Biden administration seeks to punish oil companies.  The Washington Free Beacon recently reported that the Biden administration's stunningly unjust Department of Justice "quietly weighed in on litigation pending before the Supreme Court this week, siding with liberal cities and states that are seeking to force the nation's largest oil companies to pay billions of dollars in damages for global warming."  Biden's Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, is pushing the Supreme Court to give its imprimatur to the notion that states can make laws mandating that oil companies pay "the costs of global climate change." Prelogar is also urging SCOTUS to "allow Democratic states to pursue their individual lawsuits against the various companies."  The Beacon also noted that the lawsuits against the big oil companies "are being assisted by the California law firm Sher Edling, which was founded in 2016 to wage war on oil companies via novel legal methods," and has "received nearly $14 million in donations wired through the so-called Collective Action Fund for Accountability, a shadowy pass-through group that isn't required to publicly disclose its donors."

The Editor says...
The tree-hugging environmental fruitcakes want the "oil companies to pay billions of dollars in damages for global warming."  There are no damages.  Global warming occurs at the rate of one or two degrees per century.  The temperature in your city can go up or down at least 30 degrees in a single day, and that temperature change doesn't cause any damage.  Most of the global warming in the 20th century took place before 1940, which means that the petroleum industry had nothing to do with it.  Environmentalists don't care about global warming; they just hate capitalism.  People who hate capitalism are communists.

What Next for the Democrats?  Progressives want government entangled in every aspect of an individual's life.  Attacks are mounted against Western Civilization, patriotism, putting American interests first, and America winning.  Environmentalism is defined by alarmism, endorsement of uneconomical and environmentally unfriendly solar and wind energy generation, cessation of fossil fuel exploration and development, eradication of internal combustion engines, and endorsement of unaffordable and less capable EVs.

Where do they think gasoline comes from?
Oil field owner sues California over law that would end its Los Angeles-area operations.  The owner of an oil field in Los Angeles County is suing the state of California over a law that will require it to stop production and plug its wells or face costly fines.  Inglewood Oil Field owner Sentinel Peak argues in the lawsuit, filed this week, that the law, which was signed in September by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is unconstitutional, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.  It is was one of several laws aiming to reduce pollution by giving local governments more authority to restrict oil and gas operations by shutting down so-called idle wells, which are not in use but have not been properly sealed and closed, and fining companies for operating low-producing oil wells in the Inglewood field.  The 1,000-acre area southwest of downtown Los Angeles has approximately 820 unplugged wells, including 420 that are actively pumping.

Eliminating Biden's EV mandate.  While Biden's EV mandate and lavish subsidies have wrought havoc in the auto industry, it has also affected the dependability of the U.S. energy grid.  Our energy grid was once a source of affordable and reliable power.  Historically, America's power grid has been mostly supplied by coal, with natural gas and nuclear power as significant contributors.  All these energy sources are extremely reliable, affordable, and have the ability to produce the enormous amount of energy necessary to support the U.S. economy. [...] Under Biden, the federal government has mandated the retirement of reliable and conventional energy plants while rewarding utilities with extravagant profits for the construction of so-called green energy sources such as wind and solar.  What's more, the push for green energy has been advocated for by giant utility companies and green lobbyists.  Unsurprisingly, this has led to the destabilization of the energy grid and ever-rising energy prices as well as more frequent blackouts and brownouts.  Ironically, the EVs that Biden, Left-leaning ideologues, and green lobbyists want to force Americans to drive require huge amounts of electricity from a grid they are making less reliable.

Democrats Are In Deep Trouble.  Occasionally a Democrat will say publicly what the party really believes, that Americans live too well, and we must reduce our standard of living in order to emit less carbon dioxide.  This view is manifested in efforts to suppress oil and gas production and subsidize and mandate expensive renewables.  But the Democrats can't admit that their goal is to make gasoline unaffordable, so when elections roll around they release the strategic petroleum reserve to drive the price down.  The bottom line is that Democrats can yammer endlessly about the climate, but they can't run on a platform of unaffordable energy.

SNP ban on woodburning stoves scrapped because alternatives are 'more polluting'.  SNP ministers have scrapped a controversial ban on installing woodburning stoves in new homes after a huge backlash in rural Scotland forced a "humiliating" about-turn.  Alasdair Allan, the Climate Action Minister, said he had listened to concerns from rural and island communities that they relied on woodburners during power cuts and bad weather.  The Government also acknowledged that alternative energy supplies for people affected by the ban could be "more polluting" than the woodburners.  Mr Allan has now tabled an amendment to regulations overturning a previous ban on the stoves, along with bioenergy and peat heating, in new homes and buildings.  The about-turn came as the Scottish Government published a review of the ban, which described how islanders often stock up with months' worth of wood and peat to protect themselves against "fluctuating electricity prices".  Scottish Government figures show three times more households in remote rural areas are classed as in extreme fuel poverty, where households which spend more than 20 percent of their net income on fuel, than elsewhere in the country.

A victory for energy and climate sanity.  In a few months, Trump will return to the Oval Office in one of the most spectacular comeback stories in American political history.  As he has said on multiple occasions during the campaign, one of his first priorities will be addressing the energy cost crisis created by the Biden-Harris administration.  Since President Biden entered the White House in January 2021, his administration has declared war on American energy independence as well as the fossil fuel industry in general.  From killing the Keystone XL pipeline to slow-walking leases for oil and gas exploration on federal lands, Biden has made it abundantly clear that he sides more with climate alarmists than ordinary, hard-working Americans.  On the other hand, Trump's track record during his first term and what he has outlined that he will do in his second term tells us that he will embrace commonsense energy policies that puts Americans first, regardless of the propaganda spewed by climate radicals and those who benefit greatly from the scam that is known as the green energy transition.

Call It Greenflation — And Kamala Wants More Of It.  For families struggling to make ends meet, Kamala Harris claims she has a plan to lower energy costs.  What she will deliver is more pain.  Just ask anyone paying energy bills in a state her party controls.  On Harris' campaign website, she pays lip service to reducing energy costs, but then rattles off a long list of plans to tackle the "climate crisis."  We already know you can't have one with the other.  At a congressional hearing last week, members of the House Budget Committee heard from witnesses about how Biden-Harris policies have fueled today's energy crisis.  One of the witnesses, Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Heritage Foundation, presented lawmakers with a chart that deserves to be seen by anyone and everyone paying utility bills.

The Editor says...
There is no climate crisis.  There is no reason to avoid carbon dioxide emissions.  The climate is not affected by legislation.  The global warming / climate change hoax is based entirely on fear, media sensationalism, and flawed computer models.

