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POPSGreens Pave Way for Republican Comeback
than most other sorts of development, whether they be new or expanding suburban communities, roads, farming or a green energy projects -- like wind farms, solar panel fields, and cellulosic ethanol plants. Consider, for example, how much “fragile” environment would be disturbed by T. Boone Pickens’ plan to build the largest wind farm in the world on 400,000 acres in the Texas panhandle. While the Greens say they support Pickens’ effort, in what way is the Texas panhandle less fragile than the Utah desert? Last spring, the BLM placed a moratorium on solar power projects to be built on public lands, pending environmental impact studies. The necessary transmission lines and water use might disturb the native vegetation and wildlife, says the BLM. But the solar power industry screamed bloody murder and the moratorium was soon rescinded. Given that the Greens oppose oil and gas drilling everywhere, the rest of us -- especially congressional Republicans --
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POPS"Energy" - Common Sense Thinking This spot promotes the aggressive development of domestic energy resources and suggests that one presidential candidate is substantially in accord and one not. Any guess as to who's against drilling? At a recent Obama speech about the housing crisis, he claimed he has a one word solution. J.O.B.S. Really, Sen. Obama? Of course we want full employment, but explain how we're going to run our economy, while we remain dependent on imported oil from those who seek our economic demise.
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POPSSham Drilling Bill Sends Crude Oil Up $12 A Barrel The ruse began late Monday night, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a 290-page bill and then waved it through less than 24 hours later, 236-189. "Closed" rules prohibited the GOP from offering alternatives. The real game was to give vulnerable Democrats political cover by letting them vote for more offshore drilling -- while also making more drilling all but impossible, thus appeasing the party's green wing. ... The bill would allow exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf, but only in waters 100 or more miles out in the Atlantic and Pacific. The farthest reaches of the OCS contain resources, but undersea geography and deep water make development very -- if not prohibitively -- expensive. Areas closer to land are far richer and easier to access. Conveniently, Mrs. Pelosi's bill imposes a 50-mile "buffer zone" around the country.
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POPSSciAm: Offshore oil drilling is no panacea in order for american oil to be used by americans, our oil market would have to be closed off from international markets. this would make gas prices increase, not decrease. the lack of production capacity here in america will prevent us from refining the oil drawn out of OCS and ANWR. what good will it do to open OCS and ANWR to more drilling? not much.
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POPSWhat's McCain's Plan On The Gang of 20 Energy Legislation? Republicans in the gang appear to have seriously underestimated their party’s strength on this issue. Two-thirds of the public supports opening the Outer Continental Shelf to new drilling. The gang is undermining Republicans in a fight they are winning politically and policy-wise. McCain opposes wasteful spending and supports offshore drilling. The Gang of 20's bill contains a lot of the former and very little of the latter, and it raises taxes on domestic energy production. Americans for Tax Reform has announced that a vote for the gang's bill would constitute a violation of its taxpayer protection pledge, which McCain has signed. Obama will probably end up supporting the gang's bill. Why wouldn't he? Its drilling provisions are a sham, but it lets him claim he supports drilling. McCain needs to strongly oppose this bill. By doing so, he would be holding out for a better policy (the expiration of the drilling ban) and denying Obama valuable political cover.
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POPSRon Paul On Oil Prices And Free Trade
The Council on Foreign Relations caught up with former presidential nominee Ron Paul last week, who attributed high oil prices to misguided foreign policy and inflation. He also passionately affirmed his pro-free trade stance. The interview is a lively read!
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POPSFactcheck: Palin even wrong on Alaska energy "Not even close:" In Gibson interview, she claims Alaska produces 20% of US energy; 3.5%, says US Energy Info Admin. This she claims as "a credential I do bring to the table." Are we being unfair here? Or are these things she really ought to know?
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POPSGOP "Hitched Their Wagon To Rising Star" Gov. Sarah Palin Rarely, if ever, has a vice-presidential pick had such impact. And no media pundit should be able to get away with claiming it has more to do with style than substance. A Rasmussen poll shows a recent increase in those identifying themselves as Republican. 32% of those calling themselves Republicans rose to 33.2% in August, while Democratic identification slipped to 35% from 37%. With a sizable majority of Americans demanding more domestic oil production, McCain chose a running mate from the state with the most to drill. Palin could give Obama, Biden and McCain a seminar on accessing oil and gas without devastating the wild. McCain's running mate has also electrified the party's base by living up to the family values she espouses, suspending the state fuel tax and vetoing half a billion dollars in spending — the kinds of things Republicans used to do before they lost their way.
