Oil and Gas

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Obama Nixes Job-Creating Pipeline 11 Months After Launching Plan With Canada to Boost Growth on Both Sides of Border

CNS News

After three years of environmental review and a 60-day congressional deadline for a decision, the Obama administration on Wednesday nixed the Keystone XL pipeline project that would bring tar sand oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The decision drew strong reaction from business and energy groups. Environmental groups oppose the pipeline, fearing the possibility of an oil spill.

In a statement, the State Department said it had recommended to President Obama that the permit be denied and that, “at this time,” the pipeline project “be determined not to serve the national interest.”

Chamber of Commerce to Obama: You ‘Missed the Biggest In-Sourcing Opportunity’ --Keystone Pipeline

CNS News

– While President Barack Obama has been touting the importance of “insourcing” jobs into the United States (as opposed to outsourcing jobs overseas), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reminded America on Thursday that Obama recently rejected one of the most prominent and beneficial insourced opportunities: the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar sand oil through middle America to refineries on the Gulf Coast and create at least 20,000 jobs.

Bruce Josten, vice president of government affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said on Jan. 12, 2011, that President Obama should approve the Keystone Pipeline to create jobs in the United States.

The 1,700-mile Keystone pipeline, which starts in Canada and would end on the Texas coast, has been under review by the Obama administration’s State Department for several years. While a green light from the State Department for the project was expected last fall, the department, under pressure from environmentalists, decided in November to delay its decision until 2013.

Oil, Gas In Western U.S. Provide Employment and Millions in Revenue, Says Energy Alliance

CNS News

At a House hearing to examine how oil and natural gas production on federal lands can be hampered by unnecessary regulations, a witness representing energy companies in the western United States said the industry in that region can provide vast amounts of oil and natural gas and generate thousands of jobs and millions in government revenue.

“Our members are proud to produce 27 percent of America’s natural gas and 14 percent of its oil production while disturbing only 0.07 percent of public lands,” Kathleen Sgamma, director of government and public affairs for the Western Energy Alliance, told lawmakers on Friday at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The alliance represents 400 companies engaged in “environmentally responsible” exploration and production of oil and natural gas throughout the West.

Job-Creating Keystone Pipeline Affects Endangered Beetle, Says State Dep't

CNS News

In its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would create thousands of jobs and transport 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to Oklahoma and Texas, a State Department official said its investigation found “no significant impact to most resources” along the path of the 1,700-mile project. But the State Department also said the pipeline could adversely affect the American Burying Beetle, an endangered species.

Kerri-Ann Jones, assistant secretary of the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the State Department, said during an Aug. 26 conference call with reporters that there could be some impact on the bettle’s habitat. The bug was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1989.

“The FEIS does have a summary of findings, and what that summary states is that there would be no significant impact to most resources along the proposed pipeline corridor,” Jones said in answering a question from a Washington Post.

GOP: Politics behind oil reserve release

OneNewsNow

The Obama administration is being accused of playing politics with the nation's oil reserves, while the president defended the move last week saying it was necessary because of the oil supplies lost due to Middle East turmoil.

The release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be the largest ever, amounting to half of a 60-million-barrel international infusion of oil planned for the world market over the next month.

Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas), along with other GOP leaders and business groups, accuses President Barack Obama of playing politics with the country's oil reserves, which are intended to address emergencies.

Tim Huelskamp"It's mystifying," says Huelskamp. "We don't know why he did that. It seems to be very political and a very bad decision, in my opinion. That is a resource that is to be tapped in times of severe crisis."

Liberal Activists to Protest Job-Creating Pipeline Project

CNS News

Actor Danny Glover, a perennial protester, plans to march with other liberal activists outside the White House in the summer heat to protest a proposed oil pipeline that would bring crude oil from Canada to U.S. refineries in Texas, creating tens of thousands of jobs in the process.

TransCanada says its proposed Keystone XL pipeline will give the U.S. a consistent and reliable supply of oil -- supplying roughly half the amount of oil the U.S. currently imports from the Middle East and Venezuela -- once it's completed.

Because the proposed pipeline would cross the international border near Morgan, Montana, a presidential permit issued by the U.S. State Department is required for the project to proceed. Glover and his fellow celebrity-environmentalist protesters want the Obama administration to deny TransCanada a permit.

