In the Pipeline: 3/26/12

“It’s really about the supply…”  So says David Plouffe.  So say we all National Journal (3/25/12) reports: With gas prices rising and the choir of critics growing louder, Obama senior advisor David Plouffe defended the president’s energy policy and said the administration has not ruled out opening the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve…“What I’ll say is we’re not taking that off, that option, off the table,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union.“There are supply disruptions right now in places like Sudan. You still have oil not at its peak in places like Libya. Obviously the sanctions are working, the crippling sanctions the president has put in place are working in the Middle East and strangling the Iranian economy, but there is no doubt that what we have to do in this country, we have to use less oil.”

What makes this really odd is that the President himself told us last week that the Solyndra fiasco was owned by the Republicans.  Well, why then was the entire apparatus of the White House prepared to defend their actions on Solyndra?  Either the reporter is wrong (not very likely), or the President told an intentional, premeditated lie last week.  Which would make him a . . . The Hill (3/25/12) reports: Several key White House offices were involved with the Obama administration’s messaging plans and other preparations as the collapse of the taxpayer-backed solar company Solyndra was imminent, newly released documents show…The latest White House documents delivered to House Republicans on Friday again highlight the extent to which senior administration officials braced for the fallout as Solyndra – a company President Obama had personally visited – was about to go under.

You have to know a couple of things about this.  First, Jay Cranford was really, really good.  Second, as impossible as it seems, Mike Catanzaro is even better The Hill (3/25/12) reports: If you want to see Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) get riled up these days, ask him about President Obama’s energy policy…The Speaker has been hammering the president over energy for months, first over his delay of the Keystone pipeline and more recently as gas prices have risen.. When Obama toured the country last week touting an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, Boehner openly mocked him. At a press conference meant to bracket Obama’s appearance in Cushing, Okla., the Speaker on Thursday rolled out a new slogan, the “Obama energy gap.”

Debunking the AP’s lame article on the correlation between drilling on 3% of federal lands and gas prices Just One Minute (3/25/12) reports: An AP “Fact Check” on the correlation of US energy production with gasoline prices takes us to the border of supply and demand before veering off into a comedy club: FACT CHECK: More US drilling didn’t drop gas price WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show…A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.

You had to guess this sort of nonsense was going to start sooner or later.  Should someone tell the Administration that very little crude oil is actually exported?  Do you think they understand the difference between oil and gasoline?  Maybe John Podesta could ask his wife Heather.  She lobbies for Marathon Oil.  And does anyone yet have a definition of “speculation”?  Again, maybe Heather knows; she used to lobby for Prudential Politico (3/25/12) reports: Democrats have a “huge opportunity” to reclaim control of the debate over gas prices by training attention on the excesses of oil companies, two prominent party strategists argue in a memo obtained by POLITICO…The document circulating among Democrats was authored by Center for American Progress Chairman John Podesta and pollster Geoff Garin, and cites private polling that confirms “Americans are tired of the stranglehold oil companies have over our national energy policy.”

I know it has been awhile, but this is the mine that had a permit that EPA then tried to revoke.  Fortunately, the court concluded that EPA is limited by, you know, the law and stuff The Republic (3/25/12) reports: A federal judge says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its authority in revoking permits for what could now become West Virginia’s largest mountaintop removal mine…In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C., ruled in favor of St. Louis-based Arch…She declares a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water pollution permit for the Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County is “valid and in full force.”…She declares a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water pollution permit for the Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County is “valid and in full force.”