Thank You, Sen.Murkowski for Your Service to the Last Frontier and the Nation. AnchorageDaily News (8.31) reports, "Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Tuesday nightconceded the Republican primary election to Joe Miller, the tea party backedchallenger who maintained his Election Day lead after thousands of additionalabsentee and other ballots were counted through the day. Miller said Murkowskicalled him early this evening to say she was conceding. "I thanked her forthe hard-fought contest and wished her the best and asked for unity,"Miller said in a telephone interview from his hometown of Fairbanks. Millersaid he thinks Murkowski will end up supporting him in the general election."I’m going to give her some time and we’re going to talk more about itlater," he said. Miller said he’s going to meet with close friends andfamily Tuesday night. "Then we’ll probably head back to the office and dosome more campaign work a little bit later tonight," Miller said onTuesday. Miller will now face Democrat Scott McAdams, the mayor of Sitka, inthe November general election."
Hey NYT, Lookingfor Good-Paying, Family Sustaining Jobs? Look no Further Than Pennsylvania, andThank the Marcellus Shale and Hydraulic Fracturing; or Does That Not Count? NYTimes (8.31) reports, "With the country focused on job growth and withunemployment continuing to hover above 9 percent, comparatively littleattention has been paid to the quality of the jobs being created and what thatmight say about the opportunities available to workers when the recessionfinally settles. There are reasons for concern, however, even in the earlystages of a tentative recovery that now appears to be barely wheezing along.For years, long before the recession began, job growth had become increasinglypolarized in this country. High-paid occupations that require significantamounts of education and training grew rapidly alongside low-wage, service-typejobs that do not, according to David Autor, a labor economist at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology. The growth of these low-wage jobs beganin the 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s and began to really take off in the2000s. Losing out in the shuffle, Dr. Autor said, were jobs that he describedas "middle-skill, middle-wage" – entry-level white-collar positions, likeoffice and administrative support work, and certain blue-collar jobs, likeassembly line workers and machine operators."
Lame DuckStrategy Takes Hold. Days Before Senate Returns from Recess, and After Big Windand Solar Spent Millions Lobbying, Expensive, Intermittent Energy Mandate Backin the Picture. TheHill (8.31) reports, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) saidTuesday a nationwide renewable-electricity standard, or RES, is "absolutely" inthe mix as he tries to salvage energy legislation this year – possibly in alame-duck session. Before the August recess, Reid said he doubted an RES -which would require utilities to provide escalating amounts of power fromsources like wind and solar energy – could win 60 votes. It was left on thecutting-room floor when Reid unveiled a modest energy bill in late July. ButReid told reporters on a conference call Tuesday the energy bill is still awork in progress and cited two Republicans who have expressed interest in anRES. He did not name them. "I am going to tie them down a little more closely,"Reid said. He spoke on a conference call to promote a Sept. 7 energy conferencethat he is co-hosting at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Reid alsosuggested passing energy legislation could be more likely during a lame-ducksession. He noted the Senate would resume work after the recess but added, "Maybe,after the elections, we can get some more Republicans to work with us."
More Hot Air.Mass. High Court Sides With Cape Wind Developers; Still have to Answer ThisFundamental Question: Who’s Going to Buy the Electricity? The AP(8.31) reports, Developers of a proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm were clearedto move forward Tuesday when Massachusetts’ high court rejected a claim thatthe project sidestepped local opposition to win a key permit. Cape Windproject, a 130-turbine proposal that would be the nation’s first offshore windfarm, was given permission last year by a state board to build powertransmission lines through state waters. The Supreme Judicial Court backed thatdecision in a 4-2 ruling. Cape Wind had gone to the state after a local board,the Cape Cod Commission, rejected in 2007 its request to build about 18 milesof undersea and underground transmission cables to connect to the regionalelectric power grid. The local board said Cape Wind hadn’t provided sufficientinformation. Opponents argued the state exceeded its powers and was trumped bythe local ruling, but the court disagreed. It said that that interpretationwould mean the state Energy Facilities Siting Board’s authority appliedeverywhere but Cape Cod. Next week, the Massachusetts Department of PublicUtilities will begin considering whether Cape Wind’s pending 15-year deal withNational Grid is a good deal for ratepayers. Under the deal, the utility would buy half of Cape Wind’s power,starting at 18.7 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s about twice what the utilitypays for power from conventional sources, but Cape Wind backers say thatgiven the volatility of fossil fuel costs, the price will be a good deal overthe life of the contract."
