President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney hotly debated energy independence and drilling for oil in North America during the town hall style Presidential Debate at Hofstra University in Long Island, N.Y. Read More
AP | By KEVIN BEGOS
PITTSBURGH (AP) — It sounds like a free-market success story: a natural gas boom created by drilling company innovation, delivering a vast new source of cheap energy without the government subsidies that solar and wind power demand. Read More
T.V. Program Special Hosts Prominent Washington Insiders to Debate Obama, Romney Energy Plans
Although both claim to favor an “all of the above” strategy for establishing energy policies and achieving energy independence, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have very different approaches, experts said during a special U.S. presidential campaign edition of Platts Energy Week, an all-energy news and talk show program. Read More
By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — If work on the Keystone XL oil pipeline does not begin soon jobs could be in jeopardy at a Little Rock plant that makes pipe for the project, two of Arkansas’ Republican congressmen warned here today. Read More
Mitt Romney is vowing to approve TransCanada‘s Keystone XL pipeline on his first day on the job if elected U.S. president in November. Read More
CALGARY, Alberta—TransCanada Corp. TRP -0.58% submitted a reroute of its Keystone XL oil pipeline to the Nebraska state government Wednesday, moving a step closer to reviving the project after it was rejected by the U.S. government earlier this year. Read More
By Former Rep. J.C. Watts, Jr.
President Obama recently got a look at what his failed energy policies are doing to America and I hope he fully appreciates that he does have the power to change things for the better. Read More
By: Larry Kudlow – CNBC Anchor
No matter how much President Obama protests, the simple fact is that he continues to oppose and mock and disparage oil and gas drilling. He is a prisoner of the environmental left, and he remains on the wrong side of energy history. Read More
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) on Wednesday sounded an unusually optimistic note after meeting with President Barack Obama, saying they came away feeling they could find common ground on energy and jobs policies. Read More
Jennifer Bendery jen.bendery@huffingtonpost.com – WASHINGTON — The White House is throwing its support behind a decision by TransCanada to build a portion of the Keystone XL pipeline, even though the project will result in more oil going overseas and potentially higher gas prices. Read More
Dave Montgomery The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
VARNEY: Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Tim Murphy with me now.
Congressman, you heard what the president’s got to say, that we’re producing more oil now than we have in at any time in the last eight years and he wants to expand domestic production even more. Are you buying that? Read More
By BRIAN “DOUG” DEEKEN Wayne County Young Republicans
The economic benefits of extracting natural gas via hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” absolutely outweigh the trumped up environmental concerns. Read More
China will get the oil from Canada that could have come to the U.S.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Beijing recently signing an agreement and touting his country’s growing energy partnership with China. Read More
By Rich Miller, Asjylyn Loder and Jim Polson – Bloomberg
The U.S. is the closest it has been in almost 20 years to achieving energy self-sufficiency, a goal the nation has been pursuing since the 1973 Arab oil embargo triggered a recession Read More
By Mike Lee and Jeremy van Loon
Kinder Morgan (KMP) Inc., which this year will become the largest U.S. pipeline company after its $20.7 billion purchase of El Paso Corp. (EP) Read More
Refinery Closures and the Keystone Pipeline
There have been several announcements in recent months of refinery closures that will likely impact gasoline supplies (and prices) on the East Coast. Read More
Written by Matthew C. Keegan
President Obama’s State of the Union speech on Jan. 24, 2012, covered a number of topics. Higher education was one of his themes. Read More
Lawrence S. Katz / Toms River
Should our president allow environmental lobbyists to influence or dictate this nation’s energy policy? Read More
By James Wang
Reality has always been a problem for President Barack Obama and State of the Union Addresses. Being a time of grave economic activities, matters are no different. Read More
By NICOLAS LORIS
For all of President Obama’s talk Tuesday night of boosting US energy production, he has a huge problem: The American left — a vital part of his political base — seems determined to force us down the opposite path. Indeed, the “Big Green Extreme” fights energy even when it means harming the environment. Read More
by Steve Sebelius
President Barack Obama got a fairly good reception Thursday when he showed up in Las Vegas to repeat some of the highlights of his State of the Union speech. Read More