Is Climate Change Fanaticism the Greatest Killer of All Time?  How many people are dying each year from climate change lunacy?  The left's immoral war on energy has now become one of the planet's leading causes of death and infant mortality.  This is the only conclusion from a new 2024 study, finding more than 1 billion people STILL lack access to reliable electric power. [...] So here we are in the year 2024 and a population TWICE the size of the United States still has no electricity some 125 years after Edison's invention of the light bulb!  Energy poverty has become one of the leading causes of death.  Then we have a half-trillion-dollar climate change industrial complex (funded by the U.S. government and leftwing tax-exempt foundations) instructing poor nations in Africa and Asia to use LESS electric power and to avoid using coal and natural gas — the most plentiful and cheapest forms of energy.

A Single Texas Billionaire May Be About To Force Greenpeace USA Into Bankruptcy.  The Texas billionaire owner of a major pipeline company is on the precipice of potentially bankrupting Greenpeace USA, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.  Kelcy Warren's company, Energy Transfer, is seeking legal recourse against Greenpeace's American arm in court, alleging that several Greenpeace USA entities paid for attacks against the company's Dakota Access Pipeline and proliferated misinformation about the firm and its project in 2016, according to the WSJ. At the time, the project was a flashpoint in the environmental movement's crusade against major fossil fuel infrastructure developments, and it was ultimately completed in 2017.  "Everybody is afraid of these environmental groups and the fear that it may look wrong if you fight back with these people," Warren said in a televised interview in 2017, according to the WSJ.  "But what they did to us is wrong, and they're gonna pay for it."

New EPA Rule Is a Death Sentence for American Energy.  The Environmental Protection Agency plays judge, jury, and executioner — and its newest-issued rule is a death sentence to American energy and energy-producing states.  Meanwhile, states like Pennsylvania, which will be disproportionately harmed by the rule because of our abundant natural gas production, hold the key to America's increasing energy needs, generating immense economic development and reducing the very emissions targeted by this heavy-handed agency.  The EPA unilaterally issued a final rule establishing draconian emission standards that target existing coal and new natural gas power plants nationwide.  It requires 90% carbon capture for power-generating facilities by 2032.

Biden EPA Rules Will Cause Blackouts for Millions of Americans, Study Warns.  President Joe Biden's aggressive climate regulations targeting fossil-fuel-fired power plants will create widespread electric grid instability and lead to mass blackouts impacting millions of Americans, according to a recent study commissioned by North Dakota's state government.  The research, conducted in May by the firm Always On Energy Research, concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency's recently finalized regulations are not technologically feasible and will foreseeably lead to the retirement of coal power generation units.  Intermittent and weather-dependent green energy sources, such as wind and solar, will replace such retired generators, leading to unreliable conditions, the study found.  The study largely echoes concerns that have been voiced by the U.S. grid watchdog, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation; regional grid operators; and power utility companies.  Four regional grid operators that oversee the infrastructure supplying power for 154 million Americans warned after the EPA regulations were first proposed last year that grid reliability would "dwindle to concerning levels" under the regulations.

Climate Alarmism is the existential threat to humanity.  First and foremost, climate alarmists are hellbent on ending the use of affordable and reliable energy in the form of fossil fuels.  This alone is a horrendous stance that puts millions of lives at risk.  Like it or not, the advent of fossil fuels, namely oil, coal, and natural gas, has been the biggest boon for humanity in all of history.  The harnessing of these resources to supply virtually unlimited energy in cost-effective terms has raised billions of people from abject poverty.  Without ample access to fossil fuels, our modern way of life would literally cease to exist.  Not only do fossil fuels provide abundant and affordable energy.  As the U.S. Department of Energy notes, "Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas make the manufacturing of over 6,000 everyday products and high-tech devices possible."

Vermont effectively criminalizes oil production.  Vermont recently passed legislation that will punish oil companies for producing oil, by forcing them to pay a share of damages allegedly caused by "climate change."  In doing so, the Green Mountain State has effectively criminalized the extraction and production of petroleum — and therefor petroleum products. [...] To say this is insane is to seriously understate things.  Assuming that greenhouse gases are in some way detrimental, how could it be possible to apportion "blame" amongst companies, industries, individuals, groups, organizations, vehicles, appliances ... and the government?  Nonetheless, typically timid GOP Gov. Phil Scott managed to be missing in action long enough for the bill to become law without his signature.

Biden's War On Natural Gas Will Deprive America of Affordable Energy.  Even as the Biden administration's regulatory agencies are moving to render the building of new natural gas power plants too costly to build, a consensus has formed in the analyst community that the added power demands from AI will require a big expansion of natural gas generation to ensure grid stability.  Over a span of less than 20 days in April and May, Biden regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) published new regulations that, according to grid expert Robert Bryce, add more than 1 million words targeting natural gas to the federal register.  On April 25, the EPA finalized new power plant emission rules that will sentially force the retirement of America's remaining coal-fired power plants by 2030 by rendering them too costly to continue operating.  Most media reports focused on that aspect of the new regulations, which had been anticipated.

What Energy Transition?  The press, and many politicians, constantly assure us that the world is in the midst of a transition from fossil fuels to "green" energy, which means wind turbines, solar panels, and mostly fictitious batteries. [...] No such transition is taking place in the U.S.; on the contrary, last year natural gas-fired electricity generation increased 9.5 times as much as wind and solar combined:  [Illustration]  But that's nothing!  The U.S. is rich enough to waste absurd amounts of money on pitifully inadequate wind and solar developments.  Less developed countries can't afford to be that stupid.  Thus it is coal that contributes the most CO2 to the atmosphere.  But when it comes to coal, the U.S. is irrelevant:  [Illustration]  Worldwide, governments are spending absurd amounts of money to subsidize wind and solar, and that doesn't even count the mandates that are the most insidious form of subsidy.  Nevertheless, fossil fuel use is increasing 3.4 times as fast as "green" energy.  Why?  Because fossil fuels are vastly better:  cheaper, more reliable, and far more energy-intensive: [...]

Electrical Grid Operators Are 'Sounding Alarm' over EPA Rules.  Electrical grid operators have been "sounding alarm bells" that they will not be able to "meet the demand" of the amount of electricity needed under the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) most recent regulations, Dave Walsh, former President and CEO of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas, Inc. (MHPSA) said during an interview on Breitbart News Saturday.  The EPA released four final rules Thursday that would help to reduce the amount of pollution being produced from "fossil fuel-fired power plants."  The EPA's final regulations for coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants "limit the amount of carbon pollution covered sources can emit."  "We've got the regional grid coordinators across the grids, PJM 13 states, MISO 15 states, CAISO, which is California, ERCOT, which is Texas, and now added North Carolina and Tennessee, 32 states now impacted by grid operators telling us that they're running out of electricity," Walsh said, adding that we are not "generating enough baseload constant duty electricity to support demand."

