Tag Archives: Oil

News

Ten ways that the Obama administration could lower gas prices right now

Leave a comment

From the Heritage Foundation.

Here’s the list:

  1. Lift offshore and onshore exploration and drilling bans
  2. Approve Keystone XL
  3. Require timely environmental review
  4. Permitting process
  5. Issue leases on time
  6. Allow development of oil shale
  7. Stop the land grab
  8. Implement 50/50 revenue sharing
  9. Prohibit greenhouse gas and Tier 3 gas regulations
  10. Repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)

Here’s the detail on #3 and #6 and #9:

3. Require timely environmental review: Environmental review requirements for oil and gas projects to commence on federal lands under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) take too long. Congress should place a reasonable 270-day time limit on NEPA reviews.

6. Allow development of oil shale: Oil shale production in the U.S. could be a global game changer since we hold the largest known reserves in the world. However, 70 percent of those reserves lie beneath federal lands. The Obama Administration has introduced new regulations, time frames, and significantly reduced the land available for leases. Congress should make permanent the 2008 guidelines for oil shale development in order to provide regulatory certainty.

9. Prohibit greenhouse gas and Tier 3 gas regulations: In 2010, Interior suspended 61 leases in Montana alone because environmental groups charged that the energy production would contribute to climate change, demonstrating the need to permanently prohibit any federal agency from unilaterally regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the proposed Tier 3 gas regulations to lower the amount of sulfur in gasoline are costly with no measurable benefits. Congress should prohibit the implementation of these regulations. Unelected bureaucrats should not hold such power over the economy.

Are these steps unreasonable?

Well, Canada already streamlined their environmental review process. Canada also doesn’t let global warming socialism block job creation in the energy sector. Canada’s government strongly opposes global warming socialism. They’ve even pulled out of the Kyoto treaty. Their energy industry is booming, and taking their economy with it. Can’t we do the same? Why is the Democrat Party’s energy policy all about giving money to green energy firms and imposing burdensome regulations on energy companies who do create jobs?

News

The ten worst energy policies of the Obama administration

Leave a comment

Heritage Foundation put this list together.

Here are a few examples:

5) The EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck: The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ream of new regulations will adversely affect existing power plants, requiring them to be retrofitted or in many cases shut down because it will be too costly to install emission-reduction controls The most recent announcement of the President’s ongoing campaign against carbon-based fuel, the EPA released a new rule to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants, which would effectively ban new coal power plants, as its emissions standards are too low to be met by conventional coal-fired facilities. That will result in higher energy costs, fewer jobs, a less prosperous economy and no discernible difference in global temperatures.

6) Cap-and-Trade and the Clean Energy Standard: When he came into office, President Obama latched on to the notion of cap-and-trade — a system of energy taxes and credits designed to reduce carbon emissions. The end result would have been disastrous for American businesses and the economy. When that legislation failed, the President proposed a Clean Energy Standard mandating that the power industry  meet government-determined goals with respect to renewable energy production. The effect, though, is the same.  Both serve as a draconian energy tax that burdens businesses and consumers – with no environmental benefits.

8) Terminating the Nuclear Waste Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.  The Obama Administration   says it wants to pursue nuclear power, but its rhetoric does not match its nuclear policy.  Its decision to abandon the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project without any technical or scientific data is a case in point.  With nearly $15 billion spent on the project, the data indicates that Yucca would be a safe place to store America’s used nuclear fuel.  Yet purely for political reasons the Obama administration decided to terminate the program without having anything to replace it. Absent any nuclear waste disposal options, the United States simply will not significantly expand nuclear energy.

9) Green Jobs Stimulus: With the U.S. economy struggling to recover from a recession, President Obama turned to a trillion dollars in stimulus spending in an attempt to spend America out of the economic doldrums. A significant part of that stimulus was directed toward a new “green” economy with taxpayer dollars directed toward creating alternative energy jobs. Obama promised to create five million green jobs over 10 years. The trouble is that his plan didn’t work, and the jobs didn’t materialize. As The New York Times reported, it was nothing more than “a pipe dream.” Further, these are taxpayer-funded jobs that destroy jobs elsewhere in the economy. When the government gives money to build a windmill, for example, those resources cannot simultaneously be used to build other products. The net effect is job and income losses.

10) Job-Killing CAFE Standards: Obama’s EPA has imposed a corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard requiring auto makers to hit an average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025—a 40 percent reduction in fuel consumption compared to today. The Center for Automotive Research warned that overly stringent standards could add $10,000 to the cost of a new car, decreasing sales and thereby reducing production, destroying as many as 220,000 jobs, according to a report by the Defour Group. And a 2002 National Academy of Sciences study concludes that CAFE’s downsizing effect makes cars less safe and contributed to between 1,300 and 2,600 deaths in a single representative year.