In an article for today’s FrontPage Magazine titled “Schools of Education: The Academic Slums,” Walter Williams was right on the money. Speaking about schools of education, he said, Read More
It is one of the biggest chess pieces imaginable — almost 1,700 miles long — and yet Washington politicians keep moving it around as if it were a mere pawn in their unending game of partisan maneuvering. Read More
by Brian H. Darling
The job-creating Keystone XL pipeline isn’t going to happen, thanks to President Barack Obama. Read More
Jim Efstathiou Jr., ©2012 Bloomberg News
TransCanada Corp.‘s $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline still will move ahead with an alternate route after President Barack Obama’s decision to deny a permit, investors, public officials and analysts say. Read More
At the NBC News/Facebook debate in Concord, NH Newt slams the EPA for its radical and anti-business regulations citing the EPA’s crazy comments on farm dust and dust in the desert. Its too bad we can’t have a debate that’s all about the EPA and its giving away taxpayer money to push the administration’s leftist radical agenda. See the additional reading below this post at our site for many examples of EPA tyranny.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Luke Legate Phone: 512-775-9400
Obama Administration’s Denial of Permit Is Bad News for Manufacturing Sector
Austin, TX – The following statement on President Barack Obama’s denial of the Keystone XL permit may be attributed to Fred Shannon, chairman of the Texas Association of Manufacturers: Read More
Pro:Strategy is sabotaging an economic recovery
FLINT, Mich. — Kicking the can down the road, as President Obama did in delaying a decision on construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, certainly pleased the green lobby. But it did absolutely nothing for jobs creation. Nor did blocking access to new federal offshore areas for oil and natural gas drilling produce any jobs. Read More
Energy topped the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual list of priorities for boosting the economy, as the group’s president urged approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and further exploitation of domestic oil, gas and coal resources.
Chamber President Tom Donohue called energy a “game changer” for the U.S. today in Washington in his annual State of American Business speech, which sets out priorities to boost the economy. For 2012 Donohue also suggested stopping an “avalanche” of energy and business regulations, reforming Social Security and Medicare, boost intellectual property protections and using other policies that can promote growth “without raising taxes or adding to the deficit.”
He said the nation could create more than 1 million jobs by 2018 developing oil, natural gas and coal — a claim promoted by the American Petroleum Institute (but decried by a top Democratic lawmaker). Pointing to the oil boom in North Dakota, where unemployment has fallen below 4 percent, he said the U.S. “is on the cusp of an energy boom that is already creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, revitalizing entire communities and reinvigorating American manufacturing.”
To tap those resources, the U.S. should “speed up permitting and end many of the restrictions that have put key areas off-limits,” he said, though he didn’t give examples. He said the nation should harness both conventional and alternative sources and expand efficiency and nuclear power.
He also urged the Obama administration to approve TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar-sands oil from Alberta, Canada to refineries in the Gulf Coast . Like other supporters, Donohue said its construction would create 20,000 jobs and more down the road, and the 1,700-mile pipeline would provide energy from a friendly neighbor.
“The project has passed every environmental test,” Donohue said, adding that some labor unions have been “screaming” in support of it. “There is no legitimate reason, none at all, to subject it to further delays.”.
Donohue’s remarks add to rising pressure from industry and Republican supporters on Obama to approve Keystone XL as a Feb. 21 deadline imposed by Congress for a decision approaches. The pipeline has posed a political dilemma to the administration, whose decision will surely anger some of Obama’s supporters: environmental groups and many Democratic fundraisers who oppose Keystone XL, or some labor groups that support it.
The State Department delayed a decision on the pipeline in November until early 2013, citing the need to study alternative routes taking the pipeline away from an critical aquifer in Nebraska. The decision also deferred the politically challenging decision until after the 2012 election. The State Department, which has authority because the pipeline would cross an international border, warned that the arbitrary deadline wouldn’t provide enough time for the study, required by the law, perhaps dooming the project.
Pipeline opponents contend the pipeline would create at most 6,000 temporary and few permanent jobs, while promoting dirty tar sands oil that poses a high pollution risk and could be exported by Gulf refiners. Opponents also cite a government analysis in saying the pipeline wouldn’t affect U.S. oil imports from Canada.