Biden's Power Plant Crackdown Raises More Questions Than Answers.  The Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued final regulations to cut power plant greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants Thursday that could raise more questions than answers in a time of rising demand and diminishing reliability on America's power grid.  Assuming it is upheld by the courts, the regulation will require both coal and natural gas power plants to invest millions in carbon capture and storage and other technology between now and 2032, or face being removed from the grid.  Much has been written in recent months about the electricity-gobbling nature of hundreds of new data centers and crypto-mining operations being installed around the country, along with the power needs of government-subsidized renewable energy and electric vehicle industrial plants.  The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) stated in its current assessment that new demands on the grid during 2023 were more than triple those of 2022, and the pace only seems destined to accelerate in the years to come.

Biden's EPA Says Sweeping Power Plant Regs Won't Harm America's Grid — Experts Are Saying The Exact Opposite.  The Biden administration says that its new rules for fossil fuel-fired power plants will not cause grid reliability problems, but power grid experts are warning that the exact opposite could end up being the case.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced final rules for fossil fuel-fired power plants Thursday, marking one of the most aggressive moves that President Joe Biden has made in an effort to fight climate change.  While the EPA says that the rules will not make the electricity that powers the economy less reliable, power grid experts are concerned that the rules will constrain the amount of affordable and reliable power available to meet expected increases in demand over the coming years.  Under the new regulations, America's existing coal plants will have to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to control 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 if they want to stay running past 2039, and certain new natural gas plants will also have to cut their emissions by 90% by 2032, according to the agency.

When did we vote on this?
Biden EPA Threatens to Shut Down Coal Plants Amid Energy Crisis.  Just last month, it was determined that the cost of electricity in the United States was still rising at a rate faster than the national average for inflation.  In other words, even if you are somehow managing to pay your rent or your mortgage in this economy and maintain a place to live, you might not be able to afford to heat it or keep the lights on.  So what has Joe Biden done in response?  He has ordered the EPA to issue new rules that will either make electricity more expensive or remove some of it from the power grid.  (Possibly both.)  Under the new rules, coal and natural gas power plants will be forced to capture nearly all smokestack emissions or... (wait for it) shut down.  What could possibly go wrong?

Biden Admin Finalizes New Rules to Restrain Fossil Fuel Power Plant Carbon Emissions.  The Biden administration has finalized an array of new regulations on fossil-fuel-fired power plants, including a rule requiring many power plants to prevent the release of 90 percent of their carbon emissions.  "The Biden-Harris Administration is announcing key actions to build on this momentum and deliver clean electricity to more homes and businesses, helping lower energy costs for American families and power the U.S. manufacturing renaissance driven by President Biden's Investing in America agenda, while providing cleaner air and water to communities long overburdened by pollution from fossil fuel power plants," the White House said on April 25.  The new carbon emission regulations, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), specifically call for fossil fuel plants to cut their carbon emissions and reduce other air and water pollutants.

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not carbon, nor is it a pollutant.

These 11 Charts Show Why The U.S. Is A Natural Gas Superpower.  About 47% of all the homes in the country rely on natural gas furnaces for heating.  Heating with gas is far cheaper than heating with electricity.  Thanks to the shale revolution, private ownership of mineral rights, and hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is now producing record quantities of gas, and because of that, we have a cost advantage over nearly every other country on the planet.  European consumers now pay more than four times as much for natty as their American counterparts.  Over the past few years, the U.S. has become a natural gas powerhouse, and the fuel has become an integral, irreplaceable part of our economy.  My pal, Doomberg, made that point back in February, explaining that a key reason the U.S. economy has not fallen into recession is because it's increasingly fueled by cheap natural gas.

Study grades natural gas as best source for reliability, affordability and environmental impact.  Anew study finds that natural gas is the most effective energy source meeting growing energy demands affordably and reliably, while balancing environmental and human impact.  The "Grading the Grid" study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a pro-free market nonprofit, and Northwood University rates natural gas, coal, petroleum, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, solar and geothermal generation sources on their reliability, environmental and human impact, cost, innovation and market feasibility.  Natural gas got an "A" grade, followed by nuclear, which got a "B+".  Wind and solar energy came in last, each receiving "F" grades, according to the study.

Org That Wants To Cut Carbon Emissions Sues To Close Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Plant.  An environmentalist nonprofit that seeks to cut carbon emissions and promote clean energy is suing to stop the Biden administration from funding a zero-emission power plant.  The Department of Energy (DOE) announced in January that it had approved a $1.1 billion credit payment to the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, a nuclear facility on the central California coast, to provide the plant with a path to avoid its planned shutdown in 2025.  Though nuclear power plants produce negligible carbon emissions, Friends of the Earth (FOE), a group seeking to reduce carbon emissions, filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the DOE's funding, arguing that climate change could make the plant unsafe to operate due to flood risks and that earthquakes in the area could cause accidents.  Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom had initially supported closing the plant, siding with environmental activists, the Associated Press reported.  The governor, however, now backs the plant, reportedly seeking to avoid a repeat of the widespread blackouts that hit the state in August 2020.

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and CO2 emissions are not something to be avoided.  Blackouts are something to be avoided.  [#2] The opposition to the plant was due to the fear of earthquakes and the fear of floods and the fear of carbon dioxide.  Almost all of environmentalism is based on fear.

Corruption Is Treason.  When you look into it, it isn't because human activity can destroy the planet, but it does coincide quite nicely with the goals of the globalist/communists to maximize control over human activity.  The absurdity of their arguments, I thought, would keep them from achieving their goals, but I was mistaken.  The absurdity of their arguments only meant they had to enlist the governments and international organizations who rule over the people and buying off politicians and scientists is much easier to accomplish than convincing people that electric vehicles, powered by coal-fired power plants, somehow achieve zero emissions.  The one true clean energy is natural gas, but they are against that, too.  Why?  That's the question they are never able to answer.

It Seems Climate Extremism Knows No Bounds.  From blocking commutes by lying in traffic to vandalizing priceless pieces of art, it seems there's no conduct too low for the climate extremists[.]  The latest gambit came from a group called "Climate Defiance", which accused the head of Chevron of "killing people" during a disgraceful outburst in New York. [...] An alarming story from the Washington Post detailed that, "vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power."  The rise of emerging technology like AI and data centers are two major drivers.  Power outages become even more frightening during bouts of extreme heat or cold that can quickly become life-or-death situations.  We need more energy from every direction.  Now is not the time to be taking the most reliable players off the board.  Then there is the issue of the environment.  American oil and gas companies are highly regulated and subject to strict standards.  They also are trying good faith partners in environmental stewardship.  Chevron has pledged $10 billion in lower 'carbon' investments and projects by 2028.  Other countries cannot say the same.

Berkeley Forced to Abandon Green Agenda Ban on Natural Gas after Court Battle.  A nearly four-year court battle has forced the City of Berkeley, California to abandon its landmark ban on natural gas hookups in new buildings.  Berkeley officials have finally agreed to stop enforcing the green agenda rule.  The decision ends a long court battle to beat the ban by industry groups.  The city said it would immediately stop enforcement of the Natural Gas Infrastructure Ordinance while repealing the policy through the regular legislative process.  The agreement was revealed in a legal settlement filed in federal court with the California Restaurant Association (CRA).