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POPSThe Really Very Problematic "Pickens Plan" sources that T. Boone Pickens rails about in the context of oil. In its most recent annual outlook, the U.S. Department of Energy projects that the U.S. natural-gas market will become more integrated with natural-gas markets worldwide as the U.S. becomes more dependent on imported liquefied natural gas -- causing greater uncertainty in future U.S. natural-gas prices. The natural-gas supply problem will be additionally magnified if significant greenhouse-gas regulation is enacted. Here's how: Currently, when natural gas gets too expensive, electric utilities often substitute coal or cheaper fuels for power generation. Under a greenhouse-gas regulation scheme, however, inexpensive coal might no longer be an alternative because of the significantly greater greenhouse-gas emissions involved with its combustion. Utilities, and ultimately consumers, could easily find themselves at the mercy of natural-gas barons -- like T. Boone Pickens himself, a large investor in natural gas
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POPSPelosi Is Losing! Join House Republicans and Sign the Letter An Open Letter to Speaker Pelosi We think it is unconscionable that Congress has gone on vacation before we have addressed the high gas prices that are crippling our economy and hurting millions of families. We are asking that you reconvene the House from your five-week vacation and schedule a vote on legislation to increase American energy production. Let us be clear, we are not asking for a guaranteed outcome, just the chance to vote. http://www.nrcc.org/actioncenter/default.asp?ID=317#sign
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POPSEnergy Rhetoric vs Reality RHETORIC: Oil and natural gas companies are demanding greater access to America’s resources even though they own leases on millions of acres of federal lands that are already open to drilling. REALITY: Just because a lease is not producing oil or natural gas doesn’t mean it’s idle. Companies are actively exploring and developing the majority of their leases, but the entire process takes years and requires many steps, including securing government permits, analyzing seismic data and installing the machinery needed for drilling and production. Many leases prove not to contain enough oil and natural gas to be commercially viable, and companies can’t produce oil and natural gas where it does not exist. REALITY: At a time when we need all the energy we can find, increasing access to domestic sources of oil and natural gas would enhance our energy security. We have enough oil and natural gas resources to power 65 million cars for 60 years and heat 60 million households for 160 years.
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POPSGeneral Electric And Al Gore $cheme To Undermine Domestic Drilling GE stubbornly adheres to climate change alarmism because it has placed a huge financial bet on carbon-free energy sources, such as wind, that are threatened by domestic oil production. Climate change fears and tight oil supplies are the driving force for renewable energy. Increasing the supply of oil will reduce its price, making wind power even less competitive, even with generous government subsidies. GE CEO Jeff Immelt, already in hot water for poor stock performance, can't afford to lose his gamble on renewable energy. Faced with this threat, Immelt is shrewdly using his NBC news empire to promote climate change fears and wind turbines as a sound energy alternative. For economic and national security reasons Americans desperately need natural resource development in our own backyard.
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POPSGOP And Bipartisan Effort To Force Democrats To Lift A Drilling Ban Washington - As Congress heads into its last week before August recess and political conventions, there's one big item on the must-do list: Action to ease energy costs for American families. ongressional leaders are increasingly deadlocked over what to do. In response, frustrated rank-and-file members on both sides of the aisle are stepping up efforts to find common ground. Rep. Nick Lampson (D) of Texas is now pursuing his own version of an offshore drilling bill that would dedicate all $2.6 trillion in expected royalties to research on alternative energy. Last week, Republicans blocked three Democratic bills in as many days: On Thursday, the House rejected a measure that would have released about 70 million barrels of oil from the nation's SPR. On Friday, Senate Republicans blocked a move that would stop excessive speculation in energy markets. On Saturday, the GOP opposed taking up a $5.1 billion Senate measure to help low-income Americans pay utility bills this year.