They sought to upstage Donohue the night before he even gave his speech.
Jeremy Symons with the National Wildlife Federation, a conservation advocacy group, cited those claims in blasting Donohue and the Chamber for supporting the “Keystone XL scam.”
He accused the Chamber of being “taken over by the biggest oil companies with the deepest pockets.”
“It really has nothing to do with jobs and everything to do with our rights to protect our water and our lands,” Symons told reporters in a conference call yesterday.
Donohue told reporters after his speech he wasn’t surprised about what environmentalists were saying.
“It is really a very hard argument to make that the [Keystone] XL pipeline is not a sound thing to do,” Donohue said.
“They’re safe, they’re environmentally friendly, and I’d rather have the oil here than have it go to Asia,” Donohue added, seemingly alluding to a TransCanada executive’s suggestion the company might look to Asian markets if Keystone XL is rejected.
The back-and-forth over the speech adds to separate ongoing debate among stakeholders.
“It will indeed be an election issue, API President Jack Gerard told reporters this year in warning of major consequences for Obama if the administration rejects Keystone XL. API has launched a pro-Keystone XL television ad in six Midwestern states and the District of Columbia.
On Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., pointed to Iran’s threats to cut off the Strait of Hormuz, a path for transporting one-fifth of the world’s oil, in arguing Keystone XL “will guarantee America has a secure energy source despite attempts to cut off supplies by hostile nations.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group opposing Keystone XL, has rejected that argument as flawed, saying that prices on imported oil are governed by global market forces.
“That’s not really what this debate is about,” Anthony Swift, staff attorney with NRDC, said in a recent interview.
Swift has said additional tar-sands capacity won’t come online quick enough to address any supply shock Iran creates. And pointing to a government study, he said the Keystone XL pipeline won’t affect U.S. imports from Canada through at least 2030.
Read more:
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/01/12/chamber-touts-keystone-xl-domestic-energy-to-create-jobs/
By Ben Geman
When it comes to energy, Friday’s hopeful new data on job creation is prompting lawmakers and interest groups to call for . . . what they were calling for before the new report.
House Republican leaders greeted the hiring data with calls for the Senate to approve a suite of House-passed bills, including measures to require a major expansion of offshore oil-and-gas leasing and block several EPA regulations.
“President Obama owes it to every small business, and to the millions of Americans still looking for work, to urge Senate Democrats to take action on these common-sense jobs bills as soon as possible,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a statement following news that the economy added 200,000 jobs in December.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), author of the drilling bills, struck a similar note in touting the legislation Friday. “It is good news that more jobs were added to the economy last month, however millions of Americans remain unemployed and there is still much more that needs to be done to revive our sluggish economy,” he said in a statement.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) reiterated his call for federal approval of a major proposed pipeline to bring Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. “[N]o discussion of job-creation would be complete without acknowledging the tremendous jobs and energy security benefits that would come from approval and construction of the Keystone XL pipeline,” he said in a statement.
Elsewhere, the BlueGreen Alliance, which is a coalition of labor unions and environmentalists, called on Congress to “keep this momentum going” on jobs by bolstering federal support for green energy and passing a sweeping transportation bill.
Green energy advocates are seeking action to renew a stimulus-law grant program for renewable power projects, extension of clean energy tax credits and other policies.
“Winning economic strategies focused on the industries of the future and the $5 trillion clean-tech industry should be America’s focus in 2012. To do that, Congress must move forward with smart policies and strategic investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and advanced vehicle technologies, the rebuilding of our transportation, energy and communications infrastructure, and the production of cleaner, safer chemicals,” said David Foster, the group’s executive director.
“One easy first step for Congress would be swift passage of a long-term reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Act. Through action like this, we can recreate the millions of jobs lost in the Great Recession and set America on the path to economic prosperity in the 21st century global economy,” he said.
by The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Congress are starting the election year locked in a tussle over a proposed 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to Texas that will force the White House to make a politically risky choice between two key Democratic constituencies.
Some unions say the Keystone XL pipeline would create thousands of jobs. Environmentalists fear it could lead to an oil spill disaster.