Even lefties now admit closing the Indian Point nuclear plant actually harmed the planet.  Those on the environmental left cheering the Biden administration's electric-vehicle mandates or Gov. Hochul's offshore wind farms would be wise to heed a painful and embarrassing lesson New York is learning from its not-so-distant past.  Not only do so-called "green" policies drive up consumer prices, decrease reliability and upend everyday life (say goodbye to wood-fired pizza ovens and gas-powered stoves), they often end up harming the environment they're supposed to be saving.

The Editor says...
Nonsense.  Closing one power plant did not, and cannot, "harm the planet" to any measurable extent.

Hey, Why'd It Go Dark?  Canadians have apparently resigned themselves to the fact that the people who run our country could create a sand shortage in Saudi Arabia or an ice shortage in Greenland[.]  No country on Earth has had better luck, from geography to resources to a peaceful history founded in constitutional liberty.  And, famously, ample rivers for hydroelectric dams, some of the world's biggest oil and gas reserves and a well-established nuclear industry using homegrown CANDU reactors.  And now we face self-inflicted electricity shortages.  It can't have been easy.  But given enough politicians and zealots, anything can turn from a dream into a nightmare.

Rumors of a Charcoal or Gas Grill Ban in New York.  Spring has arrived here in New York State, not that you would know it looking at the current weather forecast.  And that means that grilling season is once again upon us.  Those who follow my social media streams know that we have a spring ritual at my house where I load up the grill with charcoal and toss on some steaks.  This year, however, some disturbing rumors have been making the rounds.  New York tends to follow the trends set by states like California and the climate alarmists have been banning things like natural gas and other supposed carbon demons.  Some legislators in the state capital have been making noises about extending those bans to propane and even charcoal, which would be bad news for grilling fans.

Mandate for Leadership.  [Scroll down to page 363]  Access to affordable, reliable, and abundant energy is vital to America's economy, national security, and quality of life.  Yet ideologically driven government policies have thrust the United States into a new energy crisis just a few short years after America's energy renaissance, which began in the first decade of the 2000s, transformed the United States from a net energy importer (oil and natural gas) to energy independence and then energy dominance.  Americans now face energy scarcity, an electric grid that is less reliable, and artificial shortages of natural gas and oil despite massive reserves within the United States — all of which has led to higher prices that burden both the American people and the economy.  The new energy crisis is caused not by a lack of resources, but by extreme "green" policies.  Under the rubrics of "combating climate change" and "ESG" (environmental, social, and governance), the Biden Administration, Congress, and various states, as well as Wall Street investors, international corporations, and progressive special-interest groups, are changing America's energy landscape.  These ideologically driven policies are also directing huge amounts of money to favored interests and making America dependent on adversaries like China for energy.

"If You Want To Control People, You Have To Control The CO2".  As farmer protests rage across Europe, Dutch MP Rob Roos sits down with The HighWire's Del Bigtree to discuss the climate scam pushed by radical globalist elites in the Western world to seize more power and control.  "They [elites] go against family values.  They go against natural food.  They go against freedom — because if you have to buy an electric car.  They're almost twice as expensive — and people cannot buy that — it's not about the car — it's about you can't go anywhere and must depend on public transportation," Roos explained.  He said, "It's also digitalization — what we see is the digital identity and central bank digital currency — this is all about a new form of communism."  "If you want to control the people, you have to control the CO2 — because everything we do in life, breathing, living, traveling, eating, and everything we do in life leads to CO2 emissions.  And if you can control the CO2, you can control the people," Roos said.  He further explained that the ultimate control comes when globalists connect people's digital identities to the central bank's digital currency.

American Billionaires Bankrolled Activist Crusade Against Natural Gas Hubs Before Biden Signed Off On Approval Pause.  American billionaires bankrolled an activist campaign targeting liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals that influenced the White House's decision to pause new and pending approvals for the projects, according to The Wall Street Journal.  The philanthropic organizations of the Rockefeller family and Democratic megadonor Michael Bloomberg cumulatively provided millions of dollars to activists who pressured Biden administration officials to crack down on LNG export hubs over the past several years, according to the WSJ.  The activists ultimately got their way on Jan. 26, when the White House announced that the administration would pause new project approvals as the Department of Energy (DOE) widens the scope of its reviews to include climate impacts of LNG export terminals alongside considerations like national security and economic benefits.

Joe Biden eyes emissions crackdowns, media warns he is 'ignoring industry warnings' of financial collapse.  Today, Joe Biden is cracking down on manufacturing, but I bet he doesn't have the scientific data to give credibility to the new policies, but he doesn't care.  He is bending over for the green pushers. [...] I bet they also can't come up with scientific data that shows that CO2, a clean, non-polluting gas, at 420 PPM in the atmosphere, is any more dangerous than it was in the late 1800s, at 280 PPM. It's what makes plants and trees grow, and that is good.  Yet, we are spending massive amounts of money burying carbon.  There certainly is no data that shows that the 50% rise in CO2 over the last 150 years has anything to do with temperatures since they have risen and fallen for periods of time while CO2 was rising.  Last week he was cracking down on natural gas, which is a very clean form of energy.  The push for electric cars will also not change the climate, but it will surely make the poor and middle classes poorer and more restricted.  Something everyone should notice about all these regulations is that Biden never goes through Congress to inflict on America his radical agenda; the legislative process of the founding fathers is just too cumbersome for Biden.  The executive branch is also trying to enact a new natural gas tax, even though the Constitution says only the legislative branch can impose taxes.

An excellent Congressional challenge to "Environmental Justice".  I have long been a critic of the "environmental justice" movement.  Like so many aspects of the anti-fossil-fuel movement it ignores the benefits of fossil fuels and overstates their negative side-effects.  [Tweets]  Unfortunately, many in Congress have long been reluctant to challenge "environmental justice," for fear of being labeled as unconcerned about minority or low-income populations.  Happily, 11 Members of Congress just submitted and signed an excellent letter challenging the Biden Administration's most recent "Environmental Justice" initiative — and they specifically focused on the benefits of fossil fuels and other forms of cost-effective energy that EJ advocates ignore.

The stupidity of Biden's liquefied natural gas export pause.  Last week's White House announcement that it was pausing new permits for exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is a desperate move by a desperate president.  Its principal beneficiaries are likely to be Vladimir Putin and Hamas-harboring Qatar, rather than Joe Biden's faltering re-election campaign.  The president's political calculation is overt.  "We will heed the calls of young people and frontline communities who are using who are using their voices to demand action," Biden says.  "The pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is:  the existential threat of our time."