Do you wonder why the unemployment rate is more than double what it was in during the Bush administration? Or why we are running deficits four times higher than what we had in the Bush administration? Or why gas prices have tripled compared to what they were under the Bush administration? Well, when you look at a list like this, you will realize that it is all the deliberate result of incompetence in policy making by the Obama administration. They did everything wrong, and now we are paying the price for it.

News

Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich’s views on global warming

2 Comments

Rick Santorum does not accept global warming socialism

From WPXI News.

Excerpt:

About 500 people showed up Monday at a local diner in Steubenville, Ohio, to support former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum as he gave a policy speech.

Santorum said President Barack Obama is pushing a radical environmental agenda that unwisely limits energy production and turns its back on science.

Santorum told voters in Steubenville Monday that science is on the side of those who want to aggressively produce more oil and natural gas in America. He said the notion of global warming is not climate science, but “political science.”

Santorum said Obama and his allies want to frighten people about new oil-exploration technologies so they can get their dollars and turn them over to politicians to win elections “so they can control your lives.”

Here’s Santorum in his own words: “There is no such thing as global warming”

And more Santorum: Global warming is “junk science”

Santorum calls global warming a “hoax” and opposes cap and trade carbon taxes:

Do you think that Rick Santorum would build the Keystone XL pipeline and create the 20,000 jobs? YES HE WOULD.

Mitt Romney accepts global warming socialism

What about Mitt Romney’s view on global warming?

Excerpt:

On the environment, Romney seemed interested in carving out an agenda largely in line with the state’s most fervent activists on the left.

After he took office in 2003, some state employees and activists were nervous about how the new governor would approach the climate-change issue. Massachusetts had already reached an agreement with other Northeastern states and some Canadian provinces on a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Romney surprised them by taking a hands-on approach, personally helping craft a “Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan” that he unveiled in 2004.

He reorganized the state government to create the Office of Commonwealth Development — with the former president of the liberal Conservation Law Foundation, Douglas Foy, as its head — to better coordinate climate work and sustainable-growth activities among different agencies.

As he worked on the plan, according to people familiar with the process, he even overruled some objections by his chief of staff, who criticized the plan as potentially too left-leaning.

Romney backed incentives for buying efficient vehicles, tougher vehicle emissions rules and mandatory cuts in emissions linked to global warming.

The plan not only called for reducing the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and cutting them another 10 percent by 2020, but it said that “to eliminate any dangerous threat to the climate . . . current science suggests this will require reductions as much as 75-85 percent below current levels.”

[…]Beyond the state climate plan, Romney repeatedly pushed to promote clean energy and cut the use of fossil fuels.

In March 2003 he pledged to buy up to $100 million worth of electricity from renewable sources. That month, he declared, “the global warming debate is now pretty much over.”

Here’s Mitt Romney in his own words:

Do you think that Mitt Romney would create the Keystone XL pipeline and create the 20,000 jobs? I say NO HE WOULD NOT.

Newt Gingrich accepts global warming socialism

What about Newt Gingrich’s view on global warming?

Excerpt:

Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich, as a U.S. House representative from Georgia in 1989, was among the co-sponsors of a sweeping global warming bill that, among other things, called for an international agreement on population growth.

[…]The… Global Warming Prevention Act of 1989 (H.R. 1078) had144 co-sponsors, the majority of which were liberal Democrats such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), then-Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). There were only 25 Republican co-sponsors, which included Rep. Gingrich.

The legislation… set a national goal of reducing carbon dioxide levels by at least 20 percent by the year 2000 “through a mix of federal and state energy policies,” as well as “the establishment of an International Global Agreement on the Atmosphere by 1992.”

In addition, the legislation’s summary includes the section “Title XI: World Population Growth.” That section states: “World Population Growth — Declares it is the policy of the United States that family planning services should be made available to all persons requesting them. Authorizes appropriations for FY 1991 through 1995 for international population and family planning assistance. Prohibits the use of such funds for: (1) involuntary sterilization or abortion; or (2) the coercion of any person to accept family planning services.

[…]In 2008, Gingrich appeared alongside Rep. Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a television ad calling for action to address the apparent global warming problem.

Here’s Newt Gingrich in his own words:

Do you think that Newt Gingrich would create the Keystone XL pipeline and create the 20,000 jobs? I say NO HE WOULD NOT.

Which one of these three candidates is the real conservative?

Rick Santorum

Mitt Romney