6/7/10

Sage Advice from John Stossel at IER Energy Forum: Want Folks to Support Energy Development in America? Remind Them That Access = Affordability. Oil & Gas Investor (6/4) reports, “Stossel says that explaining that more Louisiana Gulf Coast residents are employed by the energy industry than the fishing industry will fall upon unpiqued ears. Instead, he says, emphasize that U.S. energy production contributes to Americans’ access to cheap energy. Oil is produced from thousands of feet below Earth’s surface, and at times under thousands of feet of water too; brought to the surface and put into thousands of miles of pipe or into ships; refined into gasoline; transported to fueling stations in trucks; and the price is less than $3 a gallon, with some 70 cents of that going to the government.“It still costs less than the bottle of water they sell at the gas station,” Stossel notes. “Maybe we take these miracles for granted.” After purchasing goods for a month with a plastic card, a statement arrives that accounts for each purchase, to the penny, he notes. Yet, “the government can’t even count votes.”

Previously Content to Abort on Carbon Criminalization, Gulf Spill Has Some Lawmakers Thinking They Can Sneak It Through – See IER Debate CAP on That Below. Wall Street Journal (6/7) editorializes, “Democrats have also co-opted other should-be opponents, and not only in the oil industry. Corporate cap-and-tax enthusiasts include Duke Energy and most of the other utilities, as well as Honeywell, DuPont and other large corporations on the Business Roundtable. General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt captured this mentality best, as he so often does. "National policy—including an effective price on carbon and a strong, nationwide clean energy standard—is needed to drive increased investment, which in turn creates new technologies and jobs," he wrote in endorsing Kerry-Lieberman. Like the medical-industrial complex, these businesses will soon come to rue their concessions for a seat at the table and some momentary corporate welfare. But everyone else should understand the stakes. Democrats know this is their last opportunity to control another huge chunk of the economy. Click here to see IER’s Dan Kish debate CAP’s Danny Weiss this past weekend on the prospects for cap-and-raid (starts at 6:35).

Kish: “When Your First Response [to the Gulf Spill] is to Send in the Lawyers, You Have to Question What They’re Really After.” Audrey Hudson reports (6/7) in Human Events , “Atty. Gen. Eric Holder launched his inquiry into criminal charges against BP, but the ongoing spill is far from being under control and officials are still trying to determine what caused the catastrophe. “This is not the time to be focusing on a criminal investigation, and I have to believe that is part of the effort of the Obama Administration to look like they are doing something,” said Jack Coleman, a senior attorney and advisor at the Interior Department from 1989 through 2003 under both Presidents Bush and President Clinton. Dan Kish, senior vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research, a free-market think tank, said the administration seems more focused on headlines than action. “The President’s biggest problem is that he has decided this is a political issue and his response has been political and therefore not focused on what should happen, which is finding out what went wrong, correcting it, and getting back to the business of producing oil this country needs,” Kish said. “Honestly, when your first response is to send in the lawyers, you have to question what they are really after, is it the truth, or headlines?” Kish said.

Fourth-Largest City in U.S. (That’d Be Houston) Starting to Wake Up to the Reality that Significant Swaths of Its Economy Could Be Lost Thanks to WH Moratorium. Houston Chronicle (6/6) reports, “Oil and gas companies worry that future exploration and production in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, a business that has been the driving force behind the city’s vast energy economy for more than a decade, could be jeopardized by fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. A six-month government ban on deep-water drilling already has caused disruptions, forcing oil and gas firms to idle equipment and thousands of workers and scurry to redeploy them elsewhere. But even if the ban ends in November as scheduled, and it may not, Houston could feel the effects of the interruption long after. In addition, uncertainty around the ban — and new rules that inevitably will follow — is making it difficult for oil companies to plan and budget for the future, and to reassure antsy investors.

