Mid-Atlantic energy advances long-term security

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

Marita Noon at Energy Makes America Great

At the end of January, the Obama administration announced the next step in a long process that could result in the exploration and ultimate extraction of oil-and-gas resources of the U.S. mid-Atlantic—something the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Governors Coalition supports. On March 30, the 60-day comment period ends. If everything goes well, we could see new American resources on the market in twenty years.

With the current oil oversupply, it may seem like an odd time to be going after more. However, the legal wheels that could allow limited access to the vast, untapped oil resources move very slowly. Today’s market conditions will fluctuate up and down many times between now and 2035 when the global demand for energy is expected to spike.

Not to mention the increasingly volatile situation taking place right now in the Middle East, where new coalitions are already being formed: Iran and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and South Korea—just to name two. If one more beheading takes place or a bomb hits the right (or wrong) target, the region could erupt, and the entire energy dynamic would change. Considering the variables, American energy security is always something worth pursuing.

The planning for the 2017-2022 OCS leasing program began June 2014, when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a request for information and comments. Then, in January, it published the Draft Proposed Plan; the Final Proposed Plan is anticipated in Q4 2016 or Q1 2017, with it probably taking effect in Q2/Q3 2017. The 2017-2022 plan proposes just one mid-Atlantic lease sale six years from now—and even its future is precarious. The mid-Atlantic currently has no leases in federal waters.

Explaining the process, Offshore magazine writes: “The OCS Lands Act requires the Secretary of the Interior to prepare a five-year program that includes a schedule of potential oil and gas lease sales and indicates the size, timing and location of proposed leasing activity as determined to best meet national energy needs, while addressing a range of economic, environmental and social considerations.”

BOEM estimates that the entire U.S. OCS holds approximately 90 billion barrels of oil and more than 400 trillion cubic feet of natural gas which are technically recoverable. Based on 30 to 40 year old data, it estimates that the mid-Atlantic OCS may contain approximately 8-9 billion barrels of oil equivalent—which at current consumption rates would be enough to meet South Carolina’s needs for 67 years.

New seismic and other geological and geophysical surveys are needed. Modern practices and technologies will provide a more comprehensive view that will help make informed decisions on using the resources.

While the proposal for possible mid-Atlantic development faces opposition from environmental lobbyists, who call it a gift to oil-and-gas interests and an anchor to the “dirty fossil fuels of the past,” it enjoys a favorable political climate in the affected coastal states, where polls show citizens support offshore drilling.

When the January announcement came out, North Carolina’s Republican Governor Pat McCory, chairman of the OCS Governors Coalition, applauded the proposal: “Responsible exploration and development of oil and gas reserves off our coast would create thousands of good paying jobs, spur activity in a host of associated industries, generate billions of dollars in tax revenue and move America closer to energy independence.”

Even Virginia’s Democrat Senators say the proposal is a “significant step … that should result in safe, responsible development of energy resources off the Virginia and mid-Atlantic coasts.”

Both the senators and governors want to see legislation passed that would provide for the same type of revenue-sharing system currently applied to the Gulf States to compensate local communities for additional infrastructure, environmental protection, and other coastal management needs generated by the new economic activity.

If Congress allows revenue sharing, Brydon Ross, Southeast director of the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), predicts: it “could generate more than $10 billion in revenue combined for critical public budget infusions without taxpayer dollars.”

Unfortunately, even though it is included in the draft proposal and is supported by lawmakers in the impacted states, future mid-Atlantic resource development is not a sure thing. The Washington Post (WP) calls the plan: “politically fraught.”

Jeremy Kennedy, an attorney who focuses on domestic- and international-energy transactions, says: “The planning, review and adoption of the 2017-2022 leasing program is, at its core, a political process.”

“This is a political plan,” Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, stated: “not a plan based on science and resource data”—though he acknowledged it “is a small step in the right direction.” Luthi added: “Our members are encouraged by the decision to further analyze the mid- and south-Atlantic areas, which have not been included in a leasing program for over two generations.”