A law Obama signed just before Christmas that temporarily extended the payroll tax cut included a Republican-written provision compelling him to make a speedy decision on whether to build the pipeline. The administration is warning it would rather say no than rush a decision in an election year.
It’s a dicey proposition for Obama, who enjoyed strong support from both organized labor and environmentalists in his winning 2008 campaign for the White House.
Environmental advocates, already disappointed with his failure to achieve climate change legislation and the administration’s decision to delay new smog standards, have made it clear that approval of the pipeline would dampen their enthusiasm for Obama in the upcoming November election.
Some liberal donors even threatened to cut off funds to Obama’s re-election campaign to protest the project, which opponents say would transport “dirty oil” that requires huge amounts of energy to extract.
If he rejects the pipeline, Obama risks losing support from organized labor, a key part of the Democratic base, for thwarting thousands of jobs.
Obama appeared to have skirted what some dubbed the “Keystone conundrum” in November when the State Department announced it was postponing a decision on the pipeline until after this year’s election. Officials said they needed extra time to study routes that avoid an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska that supplies water to eight states.
The affected area stretches just 65 miles through the Sandhills region of northern Nebraska, but the concerns were serious enough that the state’s governor and senators opposed the project until the pipeline was moved.
Republican Gov. Dave Heineman, who opposed the initial route, says he supports efforts to accelerate the project, noting that provisions in the payroll tax bill allow the project developer to find a new route avoiding the Sandhills.
The new route would have to be approved by Nebraska environmental officials and the State Department, which has authority because the pipeline would cross an international border.
The pipeline would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The project’s developer, Calgary-based TransCanada, says the pipeline could create as many as 20,000 jobs, a figure opponents say is inflated. A State Department report last summer said the pipeline would create up to 6,000 jobs during construction.
The payroll tax cut law gives the Obama administration 60 days to decide whether to allow construction of the pipeline.
An “arbitrary deadline” for the permit decision would compromise the process, short-circuiting time needed to conduct required environmental reviews and preventing the issuance of a permit, the State Department warned in a written statement on Dec. 12. Obama administration officials confirmed that view after the payroll tax bill was approved.
Republicans call the threat little more than an excuse that allows Obama to placate environmental groups while not rejecting the pipeline outright.
“The only thing arbitrary about this decision is the decision by the president to say, ‘Well, let’s wait until after the next election,’ ” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Boehner and other Republicans say the pipeline would help Obama achieve his top priority — creating jobs — without costing a dime of taxpayer money. They hope to portray Obama’s reluctance to approve the pipeline as a sign he favors environmentalists over jobs.
Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive, said his company would do whatever is necessary to make sure the project is approved.
“We’ve had more than enough surprises on this,” said TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard.
In Nebraska, where the pipeline faces strong resistance, state officials are awaiting an environmental study that will determine a new route. Officials have said the review will take six to nine months.
Some landowners in the Sandhills celebrated the decision to reroute the project, but the pipeline’s strongest opponents say they still have concerns about the prospect of the government using its power of eminent domain to seize land, as well as liability issues in case of a spill.
“Republicans have bullied their way to get a reckless rider attached to a bill that was supposed to be about helping middle-class families,” said Jane Kleeb, executive director of the group Bold Nebraska, which opposes the pipeline.
With the bill signed into law, Obama “must do the right thing for our land, water and families’ health by denying the pipeline permit,” Kleeb said.
Project supporters say U.S. rejection of the pipeline would not stop it from being built. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said TransCanada could pursue an alternative route through Canada to the West Coast, where oil could be shipped to China and other Asian markets.
“Canada is going to develop this no matter what, and that oil is either going to come to the United States or it’s going to go to a place like China. We want it here,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Opponents call the West Coast option farfetched, noting that Canadian regulators have announced a one-year delay for a similar project that would carry tar sands oil to British Columbia, on Canada’s western coast.
Native groups strongly oppose both the Keystone XL and the Northern Gateway pipeline proposed by TransCanada rival Enbridge. Canada’s First Nations have constitutionally protected treaty rights and unsettled land claims that could allow them to block or significantly delay both pipelines.