Add Japan tothe List. Countries Around the World see Value in Marcellus Shale; Wonder WhenBoth Ends of Pennsylvania. Ave. will Take Note. Bloomberg(9.1) reports, "Sumitomo Corp., Japan’s third- largest trading company,agreed to pay Rex Energy Corp. about $140 million for a 30 percent stake in agas venture in the Marcellus Shale region in the U.S. Sumitomo plans to investabout $1.2 billion in the project during the next ten years, it said today in astatement on the company’s website. Sumitomo’s Summit Discovery Resources IILLC unit will pay about $88.4 million in cash for the stake and a further $52million toward drilling costs, Rex Energy said in a statement yesterday.Japanese trading companies including Mitsubishi Corp. are increasinginvestments in extracting methane trapped in shale rock thousands of feet belowthe earth’s surface to tap demand for the cleaner-burning fuel. The latest dealis Sumitomo’s second purchase of shale gas assets in the U.S. after it paid $25million for a 12.5 percent stake in a venture in the Barnett Shale region ofTexas from Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. The Marcellus Shale project involvesdrilling more than 1,100 wells in an area located in Butler County,Pennsylvania, in the next decade. Gas output is expected to peak at 46 billioncubic feet a year, Sumitomo said in the statement."
Blame it onBush. AP Dispatch on Solar Points Finger at Bush Admin. For Lack ofDevelopment; Could it be that Suncatchers are Expensive, Unreliable and Use aTon or Water? The AP(9.1) reports, "Not a light bulb’s worth of solar electricity has beenproduced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not oneproject to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground. Instead, fiveyears after federal land managers opened up stretches of the Southwest todevelopers, vast tracts still sit idle. An Associated Press examination of U.S.Bureau of Land Management records and interviews with agency officials showsthat the BLM operated a first-come, first-served leasing system that quicklyoverwhelmed its small staff and enabled companies, regardless of solar industryexperience, to squat on land without any real plans to develop it. At a timewhen the nation drills ever deeper for oil off its shores even as it tries todiversify its energy supply, the federal government has, so far, failed to usethe land it already has – some of the world’s best for solar – to producerenewable electricity. "Clearly we spent a lot of time and effort on oiland gas, but those priorities have changed," Ray Brady, BLM’s head ofenergy policy in Washington, told the AP. The Bush administration, however,kept BLM’s focus on oil. BLM’s database of solar applications shows manylanguished for years while the agency approved more than 73,000 oil and gasleases in the last five years. BLM has yet to give final approval to one solarlease. BLM’s solar leasing system ended up allowing developers to lay claim toprime sites – many located in the deserts that span California, Nevada andArizona. All developers had to do was fill out an application, pay a fee andfile development plans."
George Sorosand Co. Hard at Work Supporting/Funding Anti-Energy Movement in America; StoryYet to be Picked up by MSM. EdLasky writes (9.1) at TheAmerican Thinker, "The sinister, omnipresent moneybags of the Americanleft, George Soros, knows that distraction and misdirection make for a gooddefense. So do his many lackeys and sympathizers in the American media. JaneMayer’s 10,000-word article in the New Yorker, titled "Covert Operations:the billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama," has beenwidely cited in other liberal media. Mayer just let the claim that Soros has nomonetary interest when he gives money stand unchallenged — and that wasshameful. Where was the famed New Yorker fact-checking department? Did they getlaid off? What planet do Mayer and Rich live on? Soros obviously has hisfinancial interests in mind when he gives, and he knows how to use his billionsto make more billions by tapping his friends in high places in the DemocraticParty.Soros’s pet think-tank, the Center for American Progress, constantlypushes green schemes. Democratic politicians are on board, as well. This groupincludes Barack Obama who, runs after one electric battery, solar power plant,and windmill after another (when he is not on the links or listening to livemusic at the club he created in the East Room of the White House). How generoushave Obama and the Democrats been to the green schemers? The grand champion ofbudget-busting departments has been the "Energy Efficiency and RenewableProgram," which received $1.7 billion in 2008 and $16.8 billion in 2009, a1,014% increase in just one year. Media reports over the past year or so havetied numerous Democratic donors to these "ventures." They have beenrichly rewarded with taxpayer dollars."