Exxon makes major oil discovery in Gulf

The Hill.com

Exxon Mobil said Wednesday it has discovered an estimated 700 million barrels of oil equivalent at a deepwater well off the Louisiana coast, a major find that a top House Republican argued should push the administration to speed up offshore permitting.

"This is one of the largest discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in the last decade,” Exxon Mobil Exploration Company President Steve Greenlee said in a statement.

Exxon Mobil made the discovery after the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) approved an application in March allowing the company to resume exploratory drilling. Drilling at the well was halted in the aftermath of last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The well is located about 250 miles south of New Orleans in about 7,000 feet of water, Exxon Mobil said.

Drilling moratorium -- damage is done

OneNewsNow

Today marks one year since the Obama administration announced a moratorium on deepwater drilling. But even though that moratorium has since been lifted, some believe the damage remains.

The moratorium officially lasted only five months, but Dan Kish, energy policy analyst at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), says it remained in place through what has become known as a "permitorium." A federal court has ruled the Obama administration in contempt and has ordered that permits be approved. But that has been delayed amid negotiations between the administration and one of the drilling companies.

Regardless, the U.S. is not drilling as much as it used to, which the policy analyst says means fewer jobs, less revenue, and more imported oil.

"By the end of this year, we'll have close to 400,000 barrels a day not being produced that would have been produced but for this [moratorium]," Kish explains.

Who Owns ‘Big Oil'? Not Who You Think

CNS News

Armed with a Power Point presentation to illustrate the state of American energy, John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute (API), said the majority of “big oil” and natural gas ownership is in good hands – the hands of the American people.

According to a report published in 2007 by Sonecon, an economic advisory firm that analyses U.S. markets and public policy, corporate management owns only 1.5 percent of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.

The rest is owned by tens of millions of Americans through retirement accounts (14 percent) and pension funds (26 percent). Mutual funds or other firms account for 29.5 percent ownership and individual investors own 23 percent of oil stock holdings.

Democratic Leaders Mislead on Gas Prices, Oil Taxes, Says Energy Expert

CNS News

Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate continue to make misleading statements about the effect their plans to raise taxes on oil companies would have on gas prices.

“We have to do something about the exorbitant gas prices, and the best way to start with that is to do something about the five big oil companies getting subsidies they don't need,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on the Senate floor on Tuesday.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) was even more direct. Appearing on MSNBC’s Jansing & Co., Israel said that Congress could lower gas prices by eliminating tax write-offs for large oil companies.

Hatch Warns Against Punishing Businesses for Being Profitable

CNS News

Even before the first oil company executive testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Sen. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) criticized the hearing as a dog-and-pony show.

Lawmakers should not go down the “dangerous road” of punishing American businesses for being profitable, said Hatch, the committee’s ranking member.

With a photo of a dog riding a pony as a backdrop behind him, Hatch said Thursday’s hearing would only provide “political theater.”

He noted that contrary to what some people think, the Obama administration does indeed have an energy policy: “Are you ready for this? Their energy policy is to increase the cost of energy,” Hatch said.

Democrat: Non-Energy-Producing States Shouldn’t Complain About High Gas Prices

CNS News

A U.S. senator -- a Democrat – is taking a strong stand against a bill introduced by a fellow Democrat that would end energy subsidies for big oil companies.

In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Mary Landrieu, from the oil-producing state of Louisiana, said the bill introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) targets an industry that supports 9.2 million jobs and contributes more than 7.7 percent to U.S. gross domestic product.

Ending energy subsidies for oil and gas companies, she said, will not reduce gas prices, but it will eliminate jobs.

Pelosi Blamed ‘Oil Men in the White House’ for Gas Prices in ’08, Now Who’s To Blame?

CNS News

Back in 2008 then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knew where she wanted to place the blame for high gas prices. “The price of oil is at the doorstep -- 4 dollars plus per gallon for oil, is attributed to two oil men in the White House,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview on July 17th, 2008.

Now that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are out of the White House, Pelosi has been silent on the issue. She has made no public comments on gas prices over the past few months. President Barack Obama however, has been fielding questions on the issue as he begins his bid for re-election.

Cutting Oil Company Tax Breaks Could Push Prices Up, Analysts Say

CNS News

President Barack Obama’s call to end “subsidies” for oil companies will not lower the price of gas, but could likely increase it, analysts said Tuesday.