Unions are watching closely. Unemployment in construction is far higher than other industries, with more than 1.1 million construction workers jobless, said Brent Bookers, director of construction at the Laborers’ International Union of North America.
“For many members of the Laborers, this project is not just a pipeline, it is a lifeline,” Bookers said, adding, “Too many hard-working Americans are out of work, and the Keystone XL pipeline will change that dire situation for thousands of them.”
Roger Toussaint, international vice president of the Transport Workers Union, opposes the pipeline.
“The dangers of the pipeline are compelling, and no one should believe the claims of either the Republican leadership or the energy companies, with respect to the project being shovel ready or with respect to the number of jobs it’s going to produce,” he said.
___
Associated Press writer Grant Schulte in Lincoln, Neb., contributed to this report.
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Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter: (at)MatthewDalyWDC
Read more:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=144604241
Erika Johnsen
Since the Obama administration seems to do everything in its power to stonewall the domestic energy industry, including weak non-decisions like the Keystone pipeline, keeping up a virtual drilling moratorium, and creating-then-promptly-losing “green” jobs, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that the President is starting to lose some traction among blue collar workers. From a new CNN/ORC poll: Read More
Image via Wikipedia
In 1969, three unrelated events occurred that have since been combined with political bungling to slowly strangle the U.S. economy. Moammar Gadhafi overthrew King Idris of Libya. He nationalized Western oil company reserves with no retribution from the U.S. Sensing our weakness, all of the other OPEC nations abrogated their concession agreements with U.S. companies. The Arab producers cut back production and embargoed the U.S. because of our support for Israel. Middle East despots have been in the driver’s seat ever since, and as the Arab Spring seems increasingly likely to empower Islamists, things are unlikely to get better. Read More
The administration’s dismissal of new smog rules may show a growing preference for a practical approach to encouraging the economic recovery over progressive priorities
Are we just seeing an election year flip-flop, or is President Obama heeding Republicans’ warnings about job-killing regulation? Although some parts of the administration continue to play down the potential negative effects of regulatory uncertainty on the economy, the president’s recent decision to take a less aggressive approach to new smog rules is telling. Either he worries that the right may be onto something, or he’s trying to show swing voters that he has moved to the center.
The Administration Withdraws Support for New Clean Air Standard
This week, John Broder at the New York Times provides a revealing account of the shift in the White House‘s philosophy. He documents the dismay of EPA officials and environmentalists over the president’s decision to delay implementing more aggressive Clean Air Act standards. According to the article, the president’s Chief of Staff William Daley fought the EPA on stricter rules. The NY Times piece is sprawling and worth a read if you are interested in this subject, but one particular exchange it describes is particularly noteworthy. Read More
Lawrence Hurley, E&E reporter
Lisa Heinzerling left EPA after a two-year stint last December, just after the 2010 midterm elections put Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives.
Now back in her teaching job at Georgetown Law Center, Heinzerling — who played a key role in crafting the administration’s greenhouse gas regulations — has leapt back into the fray with a paper written for the American Constitution Society, a left-leaning legal group. The paper is to be officially released Monday.
Heinzerling expressed concern in particular at the language in President Obama’s January 2011 executive order that required agencies to examine regulations and conclude whether any could be “more effective or less burdensome” (Greenwire, Jan. 18). Read More
We can’t wait. Except for certain exceptions, such as the 1,700-mile trans-USA Keystone XL pipeline, carrying Alberta oil to Texas refineries, that would have created thousands of American jobs and increased our energy independence.
For that, we can wait, it seems. President Obama decreed that any decision must wait 12 to 18 months — postponed, by amazing coincidence, until after next year’s election.
Why? Because the pipeline angered Obama’s environmental constituency. But their complaints are risible. Global warming from the extraction of the Alberta tar sands? Canada will extract the oil anyway. If it doesn’t go to us, it will go to China. Net effect on the climate if we don’t take that oil? Zero.
Danger to a major aquifer, which the pipeline traverses? It is already crisscrossed by 25,000 miles of pipeline, enough to circle the Earth. Moreover, the State Department had subjected Keystone to three years of review — the most exhaustive study of any oil pipeline in U.S. history — and twice concluded in voluminous studies that there would be no significant environmental harm.