The 2017-2022 five-year plan is still in the early stages. Addressing the ongoing process, Kennedy explains: “Each of the steps … will winnow the scope of the 2017-2022 leasing program.” The WP reports: BOEM “could decide to narrow—but not expand—the proposed leasing area before it is finalized.”

Kennedy sees that “little is certain at this time.” After all, the Obama administration has killed previous potential lease sales. “Once published,” he states, “planned lease sales can always be cancelled or delayed by the Interior Department, president or Congress.”

Will the U.S. pursue development of our own offshore oil-and-natural gas resources in the Atlantic, as Canada, Cuba, the Bahamas, and South American Atlantic-coast countries are doing? No one really knows—but we should. Supporters of American energy security need to get involved in the “political process” by making our voices heard.

Add your public comment before the March 30 deadline. Tell BOEM: “America can balance energy production with environmental protection.” Let Interior Secretary Sally Jewell know that you support “Greater access to our bountiful energy resources and advancing long-term energy security, while growing our coastal communities.”

The CEA has a customizable letter to make it easy for you to “act now!”

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

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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.

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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.

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President Obama disses Alaska

Obama Disses Alaska from the Warning Signs by Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Alaska's Pristine Wildlife Refuge

Fifty million Americans who live in the northeast will experience what is predicted to be a historic blizzard from Monday evening through Tuesday. Cities and towns will virtually or literally close down. People will be told to stay indoors for their safety and to facilitate the crews that will labor to clear the roads of snow.

In other words, welcome to Alaska, a place that is plenty cold most of the year and which is no stranger to snow and ice.

Alaska, however, has something that the whole world considers very valuable; oil and natural gas. Lots of it. In 1980 a U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the Coastal Plain could contain up to 17 billion barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

In 1987, the U.S Department of Interior confirmed the earlier estimate, saying that “in place resources” ranged from 4.8 billion to 29.4 billion barrels of oil. Recoverable oil estimates ranged from 600 million barrels at the low end to 9.2 billion barrels at the high end.

A nation with an $18 trillion debt might be expected to want to take advantage of this source of revenue, but no, not if that debt was driven up by the idiotic policies of President Barack Obama and not if it could be reduced by the same energy industry that has tapped similar oil and natural gas reserves in the lower 48 states by drilling on private, not public lands.

Instead, on Sunday President Obama referred to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as “an incredible place—pristine, undisturbed. It supports caribou and polar bears” and other species and, guess what, tapping its vast oil and natural gas reserves would not interfere in any way with those species despite the whopping lie that “it’s very fragile.”

At Obama’s direction, the Interior Department announced it was proposing to preserve as wilderness nearly 13 million acres of land in ANWR’s 19.8 million-acre area. That would include 1.5 million acres of coastal plains that Wall Street Journal reported to be “believed to have rich oil and natural gas reserves.”

Not a whole lot of people choose ANWR as a place to vacation. It is a harsh, though often beautiful, area that only the most experienced visitor might want to spend some time. I would want to make every environmentalist who thinks any drilling would harm the area have to take up residence in its “pristine” wilderness to confirm that idiotic notion.

They would find plenty of caribou, polar bears and other species hanging out amidst the oil and gas rigs, and along the pipe line. The Central Arctic Caribou Herd that migrates through the Prudhoe Bay oil field, just next to ANWR has increased from 5,000 animals in the 1970s to more than 50,000 today.

There is no evidence than any of the animal species have experienced any decline.

The Coastal Plain lies between known major discovery areas and the Prudhoe Bay, Lisburne, Endicott, Milne Point and Kuparuk oil fields are currently in production.

In 1996, the North Slope oil fields produced about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day or approximately 25% of the U.S. domestic production.

Alaska is permitted to export its oil because of its high levels of productivity.

So why has Obama’s Department of the Interior decided it wants to shut off energy exploration and extraction in a whopping 13-million acres of what is already designated as a wildlife refuge and along its coastlines on the Beaufort and Chukchi seas?