“It will contribute to the increase in oil prices,” said Sterling Burnett, senior fellow for energy and environmental studies at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market think tank.

Burnett said the tax breaks were primarily for equipment, which are write-offs available to all businesses. Calling these write-offs “subsidies” was deceptive, he added.

Bullet 333Barry Asmus, Senior Economist, National Center for Policy Analysis
Bullet 333David Bossie, President, Citizens United
Bullet 333Dan Celia, Host, "Financial Issues Live" Radio Program
Bullet 333Phil Clements, Managing Director, Center for Christian Business Ethics Today, LLC.
Bullet 333Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship
Bullet 333Ward Connerly, Author/Founder and Chairman, American Civil Rights Institute
Bullet 333Tom DeLay, Former House Majority Leader, United States House of Representatives
Bullet 333William Devlin, National President, Redeem The Vote
Bullet 333Chuck Donovan, Senior Research Fellow-DeVos Center for Religion a, The Heritage Foundation
Bullet 333James Edwards, Cofounder, Olive, Edwards, & Cooper, LLC
Bullet 333Steve Elliott, President, Grassfire.org
Bullet 333Joseph Farah, CEO, Founder, WorldNetDaily
Bullet 333Frank Gaffney, Founder and President , Center for Security Policy
Bullet 333James Gelfand, Senior Manager of Health Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Bullet 333Lou Giuliano, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer (r, ITT Corporation
Bullet 333Rick Green, President, Torch of Freedom Foundation
Bullet 333Colin Hanna, Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring USA
Bullet 333Lowman Henry, Chairman & CEO, Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research, Inc.
Bullet 333Larry Hunter, President, The Social Security Institute
Bullet 333Phillip Kim, Assistant Professor of Management and Human Resour, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business
Bullet 333Cliff Kincaid, President, America's Survival, Inc.
Bullet 333Jennifer Marshall, Director of Domestic Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation
Bullet 333Gary Marx, Executive Director, Judicial Confirmation Network
Bullet 333Ryan Messmore, William E. Simon fellow in Religion and a Free Soc, The Heritage Foundation
Bullet 333Joe Murray, Columnist, The Bulletin
Bullet 333Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)
Bullet 333Phyllis Schlafly, President and Founder, Eagle Forum
Bullet 333Chuck Stetson, Co-founder and Managing Director, PEI Funds
Bullet 333Tony Strickland, Taxpayer Advocate
Bullet 333Lorianne Updike, President & Executive Director, The Constitutional Sources Project
Bullet 333John Weiser, Board Member, Westminster Theological Seminary , In Medias Res

Media let gas, oil policy connections slip by

OneNewsNow

A new report says the three major network evening news shows have largely ignored any connection between White House policies and skyrocketing gas prices in the year following the BP oil spill.

ABC, CBS, and NBC ran a combined 280 "oil" stories in the year following the BP Gulf oil spill. But only three of those stories -- one percent -- mentioned any connection between the Obama administration's anti-oil policies and rising gas prices. That's according to Julia Seymour of Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute.

"Obama barely gets mentioned in these stories, despite his drilling ban and moratorium," she notes.

In addition, says the MRC spokeswoman, when one compares that to the news coverage of President George W. Bush during the 2008 gas crunch, "it's the exact opposite." She observes: "Bush was routinely accused of being connected to big oil."

Obama hinders U.S. drilling, celebrates Brazil's

OneNewsNow

With the national average for gas prices hovering around $4 a gallon, President Barack Obama recently promised increased oil exploration and production to Brazil, vowing that the U.S. would be one of Brazil's "best customers."

Dan Kish of the Institute for Energy Research says it is a decision that is "very difficult to follow."

"We could use the jobs, we could use the energy security, and we could use the revenue that we're currently using to buy foreign oil," he explains, "and yet the government won't let us do that -- but he goes there celebrating the fact that they're doing it."

In an unusual, yet not entirely unexpected turn of events, one of the oil rig contractors involved in the Brazil exploration is Noble Corporation, which moved out of the Gulf of Mexico, citing a shortage of work in the moratorium, which has come to be known as the "permitorium."