No Jokes About RFK, Jr. – Okay? Dude Has a Responsible Job Now – Albeit with an Irresponsible Group Bent on Destroying Natural Gas Jobs Wherever They Exist. Scranton Times-Tribune (6/6) reports, “A natural gas industry group responded Friday to environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s visit to Dimock Twp. on Thursday, saying Mr. Kennedy and the group of environmentalists who traveled to the rural township received only a one-sided view of the gas development there. Members of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Riverkeeper and Catskills Mountainkeeper traveled to Dimock to speak with residents about disruptions to their lives and water caused by natural gas drilling. Chris Tucker, a spokesman for Energy In Depth, said the environmentalists from New York could not have received a "full appreciation of the process" during a one-day visit to the community and likely did not seek one. He called the Natural Resources Defense Council "an organization that has fought natural gas development everywhere under any means." "My sense is that none of the people in that room knew where Dimock was on a map two hours before they got there, " he said. "I’m glad they were able to parachute in for the day, but I wonder if they were able to talk to anyone whose jobs were created by the development of the natural gas."

Maybe We Shouldn’t Be Surprised that Nuns Are Protesting Natural Gas in PA; After All, They’ve Taken a Vow of Poverty – Why Shouldn’t Everyone Have to Take It Too? Philadelphia Inquirer (6/6) reports, “The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, a Roman Catholic order based in Delaware County, invested more than $2,000 of its retirement fund last year in Chesapeake Energy Corp., one of the nation’s largest natural gas operators. The nuns were not bullish on gas exploration. On the contrary. "As investors and concerned citizens, we believe that it is critical that we engage companies and hold them accountable for all aspects of their operations," said Sister Nora M. Nash, director of corporate responsibility for the activist order based in Aston. "There’s a tremendous amount of misinformation out there," said Rodney L. Waller, a senior vice president of Range Resources Corp., a Texas company targeted with a shareholder resolution sponsored by the New York State Common Retirement Fund. Unlike some companies that reacted defensively to the resolutions – Sister Nora said she received only a terse formal letter from Chesapeake – Waller said he telephoned the sponsors immediately. "We talk to shareholders all the time," said Waller, whose company is one of the biggest operators in Pennsylvania. "If your objective is to be better informed, we have no problem with that."

Greenpeace Says that 8.5 Million Jobs Could Be Created If We Produced 95% of World’s Electricity from Pinwheels, Sun Catchers – 8 Million in the Cave-Cleaning Service Sector. Economic Times (6/7) reports, “Climate pressure group Greenpeace said on Monday that switching to renewable energy sources could create 8.5 million jobs by 2030 if governments turn their backs on "dirty and dangerous" fossil fuels. "Investing in people, rather than dirty and dangerous fossil fuels not only boosts global economic development but stems catastrophic climate change," Greenpeace said in a new report unveiled in Berlin. Greenpeace said that the global market for renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power could be worth more than 600 billion dollars by 2030, a six-fold increase from now. The forecasts are based on a scenario of carbon dioxide emissions being cut by more than 80 per cent by 2050 from 1990 levels, and 95 per cent of the world’s electricity needs being produced by renewables compared with around 18 per cent at present. It "shows how to eliminate unpredictable fossil fuel costs, destructive mining and oil exploration and with it catastrophes such as the current BP Gulf oil spill" in the Gulf of Mexico, Teske said.

Time to Stand: Murkowski Resolution May Go Down in Flames This Week, Who Knows for Sure; But At Least We’ll Know Where These Clowns Stand. The Hill (6/6) reports, “The Senate this week will return to a pivotal, long-simmering debate over the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases. The debate will center on a Thursday vote on a disapproval resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would block the EPA from enforcing emission rules under the Clean Air Act. Murkowski objects to the EPA’s authority and believes that Congress should set such standards instead of the executive branch. Although the resolution is not expected to pass, Murkowski is bringing the resolution forward under the Congressional Review Act, which prevents any filibusters and only requires 51 votes for passage. Murkowski’s measure has 41 formal co-sponsors, including Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) told The Hill that Murkowski’s resolution is "a distraction."