The answer is consistent with Obama’s six years of policies to deny Americans the benefits of the nation's vast energy reserves, whether it is the coal that has previously provided 50% of our electrical energy—now down by 10%--or access to reserves of oil and natural gas that would make our nation energy independent as well as a major exporter.

The good news is that only Congress has the authority to declare an area as wilderness. It has debated the issue for more than 30 years and in 12 votes in the House and 3 votes in the Senate it has passed legislation supporting development and opposing the wilderness designation.

And guess who is the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee? Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaskan Republican. She also heads up the appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the Interior Department!

This latest Obama ANWR gambit is going to go nowhere. It does, however, offer the Republican Congress an opportunity to demonstrate its pro-energy credentials.

“I cannot understand why this administration is willing to negotiate with Iran, but not Alaska,” said Sen. Murkowski when informed of Obama’s latest attack.

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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

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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.

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Saudis betray the U.S. with double edged sword

Saudi betrays the United States with a double edged sword from the files of Ken LaRive at the Examiner.com

Time to Take My Slice of the Pie

The year 1983 is still remembered here in Louisiana. It was the year that Saudi opened the oil valves of OPEC, flooding the world with cheap oil.

Our President Reagan used that well-designed opportunity to send the USSR economy into a tailspin, who struggled with totalitarian communism that ended in a total collective default.

In the middle of their own Vietnam in Afghanistan, trying to secure a pipeline there, and up to their necks in debt trying to keep up in an escalating cold war, the combination was lethal... and as they defaulted on their dept to our Western Banks, their country, along with a bound social system, disintegrated...

In the middle of that well-orchestrated process, our American Oilfields were devastated. Here in Lafayette, Louisiana, seven out of nine local banks went belly up, and it took six years to get back a little over 50 percent. With that year as a benchmark, we never have... And the dreams to become energy independent, also dissolved...


The sword slices Russia...

The USSR, is not the Russia of today...

All of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue, but planned for decades, the banking cartels and the MIC, (military industrial complex), war corporations and bankers are now promoting another economic cold war with Russia, and OPEC/Saudi seems to be stepping up to again destroy Russia. Why, and how?

And ISIS, the perfect distraction, an enemy unheard of just a few months ago, is driving around in US Humvees and flashing brand new weapons seemingly made for our military, and the complexity and convoluted truth of this matter leaves the American Spirit fearful, and confused... But profits are escalating, and the military industrial complex gun-running is staying busy fighting another faceless enemy, supplying both sides.

And in the middle of this new Banker orchestration, Mr. Putin is warning them to release their strangle hold on his country with threats of another European War... And as the Russian Economy sinks, and the Ukraine just can't make up its mind who to pay tribute to, opportunity is rifle... and as the Carpet Baggar laughs, another resounding milestone goes virtually unnoticed by the common people... that we are now well over 18 trillion in debt.

And some of us are tired of fear, and of being a sacrificial lamb for a One World Government... we want our country back.

And the sword slashes ...

Today, the American Oilfield is facing another devastating blow as Saudi is again flooding the market with oil, sending prices below $50 US. Too cheep to drill, the layoffs in the oil-patch are beginning in earnest.

Amazingly, we were posed for another boom by speculators just last year, not only to become energy independent, but with our new (so called) American technology in Fracking, we now have a 100 year surplus of that product. The transition from oil to gas promises to usher in a new age of clean and abundant fuel.

It could be a long standing and viable economic boom for America, but the valves are open, and instead of managing the flow, they are attempting to destroy both America and Russia, for profit.

And the sword slashes...

This year, in 2015, for the first time in 45 years... where an LNG terminal in Alaska supplies Japan with LNG, we will be exporting natural gas all around the world from a terminal that costs billions to build, right here in Louisiana.

So amazingly viable, they are widening the Panama Canal to accommodate the new giant LNG transport ships, with unlimited financing from around the world, and have in-hand signed contracts that blue-lines that industry for years to come.

A second project has recently been approved to build, and that will double the previous export opportunities of Cheniere Energy, the first one up and running this very year...