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POPSMagical Thinking vs. Reality amount to $1.05 to $1.38 per gallon, or 42 to 55 percent of ethanol's wholesale market price. Ethanol does not reduce gasoline prices. If you lived in urban areas that used reformulated gasoline last summer -- that's the environmentally "clean" gasoline required for areas with air pollution problems -- you might have paid up to 60 cents a gallon more for gasoline. That's because the federal government required oil refineries to use 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, regardless of price, and gas pump prices last summer reflected the fact that ethanol was twice as expensive as conventional gas in wholesale markets, and far more costly to deliver. The truth is that if ethanol has commercial merit, it doesn't need the subsidy. And if it doesn't, no amount of subsidy will bestow it.
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POPS3 Myths About Offshore Drilling "Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claimed "not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina or Rita." This myth has been told again and again by the likes ofGov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Mike Huckabee, George Will, and Bill O'Reilly. There were, in fact, major onshore and offshore spills due to the hurricanes."
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POPSPelosi: Drilling In Protected Areas ‘A Hoax’ Democrats would not say when these bills would be ready for floor consideration. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) took to the floor to again criticize Democrats for dodging votes on energy bills, charging that Democrats are avoiding votes on the opening up of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and the OCS. Hoyer soon followed to retort, saying he and Democratic leaders have for weeks been urging for drilling on approved acres, only to have those efforts blocked by Republicans. He blamed Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney – the “two oil men in the White House” – and Republicans for setting an energy policy that has driven up gas prices and steered record profits to the energy companies. “As every serious person who has studied this issue knows, the proposals that Democrats are producing are shams and hoaxes designed to provide political cover and not to produce more American energy and lower gas prices,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.
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POPSThe Pickens Plan For Wind-Powered Energy Joseph Romm raises interesting questions about what wind power should replace, as well as the efficiency of natural gas in transportation. So does FuturePundit. # I believe more domestic production of oil is a marginally useful thing, but a long-term solution probably requires (short term) diversified energy sources - more plausible as technological progress allows us to capture, e.g., wind and solar energy more efficiently and to increase battery storage capacity - and (long term) nuclear energy. # I believe the lack of fueling infrastructure is a significant barrier to using natural gas for transportation. # I believe the scientific evidence that anthropogenic climate change is occurring is solid. # I believe the cost of oil is significantly higher than the price of oil and the negative externalities of our oil-driven economy are a problem that needs to be resolved. # I believe regulatory solutions to environmental problems are likely to result in path
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POPSFREE Email: No More Excuses For High Energy Prices! There's just one problem: Democrats are refusing to allow the bill out of committee, so the full House of Representatives can vote on it! Thankfully, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) has filed a "discharge petition" to get H.R. 3089 OUT of committee and force a vote on it. That petition already has 153 names on it -- but it requires 218 signatures to force that vote... So WE need to get 65 more Congressmen to SIGN that petition, NOW!
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POPSStop The Pelosi Anti-Energy Package! The most common-sense energy solution in the short term is to increase domestic oil production in the United States by allowing more exploration and drilling. Currently, there is a Congressional moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) that has been in place for 27 years. This moratorium translates into roughly 85% of the OCS that Congress has declared off-limits for oil exploration and drilling. It simply does not make sense for the United States to allow its domestic oil resources to sit unused and depend on other nations in unstable regions of the world for its energy needs.
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POPSA Clear Majority Of Americans Want To Drill Here Al Gore, philanthropist, Climate activist, and winner of the Nobel Peace prize, is the single greatest advocate in the war against humanity. Millions of innocent lives, people whose only crime is being poor. We need to protect not only others wellbeing, but our own freedoms, our own rights. We need to defend ourselves from Eco-Terrorist ideas, perpetuated by cheap theatrics and scaremongering. We need to defend ourselves against Eco Evangelist Al Gore. Energy Independence: President Bush asks Congress to lift the 1981 drilling ban on offshore oil. The no-drill Democrats will call it flip-flopping. We call it change you can believe in. The Democratic response to Republican determination to end our dependence on foreign oil has been to call for more taxes on oil companies and to pressure, even sue, OPEC. A group of 10 Democratic senators on Tuesday called for Bush to file a complaint against OPEC. http://www.smartgreenusa.com/
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POPSBush Calls Out the Dems Next was ANWR, which can be exploited with "virtually no impact on the land or local wildlife." Finally, refining capacity: It has been 30 years since a new refinery was built in our Nation, and lawsuits and red tape have made it extremely costly to expand or modify existing refineries. The result is that America now imports millions of barrels of fully refined gasoline from abroad. This imposes needless costs on American families and drivers. It deprives American workers of good jobs. Finally, Bush laid the problem once again at the Dems' door: I know Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past. Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions. If congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act. Excellent stuff. We need to do this every single day.