The Biden Administration Is Waging a Foolish War Against Abundant Clean Energy.  On Thursday [1/25/2024], the Biden administration announced it was invoking a hold on permitting processes for proposed new export projects for liquefied natural gas (LNG).  It was a nakedly partisan act designed to appease the Democrat party's climate alarmist funder base, one that will create ripple effects across the global economy and energy space.  It will also create uncertainty and alarm among consumers of US LNG, especially among European nations who are supposedly America's allies. [...] Fortunately for the United States and its LNG customers, an array of new export facilities already in the construction phase of development will add up to 12 billion cubic feet per day of new export capacity over the coming three years.  These projects would be unmolested by this latest authoritarian move by the White House, absent efforts to expand it.  One of the biggest of these is the Rio Grande LNG project being constructed outside Brownsville, Texas near the mouth of the Rio Grande River.

Biden Blocks Several Huge Natural Gas Projects.  Let's begin with an either-or question:  Does Joe Biden a) honestly believe that natural gas is an existential threat to mankind, as he regularly claims, or is he b) more concerned with appeasing — for political purposes — environmentalist alarmists?  Ponder the question if necessary — but I'm gonna go with "b."  While the professed fossil-fuel-loathing president has hysterically declared war on everything from residential gas furnaces to gas stoves to even gas dishwashers, his quest never ends.  In a Friday morning announcement, the White House and Department of Energy (DOE) revealed their next target — and it's enormous. [...] Facts, data, and science only matter to Democrats when they support the left's narratives.  We saw it with COVID-19.  When facts don't support the left's narratives, they are to be dismissed, lied about, or outright ignored.

Biden Pursues 'Functional Ban' on New Natural Gas Exports.  President Joe Biden appears to be looking to expand his war on American energy in 2024 with his administration's latest move delaying a decision on "what would be the largest natural gas export terminal in the United States."  From day one of the Biden administration, the president has used executive actions to pursue his radical "green" energy transition as part of his climate crusade to "end" fossil fuels, and his latest target is liquefied natural gas (LNG), specifically the terminals through which U.S. producers export their product.  As with many of his previous climate edicts issued by executive fiat because his policies wouldn't pass the people's representatives in Congress, Biden is citing "climate change" for this latest decision.  According to reports based on leaks to the New York Times by anonymous officials, the White House "is directing the Energy Department to expand its evaluation" of the Calcasieu Pass 2 proposal for a 546-acre terminal site in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.  The $10 billion project "would export up to 20 million tons of LNG per year" according to KPLC.

Civilization depends on 1 billion gasoline oil-fueled combustion engines.  There are over 1 billion gasoline-fueled combustion engines in cars, trucks, motorcycles, agricultural and garden machines, boats, snowmobiles, airplanes, power pumps, back-up and emergency electricity generators.  The final wave of globalization after WWII was due to High-compression, non-sparking, internal-combustion and Gas Turbines.  These engines can never be 100% efficient (Carnot's Theorem) because heat and friction cut their efficiency in half or more.  At best, well-maintained modern engines reach 32% efficiency, but those in typical everyday use are only 20-25% efficient. [...] Trains are at least 3 times as efficient as trucks energy-wise and move about 40% of cargo in the USA, a third of grain, two-thirds of all coal with extremely reliable, durable (up to 6 years before an overhaul is needed), and efficient diesel-electric engines.  The infrastructure cost of new railways versus highways is far far less — about $1-2 million per kilometer of railroad versus $9-10 million per kilometer of highway.  Each train can represent several hundred large trucks.

2024 Promises the Expansion of the Green Energy Scam.  Here in the West, we have people so spoiled by prosperity that they have the luxury of pining for a time when we weren't poisoning our earth with fossil fuels or risking apocalypse with nuclear power.  On both sides of the Atlantic, you have a perfect mix of brain-dead green energy cultists and fascist elites who seek to harness the power of that cult to control everyone.  That's a toxic combination because energy controls pretty much everything.  The reality is that inexpensive, reliable energy is the single biggest driver of prosperity in all human history.  And it's not even close.  Inexpensive, reliable energy drives virtually everything that we Westerners enjoy:  Our food, iPhones, transportation, heating and cooling of homes, televisions, hospitals, schools, movies, plumbing, video games, Starbucks, and the Zambonis at hockey games!  Everything.  It's not that energy didn't exist previously.  It did.  But the difference is that it was inefficient, hard to get, and expensive.

Engineering an Energy Crisis.  If the destruction of hydroelectric dams doesn't strike you as an act of war, consider it in the context of this:  ["]Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), issued a stark warning that the White House was dragging its feet on allowing energy firms to drill on federal lands, threatening the economy and jobs. [... "]  Sommers observes that the Biden Regime is "sowing the seeds for the next energy crisis."  Never let a crisis go to waste; if there is no crisis, create one.

Biden's 'America Last' Policy at Work.  A National Review article in November 2021 reported that, "Biden's approach to energy represents in microcosm his approach to the presidency in general."  There is absolutely nothing about Biden's contradictory approach to energy that makes any sense.  He wants the United States to reduce the production of fossil fuels, reduce the number of new pipelines in America, limit oil and gas drilling on federal land, and abandon the Trump administration's mission to maximize fossil fuels production.  He wants other countries, such as Venezuela, to produce more fossil fuels for American use.  He even asked the Saudis to increase production, but got snubbed.  He maintains that there actually isn't a supply issue at all, but that oil companies all got together to gouge customers, an issue that the FTC must immediately investigate.  He opposed new fracking, promised to 'make sure it's eliminated.'  He even appropriated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal."  Why did/does Biden behave in this manner?  Because he was/is trying to please the whacko far-left base of his party which is opposed to oil production because it's not 'green.'  For Biden, pleasing environmentalists means putting America Last.

Call To Defund The United Nations' Climate Cops.  This year's U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, was much like previous gatherings.  The original goal was to determine what effects human activities, especially 'fossil-fuel' use, might have on Earth's climate.  But that quickly mutated into an inquisition grounded in the absurd notion that those activities were the only factor in 'climate change'.  It then mutated even more grotesquely into demands that humanity quickly eliminate all 'fossil fuels' — 80 percent of the world's energy — despite the many negative consequences.  Every successive conference has exerted greater pressure on developed countries to abandon the oil, natural gas, and coal that make modern economies, health, living standards, and essential products possible; on poor countries to never use those fuels in the first place; and on all nations to rely on wind and solar energy that have never proved they can be the primary power source for even a small village.

Coming Soon:  Planned Electricity Shortage, Widespread Blackouts.  NERC is a nonprofit organization that oversees the reliability and security of the North American bulk power system.  It uses a results-based approach.  After conducting their ten-year assessment, NERC sent a grim warning of our energy future.  We face a serious electricity shortage beginning in the next few years that will exist for years to come.  This isn't news.  It has been clear for some time that the elimination of fossil fuels before there is an adequate power supply to take its place will endanger the safety and security of Americans.  It is also obvious that this has been engineered to happen this way.  The people planning a lack of supply ahead of replacement electricity sources are smart.  They know what they're doing.  Their policies will destroy our national security and will endanger the lives of our people.  It will seriously damage our wealth as a nation.