Slash!

As it seems most everything in this world, especially when it is about power, control, and fear that oils that great war machine... the world is not the same as 1983. There are new names, new enemies, but the controlling power is the same... Similarly, we were just about to become energy independent again, here in America, and our previous suppliers, who have made trillions... do not want to see western dependence end.

We must look closely at why we are being force-fed low-quality oil from Canada with the attempt to take up the slack, carving up our country with another pipeline? They want to send that oil to our own Cancer Ally to refine, because they have the pressure of environmentalist to contend with, same as those who do not want the pipeline here. Think about that for just a moment! Is it the environment, or is it some company's bottom line?

I'll bet that it is a profit margin every time...And though it is promoted by media to be American oil, North America is not the United States of America. It is a ruse... When we say “Drill here. Drill now!” we are not talking about Canada, Mexico, or the dying Venezuela, but the United States of America. That sir, is energy independence... And as I am a Libertarian, I say, America First. Put America first. Drill in the United States of America!

Slash!

OPEC/Saudi does not like Russia because they are considered competition, along with all BLOC countries. Just a few years ago the Jewish Communist Oligarch that had the country by the throat since the Bolshevik Revolution, was disbanded, and a new Capitalistic government has emerged from the ciaos of rogue power structures that some have called Mafia.

Fortunately, however, out of the fray, both civil liberties and Christianity is on the rise, just as ours are dissolving. Orthodox Christianity, in Russia, is vying to become the national religion, and though Mr. Putin is reluctant to accept this ideology of Church State, he has come forward with a public statement that he considers himself a Christian.

This has caused a national furor, a new love of country, where just sixty years ago all religions were dismantled or went underground. The horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution is still remembered, and they do not want that to return.

Indeed, OPEC/Saudi, the country where our new President bowed to their Murderous Oil Prince, has a great manipulative power over our Congress, and together with AIPAC, now controls our country from the inside out... Our Congress is the best money can buy, and it seems evident that they do not care one iota for our civil liberties, our economy, our constitution, our sovereignty, our natural God-given rights, and are bought and paid to promote their corporate sponsors.

They are traitors... And they should be fired. Term limits would help, but only an informed populous could have any hope in achieving that lofty ideal... Individual responsibility seeks truth, and both are in short supply.

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Author's Note: Yesterday I picked up my new Christmas shotgun at my local shooting range. Parked in front I saw several State Police cars with one that had SUPERVISOR printed on the door in silver letters.
On my way out I noticed him looking at some leather holsters, and with a spur-of-the-moment decision walked up to him, trying to project calmness... “Sir,” I said, “may I ask you a question?” I tried to smile.

“Sure.” he said, and he looked at me right in the eyes.

“Well, I know this is out of the blue, but I'd like to ask you if you are an Oath Keeper.”

His mind clicked, and I could see the wheels turning...”Yes, yes I am sir, and why do you ask?”

I could feel the blood moving to my face, with a lump in my throat too, just like the thirty other times I have done this...“Well, you took an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies both domestic and foreign.” I said, “Do you read the Constitution?”

“Yes I do read the Constitution, and yes I take my oath very seriously.”

I put my hand out to him, and he took it with a strong grip, and I said "Thank you for your service..." And for just a moment more we held eye contact, and what I saw there gave me hope, and a love too, for my country and this fine young man who is on the front lines. And as I turned and walked out, I heard him say:

"Thanks for asking."

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Obama: Kicks oil and gas while its down

Obama Administration kicks the oil-and-gas industry while it is down by Marita K. Noon and featured at Breibart.com

Marita Noon at Energy Makes America Great

For the past six years, the oil and gas industry has served as a savior to the Obama presidency by providing the near-lone bright spot in economic growth. Increased U.S. oil-and-gas production has created millions of well-paying jobs and given us a new energy security.

The president often peppers his speeches with braggadocio talk about our abundant supplies and decreased dependence on foreign oil.