So what happened? “The administration,” reported the New York Times, “had in recent days been exploring ways to put off the decision until after the presidential election.” Exploring ways to improve the project? Hardly. Exploring ways to get past the election.
Read more:
http://www.620wtmj.com/blogs/charliesykes/134107433.html
The Environmental Protection Agency is likely to play an unusually prominent role in the 2012 presidential election, reflecting ongoing partisan debate in Congress over the ties between environmental regulations and jobs.
“What we’re going to see in this cycle is a lot of bitterness. … It’s going to be more partisan than it’s ever been,” said GOP environmental strategist Chelsea Maxwell. “So the energy and environment issues will definitely creep into that.” Read More
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s move to delay a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline puts American lives in danger.
Perry has made energy exploration and drilling for oil a central tenant of his policy for fixing the economy as a Republican presidential candidate.
The Obama administration delayed a decision on the controversial project around the Keystone pipeline until after the 2012 election. Most of the GOP field has embraced the project.
When Sean Hannity asked Perry about the Keystone XL pipeline on the radio Tuesday, Perry blasted Obama. Read More
By Henry R. Nothhaft
Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — Given how desperately the U.S. needs jobs, it’s amazing how little effort Congress and the president devote to revitalizing manufacturing, the most potent of all job creators. For more than 30 years now, economists and policy makers have instead worshipped the false God of “comparative advantage,” believing that the U.S. could prosper by specializing in innovation while letting China and other nations do the manufacturing.
But the worshippers of this economic religion, built entirely on the altar of innovation, delude themselves if they think that high-tech manufacturing is of little value today. After all, we still live in a world of things — from cars and cutlery to computers and cell phones — and somebody still has to make them. If the U.S. doesn’t, then obviously it buys them from countries that do.
That explains why the $30 billion trade surplus in high- tech products that the U.S. enjoyed 10 years ago has become a $56 billion deficit. Read More
It’s hard to miss talk about rising college costs these days. It’s plastered all over newspapers and websites, and has been at the center of much political debate over the past month, especially in response to President Obama announcing a new plan to help grads better cope with student debt. And it’s not a discussion that’s likely to go away soon. Over the past few decades, college tuition has been rising at a breakneck pace, almost three times as fast as inflation. Incomes haven’t kept up with college costs, and that’s made it a challenge for many students to pay their way through school, often accruing tens of thousands of dollars of debt in the process.
The effect these rising costs have had on young adults hasn’t always been predictable, however. Here, we explain some of the more surprising ways higher tuition is affecting the way current students and recent grads work, play, and live.
| Earlier this month, the Texas Public Policy Foundation officially launched the “Free American Energy Now!” campaign, a partnership with Salem Radio Network to increase public awareness of the ways in which federal environmental policy is impeding American economic recovery and energy independence. Read More |
(Reuters) – The top U.S. environmental regulator on Thursday said her agency would soon comment on the proposed $7 billion Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, adding she was concerned about emissions and potential leaks that could result from the project.
“We have comments we are just about completing on the current environmental impact statement,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said at a Howard University event with youth environment leaders.
Jackson listed concerns about the pipeline including additional greenhouse gas emissions from producing the oil sands; the possibility of leaks on the line; and harmful emissions from refineries in communities along the Gulf Coast that could result from the project.
“This isn’t a little tiny pipeline, this is a pipeline that cuts our country literally in half,” she added. The $7 billion project would take 700,000 barrels per day or more from Canada through six states to refineries in Texas. Read More
WASHINGTON — Congress is feuding over how quickly the federal government should move in trying to reduce deadly air pollution that comes from industrial boilers and incinerators.
The issue has aroused much controversy in Washington state and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, where the forest products industry is big business, fueled by the use of its byproducts to power biomass boilers, which run on plant material and animal waste.
Fears persist among many — Republicans and Democrats alike — that the federal government will go too far in hurting the region’s economy by imposing new regulations that could result in mass layoffs.
The GOP-led House of Representatives voted nearly two weeks ago to force the Environmental Protection Agency to wait another 15 months before imposing new regulations on all types of boilers. The House plan would give companies five years to install equipment to capture more pollution, including mercury and lead. Read More
By Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – As his re-election campaign heats up, President Obama finds himself in an awkward position trying to defend his environmental policies against Republicans and disillusioned environmentalists who backed his campaign in 2008.