Can Climate Change Cause the New Economic World Order?  President Joe Biden has continued to pursue the agenda that President Obama developed during his administration.  On January 20, 2021, President Biden canceled the permit for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline that would have delivered around 1 million barrels of Canadian crude oil a day to U.S. refiners.  In his executive order, President Biden stated, "Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administration's economic and climate imperatives."  On January 27, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order announcing a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on public lands and in offshore waters.  On April 16, 2021, at President's Biden's direction, secretary of the interior Deb Haaland revoked policies in Secretarial Order 3398 established by the Trump administration, including rejecting "American Energy Independence" as a goal.

Boom Boom:  Out Go the Lights!  Ruling like the dictator whom he says Donald Trump aspires to be, President Joe Biden has decreed restrictions, if not prohibitions, on gas stoves, gas furnaces, gasoline-powered cars and trucks, and other products.  Congress has passed no such laws for Biden to sign.  Instead, he has acted unilaterally, as despots do. [...] Biden's "Climate!" guru, John Kerry, attended the just-concluded COP28 global-warming hoe-down in Dubai.  Some of its 80,000 participants got delayed en route, as their private jets bogged down as 17 inches of snow closed Munich's airport.  Kerry soldiered forth and soon declared that "There shouldn't be any more coal power plants permitted anywhere in the world."  He added: "I do not understand how adults who are in a position of responsibility can be avoiding responsibility for taking away those things that are killing people on a daily basis."  When coal took a break from its homicides du jour, it also yielded 19.7% of U.S. electricity in 2022, according to Biden's own Energy Information Administration.  Biden's Environmental Protection Agency unveiled edicts on Dec. 2 that would clamp down on methane emissions from new and existing oil and gas wells.  Methane and natural gas are essentially interchangeable.  So, this bid to reduce 58 million tons of methane through 2038 is a barely disguised billy club to beat down the natural gas industry.  Never mind that, last year, 39.9% of U.S. electricity came from natural gas.

Americans Must Choose Between Civilization or Its Destroyers.  The United States can produce annually more natural gas and oil than any nation on earth.  It once pioneered nuclear power.  It has vast coal reserves and sophisticated hydroelectric plants.  The old idea was to use these unmatched resources to transition gradually to other cleaner fuels such as hydrogen, fusion power, solar, and wind.  That way, consumers would still enjoy affordable energy.  And the United States could remain independent of coercion by the oil-producing Middle East.  But that was not the nihilist way.  Instead, the left deliberately cut back on pipelines, new energy leases, and fracking.  It bragged of an upcoming ban on fossil fuels.  In drought-stricken, energy-short California, the state is blowing up, not building new dams.  Is the nihilist agenda to punish with bankruptcy the energy-using middle class?  Is the hope that Americans will have to beg the Saudis, Iranians, Venezuelans, and Russians to pump more of the hated goo for our benefit so we would not have to dirty ourselves helping ourselves?

U.N. Climate-Summit Nations Agree to 'Transition Away from Fossil Fuels,' Triple Green-Energy Infrastructure by 2030.  For the first time in the nearly 30-year history of the United Nations summit on climate change, all nations gathered unanimously agreed to a resolution that called for "transitioning away from fossil fuels" and committed member states to tripling existing green-energy infrastructure by 2030.  The nearly 200 member countries gathered at the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai agreed to transition away from fossil fuels "in a just, orderly and equitable manner" before entirely eliminating carbon emissions by 2050.  While previous U.N. climate agreements committed member states to work toward slowing global warming, the deal announced Wednesday was the first to include an explicit commitment to do away with "fossil fuels."  As part of an effort to stop global temperatures from rising another 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next decade, member states agreed to triple their existing green energy infrastructure, including solar panels and wind turbines, by 2030.

Biden's new rule against methane becomes 'final'.  It's not really an exaggeration (if at all) to say that every single day we hear from Hillary Clinton, Liz Cheney, Joe Scarborough, the media, and others about how dangerous President Trump is — ad nauseam they declare how "like Hitler" he is.  And, it seems every single day, Joe Biden issues some new executive order or regulation assaulting our freedoms and our prosperity.  He knows he can't get his radical agenda through Congress so he just goes around them.  He violates his oath of office by not only refusing to enforce immigration laws that Congress passed, but sabotaging our sovereignty too.  It is a pure abuse of power, and yet most of the media just cheers. [...] Now, Joe Biden is dictatorially issuing another rule to handicap the coal, oil, and gas industries.  He clearly doesn't care about costs or the loss of tens of millions of jobs directly or indirectly related to those industries.  The costs of these green policies are already destroying Americans purchasing power but a power hungry politician like Joe clearly doesn't care.

President Biden just pledged to shut down 60% of America's electric power.  The Biden administration made two virtue-signaling proclamations at last week's COP28 conference in Dubai that it says will help save the planet from climate change.  The policies aren't likely to change the planet's temperature by even one-tenth of a degree, but they might just destroy the 21st-century American industrial economy as we know it.  First, Team Biden announced it will stop production of all new coal plants in the United States.  This comes on the heels of President Biden's Environmental Protection Agency saying this year it would impose new power plant emission regulations that are virtually impossible for coal plants to comply with.  The bottom line:  No more coal.  Period.  But the White House was just getting started.  Vice President Kamala Harris trumpeted the next day new rules to "sharply reduce methane from the oil and natural gas industry."  The administration calls methane a "super-pollutant" that it wants to eliminate because it's "many times more potent than carbon dioxide."  But methane is effectively a hydrocarbon that comes from natural gas.

The Editor says...
Methane is a naturally-occurring gas.  It is not a pollutant; it is beneficial; it is not something to avoid.  Climate change is not a crisis.  The climate will always change.  The climate does not respond to legislation.  You might as well burn all the hydrocarbons you need, because the earth isn't being ruined by your use of them.  The billions of people who live in China and India couldn't care less about methane or carbon dioxide, and if they don't care, you might as well use as much natural gas as you like, because it won't make any difference.

Will the Sierra Club Apologize If the Lights Go Out in Baltimore?  Frankly, there's little that would be scarier that comes to mind, Baltimore being what it is in broad daylight.  But a dark Baltimore not weather induced, but blacked out purely by a climate cult settlement?  Ho, boy.  That would raise some hackles.  Or at least you'd think it would.  There's a more insidious, creeping trend across the United States that's been under the radar for the most part, although California and Texas have been the canaries in the coal mine.  I touched on it a bit last January, when Duke Energy was crawling on its corporate belly apologizing for massive outages across their service area. [...] There are now all these regional power companies who handle the load shifts for multiple states, and bad decisions driven by the climate cult are beginning to be felt everywhere.\

Biden admin quietly developing settlement with groups seeking to tear down key power source.  The Biden administration is quietly discussing a potentially far-reaching settlement with environmental groups that advocate for tearing down four hydroelectric dams in Washington to protect salmon.  Federal attorneys representing the government said it had "developed a package of actions and commitments" and agreed to pause litigation with environmental activist plaintiffs in the case, according to court documents filed late last month.  In the filings, jointly submitted by the federal government and eco groups, the parties said they could request a multiyear pause on the litigation to allow for the implementation of the package as soon as Dec. 15, 2023.  However, the filing failed to detail exactly what conditions were included in the secretive package developed.  The groups involved in the case have vehemently argued in favor of breaching the four federally managed dams amid declining salmon populations in the lower Snake River, which winds through Idaho and southwestern Washington before feeding into the Columbia River and then into the Pacific Ocean.