So now that the economic powerhouse faces hard times, how does the Administration show its appreciation for the oil-and-gas industry boon to the economy over the past six years?

By introducing a series of regulations—at least nine in total, according to the Wall Street journal (WSJ)—that will put the brakes on the US energy boom through higher operating costs and fewer incentives to drill on public lands.

WSJ states: “Mr. Obama and his environmental backers say new regulations are needed to address the impacts of the surge in oil and gas drilling.”

U.S. oil production, according to the Financial Times:

“caught Saudi Arabia by surprise.”

The kingdom sees that US shale and Canadian oil-sand development “encroached on OPEC’s market share” and has responded with a challenge to high-cost sources of production by upping its output—adding to the global oil glut and, therefore, dropping prices.

Most oil-market watchers expect temporary low-priced oil, with prediction of an increase in the second half of 2015, and some saying 2016. North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness believes “We’re in an energy war.”

He sees “the price slump could last 16 months or even one to two years as U.S. supply stays strong, global demand remains weak and OPEC continues to challenge U.S. production.”

However, Ibrahim al-Assaf, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister, recently said:

“We have the ability to endure low oil prices over the medium term of up to five years, even if it means delving into fiscal reserves to cover a large deficit.”

While no one knows how long the low-price scenario will last—geopolitical risk is still a factor.

Many oil companies are already re-evaluating exploration, reining in costs, and cutting jobs and/or wages. “In the low price circumstance like today,” Jean-Marie Guillermou, the Asian head of the French oil giant Total, explained:

“you do the strict minimum required.”

In December, the WSJ reported:

“Some North American companies have said they plan to cut their capital spending next year and dial back on exploring for new oil.”

It quotes Tim Dove, President and COO for Pioneer Natural Resources Co.:

“We are seeking cost reductions from all our suppliers.”

Last month, Enbridge Energy Partners said:

“it has laid off some workers in the Houston area”—which the Houston Chronicle (HC) on December 12 called: “the latest in a string of energy companies to announce cutbacks.”

The HC continued:

“Other key energy companies have also announced layoffs in recent days as oil tumbles to its lowest price in years. Halliburton on Thursday said it would slash 1,000 jobs in the Eastern Hemisphere as part of a $75 million restructuring. BP on Wednesday revealed plans to accelerate job cuts and pare back its oil production business amid crumbling oil prices.”

Halliburton said:

“we believe these job eliminations are necessary in order to work through this market environment.”

Civeo, a lodging and workforce accommodation company for the oil-and-gas industry has cut 30 percent of its Canadian workforce and 45 percent of its U.S. workforce. President and CEO Bradley Dodson said:

“As it became evident during the fourth quarter that capital spending budgets among the major oil companies were going to be cut, we began taking steps to reduce marketed room capacity, control costs and curtail discretionary capital expenditures.”

I have warned the industry that while they have remained relatively unscathed by harsh regulations—such as those placed on electricity generation—their time would come. Now, it has arrived. The WSJ concurs:

“In its first six years, the administration released very few regulations directly affecting the oil-and-gas industry and instead rolled out several significant rules aimed at cutting air pollution from the coal and electric-utility sectors.”

According to the WSJ:

“Some of the rules have been in the works for months or even years.”

But that doesn’t mean the administration should introduce them now when the industry is already down—after all, the administration delayed Obamacare mandates due to the negative impact on jobs and the economy.

Greg Guidry, executive vice president at Shell, recently said that he doesn’t want the EPA to “impose unnecessary costs and burden on an industry challenged now by a sustained low-price environment.”

Different from Obama, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets it. Under pressure from the environmental lobby to increase regulations on the oil-and-gas industry, he, during a question session on the floor of the House of Commons in December, said:

“Under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy—it would be crazy economic policy—to do unilateral penalties on that sector.”

He added:

“We are not going to kill jobs and we are not going to impose a carbon tax.”

Introducing the new rules now kick the industry while it is down and shows that President Obama either doesn’t get it, or he cares more about burnishing his environmental legacy than he does about American jobs and economic growth.

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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.

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