By Nati Harnik, AP
Protesters carry a mock pipeline in Lincoln, Neb., last month before a hearing on the project. The State Department in August ruled the plan would cause no serious damage.
He’s under withering attack from GOP presidential contenders and lawmakers who say the Obama administration is handcuffing job growth with stifling regulations. Meanwhile, some environmental activists have expressed frustration that the White House has blocked or delayed several clean air and water regulations in recent weeks.
Some environmentalists — who were inspired by his calls in 2008 to reduce oil dependence and increase green energy investment — are disappointed that the State Department ruled in August that a plan to build a controversial Keystone XL pipeline — which would transport tar-sands oil from Canada to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and the Gulf of Mexico— would not cause significant environmental damage.
Obama will be greeted by hundreds of protesters calling on him to scrap the Keystone XL project when he travels to San Francisco on Tuesday, said Elijah Zarlin, a campaign organizer for the liberal group CREDO Action. On Sunday, more than 400 young activists organized by the Energy Action Coalition protested in front of the Obama campaign office in Cleveland. And a coalition of activists are planning a major demonstration in front of the White House on Nov. 6 to protest the pipeline. Hundreds were arrested at an August sit-in at the White House against the project.
“What’s disappointing is that this is a guy who seemed like he had the ability to explain complicated issues to people,” said Zarlin, who worked on the new-media staff of Obama’s 2008 campaign and was arrested at the recent White House sit-in. “The key is that people who supported Obama in 2008 still want to believe that he can lead and he will lead and will do the right thing.”
The criticism from the right is perhaps rougher. At last week’s Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry argued vociferously about their bona fides on health care and immigration policy, but they were in lock step as they criticized the Obama administration for handcuffing the oil industry with regulations. Read More
My Colorado colleague, Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, recently asked the Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant administrator, Mathy Stanislaus, whether the agency’s economic analysis had considered the effect of proposed regulations on jobs. “Not directly,” Stanislaus answered.
Unfortunately, this is not the only example — nor is the EPA the only government agency — to have failed to adequately consider the effect of their proposals on small businesses and jobs.
We held a hearing recently in Grand Junction, Colo., to examine this issue: burdensome federal energy regulations and their detrimental effect on small businesses, jobs and consumer prices.
President Barack Obama has been doing a lot of talking about how vital small businesses are to job creation and the economy.
He’s right.
Yet more than 43 major regulations were proposed last year, and an additional 219 are in the pipeline — each estimated to cost more than $100 million.
In addition, the administration this year proposed seven new regulations that would likely each cost the U.S. economy more than $1 billion annually, if implemented. Four were put forward by the EPA. Read More
STEVE SZKOTAK Associated Press
McDonnell, speaking at the 2nd Annual Governor’s Conference on Energy, said the U.S. should follow Virginia‘s lead and embrace an “all-of-the-above” philosophy of energy development to achieve energy independence and reboot the economy.
“To make this nation energy secure and more independent, we have got to have a comprehensive red, white and blue American energy policy that relies on all of the God-given natural resources that we’ve got in this country for us to continue to be the great and the free nation that we are,” the Republican governor said.
McDonnell, who has made energy a key element of his administration, took aim at federal policies on the subject one day before he is scheduled to share a stage with President Barack Obama in Hampton. The visit is part of the president’s jobs barnstorming in North Carolina and Virginia. Read More
By Marita Noon
“When paperwork gets in the way of benefits, that’s a problem.” So said John Bemis, Secretary-designate of New Mexico’s Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, appointed by Governor Susana Martinez. What is significant about Bemis’ comment, made during a presentation in front of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association’s Annual meeting on October 3, is that it represents a total change in attitude from the previous administration and is indicative of the difference one person—at the top—can make.
The change in attitude in NM presents a case study from which the rest of the US would be wise to learn.
Governor Richardson’s approach was very much like President Obama’s. He added regulations and appointed people to positions of leadership who made doing business in the state difficult—especially in regard to natural resource management. As a result, businesses moved to other states and revenues suffered. Read More