The Editor says...
Hydroelectric dams are one of the two available methods to generate electricity without also generating carbon dioxide.  But the far left doesn't seem to care about keeping the lights on as much as they care about wild fish.

Biden Administration Considers Breaching WA's Snake River Dams to Save "Imperiled Salmon Species".  I recently theorized that the EPA is doubling down on the destruction of this country, as Biden's poll numbers are collapsing and woke bureaucrats seek to use what power that they have in the time still remaining to them.  The same is true for the rest of the administration, as evidenced by the fact that a leaked document shows an agreement for the federal government to spend $1 billion replacing four functional hydroelectric dams along Washington's Snake River with green energy alternatives.  ["]The U.S. government is willing to help build enough new clean energy projects in the Pacific Northwest to replace the hydropower generated by four controversial dams on the Snake River, according to a leaked Biden administration document that is giving hope to conservationists who have long sought the removal of the dams as a key to restoring depleted salmon runs.["]

The Editor says...
When your lights go off and stay off, and your phone quits, and the gas station can't pump, you won't care about any stinking salmon.

Putting oil spills into perspective.  I am 70 years old.  My electricity has been provided by a coal-fired power plant my entire life.  I have been privileged to have AC for around 60 years.  My heat has been provided by natural gas almost all my life.  I have lived within one mile of the coal plant, with scrubbers, for 44 years.  I raised three children in this close proximity.  Not once, that I can remember, did I worry about the air quality or worry about opening the doors and windows.  We are all very healthy.  Our current power plant was updated in 2005, at the cost of several hundred million.  It passed all environmental standards yet now, Democrats want to put it out of existence to claim they can change the climate.  It is a shame they care so little about the poor and middle classes that still have to pay off the plant, and now a replacement.

Heating Homes With Natural Gas Is More Than 40% Cheaper Than Electricity:  US EIA.  Heating homes this winter using natural gas is estimated to cut down energy costs by more than 40 percent compared to electricity, according to a recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).  Households using electricity to heat homes are projected to pay $1,063 on average between November and March, according to a Nov. 7 winter fuels outlook report by the EIA.  In comparison, households using natural gas are only expected to shell out $601.  Region-wise, the biggest difference is in the Midwest, where electric heating is expected to cost $1,213 — more than double the gas cost of $581.  In the Northeast, gas heating is projected to be cheaper by $704, in the South by $507, and in the West by $417.  Natural gas heating is also cheaper compared to other alternative energy sources such as propane and heating oil, which are expected to cost $1,343 and $1,851 respectively.

California's EV Conundrums.  The crude oil industry's time in California is limited, and the oil-refining industry is behaving as any industry would in comparable circumstances, by transitioning its operations away from gasoline to activities that will prove to be more profitable in the long run.  And as crude oil supply falls further, much higher gasoline prices will become a way of life for Californians, as the conundrums associated with EV mandates may be growing.  Standard economic logic indicates that high California gas prices should encourage fuels supply to be shipped to California from other states.  But this doesn't happen because no other state formulates California's unique gasoline blend.  In addition, the West Coast fuels market is isolated from other supply/demand centers as California is an energy island.

Carbon Dioxide:  Vital Plant Food.  Carbon dioxide has been called a poison, yet it is actually the sustainer of all life on Earth.  Plants grow from the carbon in carbon dioxide in the air, and animals grow from the carbon in the plants they eat.  So carbon dioxide cannot be a poison.  Turn on the television any day of the week, and there is likely to be some discussion or news about some aspect of energy use.
  •   Everyone needs to buy an electric vehicle.
  •   End the use of fossil fuels by 2035.
  •   Every home with a solar panel (California).
  •   Cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline.
  •   No more coal.
  •   Eliminate the use of natural gas.
  •   No gas stoves.
  •   No gas furnaces.
  •   Battery-powered trucks and buses.
All these programs are based on one important foundation:  the belief that as carbon dioxide levels rise, the earth will get warmer, and will continue to warm until, with positive feedbacks, it burns up with us on it.  Few have ever taken the time to see if the foundation upon which they are operating is actually true.  Few even dare to ask a working scientist for the truth in the matter.  The truth is that carbon dioxide is needed by every plant on the Earth.  Trees, bushes, and plants of all kinds are made mainly of carbon and hydrogen, and the carbon comes from the tiny amount of carbon dioxide that is in the air.

Carbon Dioxide:  Vital Plant Food.  [Scroll down]  It is bad enough that many of these programs have been built on a false foundation.  In truth, many of them have not been really beneficial.  Large solar farms are built in the desert, but in just a few years, the projects have failed.  Wind turbines wear out, catch fire, and break down totally.  They presently cannot be recycled and must be buried.  The only parts that can be recycled are in the generator.  One city bought several electric buses but in just a short time quit using them as impractical.  Electric vehicles may be practical to drive from home to office and back again, but they are not practical on long trips.  It is necessary to stop every few hours and charge the batteries, and sometimes it is difficult to find a proper charging station.  Those who have lived near the coast have seen their cars flooded with sea water, then their cars caught fire as their batteries shorted out.  Not only that, but the driving range is radically reduced when driving in summer (air-conditioning) or winter (heater).

Michael Bloomberg's $1 Billion Assault on The Electric Grid.  Climate-related philanthropy in America has been hijacked by a radical agenda that will hurt the affordability, reliability, and resilience of the U.S. electric grid.  More proof of that hijacking came last month when mega-billionaire Michael Bloomberg announced that Bloomberg Philanthropies would give $500 million to the Beyond Carbon campaign.  The goal of the effort is to shutter the bulk of our most important power plants — the ones that burn coal and natural gas and are therefore dispatchable and weather-resilient — and, in Bloomberg's words, replace them with "renewable energy."  The September 20 announcement quotes Bloomberg as saying the $500 million gift marks a "new chapter in the Beyond Carbon campaign, as we move to finish the job.  By working with our partners across the country, we hope to transform the way we power America by moving beyond fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable energy."  The press release goes on to say the goal is to "shut down every last U.S. coal plant," and "slash gas plant capacity in half, and block all new gas plants."

