biting the hand that feeds them – with the natural gas that fuels much of its economy.

Russia is the world’s second-biggest natural gas producer and third-biggest oil producer, so it can inflict tremendous pressure and damage on its neighbors without firing a shot. The 28 EU nations as a whole depend on Russia for one-third of their oil and gas.

However, Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania get 100% of their natural gas from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Six other European countries get more than half of their gas from the powerful Russian Bear: Czech Republic (57%), Poland (59%), Ukraine (60%), Hungary (80%), Slovakia (84%) and Bulgaria (89%).

That makes the Europeans highly vulnerable to cuts in the fuel supplies they need to power their cars, keep their businesses, factories and economies running smoothly – and heat homes, to literally keep people alive during brutal winters like those they’ve experienced recently.

A simple “nyet” from Mr. Putin could reduce or cut off energy exports, leaving the continent hostage to Russia and creating a potential disaster. European officials know this but so far are frozen by their own fears and policies.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) calls Russia “a gas station masquerading as a country,” because 60% of its exports are oil and natural gas. Cutting these exports to pressure Europe politically might hurt Russia’s economy.

However, it has already done so, is currently squeezing Ukraine over winter gas supplies – supposedly over late payments for past deliveries – and is making export arrangements with China and other countries, to reduce any economic harm it might suffer from engaging in renewed energy blackmail.

Moreover, during one week this September, Russia supplied up to 45% less gas than Poland requested, the Poles’ largest oil and gas company reported. Over the past decade, “Russia has halted the flow of gas through Ukraine three times, directly affecting eastern and southern European countries most reliant on Gazprom, the giant Russian energy monopoly,” the Christian Science Monitor has observed.

Indeed, 16% of Russian natural gas exports flow through Ukraine. In yet another pressure tactic, Russia began tightening the export spigot in June. Russian gas supplies through Ukraine to Slovakia have been cut by 25%, says Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan.

There’s no question that the EU and USA must punish Russia for seizing Crimea, infiltrating troops and military equipment into eastern Ukraine to support secessionists, aiding terrorism, and killing hundreds of innocent jetliner passengers. Since no one wants a shooting war with Russia, economic sanctions are all that’s left.

Failure to do even that would give Putin a green light to move more forcefully against Ukraine – or even try to occupy other former Soviet Union nations.

Putin has called the breakup of the Soviet Union “the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.” Before invading Ukraine, Russia invaded the former Soviet territory of Georgia in 2008 to support separatists who had declared independence for the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

It’s not at all hard to imagine Putin moving against Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, other former Soviet possessions or even Finland, to bring them into Mother Russia’s suffocating embrace. But how can the EU end the blackmail, enjoy some foreign policy independence and improve its faltering economy with less reliance on Russia?

If European countries faced food shortages due to import restrictions, they would offer their farmers incentives to grow more. EU members need to act the same way on the energy front. Otherwise, they give Russia tremendous sway over their future. European nations certainly have the ability to take action.

For one thing, they could import more natural gas from the United States and other countries besides Russia, until it can produce more domestic energy. Europe is blessed with enormous quantities of oil and natural gas – including enough gas to supply all its needs for at least 28 years, during which it could develop viable alternatives to gas and the dozens of coal-fired generators it is now building. US Energy Information Administration data reveal that Sweden has enough gas to meet its needs for 250 years.

Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria, France and Spain also have extensive potential, as do Great Britain and other countries. Unfortunately, those deposits aren’t economically recoverable using traditional drilling.

However, they can be captured using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) – which has been used safely and with great economic and employment benefit more than a million times in the United States since 1947. It has made the United States the world’s largest natural gas producer.

Not surprisingly, environmental extremists strenuously oppose fracking – further crippling Europe’s ability to meet its energy needs and chart its economic destiny and foreign policy. Also not surprising, Russia is secretly funding the European anti-fracking movement “to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently revealed.

But if there’s a silver lining to unfolding Middle East events and Russia’s naked aggression, it’s that more sensible Europeans are finally looking more critically at their self-destructive energy and environmental policies. The European Union announced in September that it will combine previously separate energy and climate ministries into one office.

The decision infuriates radical greens, but it reflects growing business, worker, consumer and family concerns about reliable, affordable electricity and motor fuels.

Next, Europe needs to allow fracking. Right now, virtually every EU nation except Poland and Britain bans fracking. Besides making Europe more energy independent, fracking would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by enabling European nations to rely more on natural gas and less on coal. Fracking would also reduce EU natural gas, electricity and even oil prices, as it has in the USA.

It would also create or save millions of jobs that are endangered (or gone) because of Europe’s outrageously high energy costs. In fact, many EU companies and families pay three to eight times more than Americans do for electricity.

Another problem in Europe is that people living above the shale deposits have no ownership or economic interests in developing them. They are inconvenienced, but the state and drilling companies get all the money. The EU needs to devise incentives that give landowners and residents a positive stake in development – such as a royalty or percentage of every Euro of oil and gas produced and sold.

On this side of the pond, US petroleum production must be further increased. The huge gains in American oil and gas output since 2009 were all on private and state lands, while the Obama administration has presided over a nearly 40% decline in production from onshore and offshore federal lands. The President and congressional Democrats need to stop being energy obstructionists, and let American companies tap these energy treasure troves.

That would create jobs, generate billions in government revenues, make more gas available for European purchase, and strengthen our economy and balance of trade. Congress should also consider prohibiting state and local fracking bans as unconstitutional constraints on trade.

Congress and the President should also fast-track US natural gas exports to Europe, by speeding permits for liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. These actions would encourage further drilling, technology improvements and job creation. As Europeans adapt and improve America’s rapidly advancing fracking technologies and develop their own gas, these exports will be less vital. But they are essential now.

The world is not going find safe, efficient, affordable, environment-friendly alternatives to oil, natural gas and coal in the next decade or so. (Right now, Europe gets just 1.3% of its energy from wind and solar, but 75% from fossil fuels – and both wind and solar exact significant environmental costs.)

In the meantime, we need to rely more on realistic opportunities and initiatives, and on our oil supplier friends in Canada and Mexico. If we don’t, we’ll have to continue importing from increasingly unstable and unfriendly parts of the world – and being constantly at their tender mercies, just like the Europeans.

 _________________________________________________ 

 Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow  and Congress of Racial Equality, and author or Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now