"These big rigs need to be employed in gainful work [and] making money to pay off the loans that they use to build them," the IER spokesman says. "My guess is we'll lose more equipment to Brazil, because in Brazil they can get permits and drill. In the United States they can't."

Kish points out that the federal government has only allowed one-sixth of the companies that were drilling at the time of the BP Gult oil spill to go back to work.

Gasoline cost to jump $700 for average household

Reuters

U.S. drivers will pay another 10 cents a gallon for gasoline before the latest jump in wholesale costs is fully passed on at the pump, and yearly motor fuel costs will rise 28 percent from last year, the Energy Department said on Wednesday.

The average U.S. household will spend about $700 more for gasoline in 2011 than it spent last year, bringing total motor fuel expenses up 28 percent to $3,235, based on an annual pump price of $3.61 a gallon, the department's Energy Information Administration said.

New Study Shows That Offshore Drilling Could Make Alaska the Eighth Largest Oil Producer in the World – Ahead of Libya and Nigeria

CNS News

A new study says drilling on Alaska’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) could make Alaska the eighth largest oil resource province in the world -- ahead of Nigeria, Libya, Russia and Norway.

The report -- by the consulting firm Northern Economics and the University of Alaska-Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research -- says that developing Alaska’s OCS could produce almost 10 billion barrels of oil and 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, create around 55,000 new jobs and produce $145 billion in new payroll nationally, generating a total of $193 billion in government revenue through the year 2057.

Pelosi indicates openness to offshore drilling vote

TheHill

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday night dropped her staunch opposition to a vote on offshore oil drilling in the House. Republicans, reacting to high gas prices, have demanded a vote on additional oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf, where drilling is currently blocked by a moratorium. Until now, Pelosi (D-Calif.) has resisted the idea as a “hoax.” But in an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, she indicated that she was open to a vote.

Bush Acts on Drilling, Challenging Democrats

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush lifted nearly two decades of executive orders banning drilling for oil and natural gas off the country’s shoreline on Monday while challenging Congress to open up more areas for exploration to address soaring energy prices. Democrats in Congress, joined by environmentalists, criticized the step and ridiculed it as ineffectual, while most Republicans and industry representatives applauded it as long overdue. The lifting of the moratorium — first announced by Mr. Bush’s father, President George Bush, in 1990 and extended by President Bill Clinton — will have no real impact because a Congressional moratorium on drilling enacted in 1981 and renewed annually remains in force. And there appeared to be no consensus for lifting it in tandem with Mr. Bush’s action.

Bullet 333Barry Asmus, Senior Economist, National Center for Policy Analysis
Bullet 333David Bossie, President, Citizens United
Bullet 333Dan Celia, Host, "Financial Issues Live" Radio Program
Bullet 333Phil Clements, Managing Director, Center for Christian Business Ethics Today, LLC.
Bullet 333Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship
Bullet 333Ward Connerly, Author/Founder and Chairman, American Civil Rights Institute
Bullet 333Tom DeLay, Former House Majority Leader, United States House of Representatives
Bullet 333William Devlin, National President, Redeem The Vote
Bullet 333James Edwards, Cofounder, Olive, Edwards, & Cooper, LLC
Bullet 333Joseph Farah, CEO, Founder, WorldNetDaily
Bullet 333Frank Gaffney, Founder and President , Center for Security Policy
Bullet 333James Gelfand, Senior Manager of Health Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Bullet 333Lou Giuliano, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer (r, ITT Corporation
Bullet 333Rick Green, President, Torch of Freedom Foundation
Bullet 333Colin Hanna, Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring USA
Bullet 333Lowman Henry, Chairman & CEO, Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research, Inc.
Bullet 333Dr. Janice Hollis, Bishop, Progressive Believers Ministries
Bullet 333Larry Hunter, President, The Social Security Institute
Bullet 333Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church
Bullet 333Phillip Kim, Assistant Professor of Management and Human Resour, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business
Bullet 333Gary Marx, Executive Director, Judicial Confirmation Network
Bullet 333Joe Murray, Columnist, The Bulletin
Bullet 333Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)
Bullet 333Chuck Stetson, Co-founder and Managing Director, PEI Funds
Bullet 333Tony Strickland, Taxpayer Advocate
Bullet 333John Weiser, Board Member, Westminster Theological Seminary , In Medias Res
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