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POPSIs McCain Coming Around On ANWR? It will take years for the technologies to mature, the costs to come down and the national fleet to be changed over from its petroleum base. In the interim, we will need crude oil and plenty of it. Since the stability of our present sources of oil cannot be relied upon, our nation's security has been put at considerable risk. McCain realizes that the U.S. no longer has any choice but to develop its own dependable domestic energy supply and infrastructure. He's also politically astute enough to understand this: McCain's position is likely to help him solidify support among conservatives, which political analysts say he needs to do to guarantee a strong GOP turnout in November. His position also puts him in line with Republicans in the House and Senate, who are pushing legislation in Congress to lift the ban.
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POPS President Bush Discusses Energy The problem is that Congress has restricted access to key parts of the OCS since the early 1980s. Since then, advances in technology have made it possible to conduct oil exploration in the OCS that is out of sight, protects coral reefs and habitats, and protects against oil spills. With these advances -- and a dramatic increase in oil prices -- congressional restrictions on OCS exploration have become outdated and counterproductive. Republicans in Congress have proposed I call on the House and the Senate to pass good legislation as soon as possible. This legislation should give the states the option of opening up OCS resources off their shores, provide a way for the federal government and states to share new leasing revenues, and ensure that our environment is protected. There's also an executive prohibition on exploration in the OCS. When Congress lifts the legislative ban, I will lift the executive prohibition.
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POPSGas Prices Are Changing Americans’ Priorities would make developing the oil shale profitable at $20 a barrel. Are liberals in Congress anxious to see this oil help American consumers? No. Just last week they voted to extend their ban on oil shale development. The other liberal objection to increased domestic energy production is that the additional supplies will not affect prices for a decade. We will let Jay Leno respond: “Democrats said it would not do any good because it would not produce oil for 10 years. You know, same thing they said 10 years ago.” Just last week liberals in Congress rejected a proposal to allow drilling for oil 50 miles of the U.S. coast. The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be found along the U.S. outer continental shelf. The typical liberal response to calls for more domestic oil production is that drilling will not help lower prices significantly.
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POPSPETITION: To Secure Unrestricted Reliable Energy Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) allow the issuance of tax exempt facility bonds for the financing of domestic use oil refinery facilities; (2) extend through 2018 the tax credit for producing electricity from wind facilities; and (3) allow tax credits for the production of electricity from nuclear energy, natural gas production, and carbon dioxide tertiary injectant processes. Requires the President to designate at least 10 sites for oil or natural gas refineries on federal lands and make such sites available to the private sector for construction of refineries.
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POPSBush To Press Congress On Offshore Oil Drilling Bush also will reiterate his call for development of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Perino said. McCain has opposed drilling in the refuge, maintaining that the pristine areas in northeastern Alaska should be protected from energy development. On Monday, McCain made lifting the federal ban on offshore oil and gas development a key part of his energy plan. The Arizona senator said states should be allowed to pursue energy exploration in waters near their coasts and receive some of the royalty revenue. Bush has made clear in recent weeks that the drilling moratorium in coastal waters should end to allow for more domestic oil production and help "take the pressure off the price of gasoline." Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, opposes lifting the ban on offshore drilling and says that allowing exploration now wouldn't affect gasoline prices for at least five years.
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POPSChina's Drilling for Oil in America's Backyard... Apparently China recognizes a rich source when they find one. Can't you just see that *straw* under our coastal floor just sippin' away? I wouldn't be surprised if we don't end up buying it back with a nice profit for them.
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POPSHarry Reid's Anti-Energy "Consumer-First Energy Act" of 2008 Simply put, the Consumer-First Energy Act is an anti-energy bill that will only add to already-high energy costs. Fewer Restrictions on Domestic Oil Production We need fewer restrictions on domestic oil drilling. America remains the only oil-producing nation that has placed a substantial amount of its energy potential off-limits. This includes a few thousand acres of Alaska's 19.6 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This small portion of ANWR is believed to contain 10 billion barrels of oil—an amount equivalent to 15 years of imports from Saudi Arabia.
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