Powering the Unplugged.  Electricity is the world's most important and fastest-growing form of energy.  It is also the most difficult form of energy to supply reliably.  Many of the world's most pressing challenges are tied directly to electricity, including carbon dioxide emissions, women's rights, and poverty reduction.  The electricity sector matters to climate change efforts because it is the single biggest source of global CO2 emissions.  Electricity matters because it is one of the world's biggest industries.  Global electricity sales exceed $4.5 trillion per year.  That means that the electricity sector generates more revenue per year than global automobile manufacturing, which generated about $3 trillion in 2022.  Furthermore, electricity-related investment is the biggest portion of global energy spending.  This year, the International Energy Agency ("IEA") expects that global spending on the power sector, including investment in renewables, nuclear, hydrocarbons, grids, and batteries, will total $1.2 trillion.  By comparison, spending on hydrocarbons — coal, oil, and natural gas — will total about $950 billion.  Electricity matters because it is the ultimate poverty killer.  No matter where you look, as electricity use has increased, so has economic growth.

Biden administration tries paying off states to plug wells and stop energy production.  The Biden administration is offering federal assistance to certain states for the closure of low-producing oil and gas wells.  Funding comes from the Inflation Reduction Act's $350 million program called the Mitigating Emissions from Marginal Conventional Wells.  The grant opened up in August, as announced by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.  The program was designed to "help monitor and reduce methane emissions, one of the biggest drivers of climate change, from the oil and gas sector and for environmental restoration of well sites."  Last week, Wyoming opted not to pursue federal funding from the program, with Gov. Mark Gordon (R-WY) stating he believes the offer undermines the state's oil and gas industry and its importance to the economy.

The Editor says...
[#1] Forty percent of "methane emissions" come from natural sources.  [#2] The sun is "one of the biggest drivers of climate change," and methane has a very minor influence, by comparison.  [#3] The climate has been changing for a long time.  Climate change did not begin when natural gas drilling started, and even if it had, the tiny magnitude of global temperature changes in the last century would have been a small price to pay for all the energy that has been produced through the combustion of natural gas.

Is the Left Happy That They Got Their Wish?  The Left has waged a war on fossil fuels for decades.  But once in power it has cancelled critical pipelines, restricted federal oil and gas leases, hectored oil and gas lenders, shut down entire oil fields, and issued arbitrary deadlines when internal combustion engines are to be banned, and clean burning natural gas appliances to be phased out.  And the result of turning the nation "green"?  Gasoline prices spiked to all-time highs, hurting most the poor and minorities, the supposed political base of the Democratic Party.  When elections near, only then does a panicked Left begin draining the strategic petroleum reserve, while begging illiberal regimes abroad to pump more oil that they we will not — in a desperate effort to lower gas and diesel prices, at least temporarily until elections are over.  Bicoastal wealthy elites lecture down to Americans about the existential crisis of "climate change" and the radical revolutions necessary to "transition" (a favorite, multipurpose woke word) to solar, wind, and battery power.

If it Saves One Life and Other Meretricious Lies.  It's not unusual that power-mad politicians justify depriving us of liberty using the appeal to emotion:  "If it saves one life." [...] Just as this nonsensical appeal to emotion was used to justify lockdowns, the green movement thrives on emotional pap which hides the true cost of their policies.  I'm old enough to remember how a major energy project (Tellico) was held up for six years at high cost to energy customers and the local economy because the claimed need to protect the snail darter from extinction.  It was subsequently transplanted and thrives.  The media, using a variation of "if it saves one life" yammered on about the need to preserve every species (actually in that case a subspecies) of a miniscule fish versus the needs of those people in the Tennessee Valley.  It's not the only time some exaggerated claims about a minor species was used to halt needed conventional energy projects, but it was the first of several which set the standard.

California Has Another Planet-Saving Idea.  Making electricity is easy.  Figuring out how to make enough electricity without violating leftist dogma is quite a bit harder.  California's population has grown an astounding 162 percent since 1958.  Yet the state hasn't built a new power plant (other than wind or solar) since the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant came online in 1985.  The state simply does not have the electrical generating capacity to meet its current needs — making it more dependent on imported power than any other state in the Union.  California currently imports between 20 and 30 percent of its power from other states.  The "save the planet" zealots have become dependent addicts, ensuring continued profitability for the evil pushers of environmentally destructive energy.  That dependence on other states is a simple engineering problem to solve.  If you don't have enough electricity, just build more power plants. [...] The problem is California's energy policy.  The state hasn't built a new power plant in almost 40 years because it has committed to reaching 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

What? Biden Sold America's Oil Reserve to China.  On and after January 20, 2021, [Joe] Biden has issued punitive, increasingly restrictive executive orders, regulations, and expensive legislation — passed by single-party government — intended to shut down big parts of the US fossil fuel industry.  Not satisfied to shut down supply, the federal government has — with and without legislation — methodically perverted the demand side of the curve, too.  After making gas and heating oil prohibitively expensive, they penalized makers of automobiles and countless gas-powered household appliances.  Specifically, they have punished makers of gas powered engines, cars, trucks, boats, lawnmowers, hammered the energy, construction, transportation, and farm sectors, then turned to appliances, aiming to outlaw everything from gas and wood stoves to refrigerators and water heaters.  The Democrat idea, fueled by activists, is to mandate everything by fiat.  The Soviets dealt this way, Chinese still do.  Biden's "make it all electric" mandate sees wind turbines and solar panels covering the Earth, powering the grid, now 80 percent fossil and nuclear.  By magic, wind and sun will run it all.

Sen. Cramer, Colleagues Call on EPA to Withdraw Harmful Proposed Power Plant Regulations.  U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, joined nearly 40 of his Senate colleagues in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking for the withdrawal of the "Clean Power Plan 2.0," a proposed rule which will force the closure of coal and gas-fire power plants.  The senators said the proposal would require generation shifting from fossil-fuel power to other types of energy, which is in direct conflict with West Virginia v. EPA.  They also argued the rule reflects rushed decision-making that is arbitrary and capricious, subverts public participation, and negatively impacts electric reliability across the country.

Will Someone Please Wake Me From This Nightmare?  Biden has made it clear that he supports going to zero carbon emissions which would eliminate all use of coal, and fossil fuels.  Natural gas is used to make fertilizer, which is very important to agriculture.  And, over 6,000 things that we use on a daily basis are made from oil.  Wind and solar will never take the place of coal-fired, or natural gas-fired energy generation.  Electric cars will soon be a national disaster because they are useless during a time of disaster with no electricity available.  It is not possible to build batteries large enough to carry a city during times when the sun does not shine or the wind blow.

Biden killing whales and raptors for wind, now using a lizard to shut down oil.  This White House must get down on their knees and thank whatever Babylonian gods they worship when a weekend holiday rolls around.  They can slide the shiv in just that quick and hope no one notices in all the hubbub of fireworks or finding a cubby full of blow in the Big House.  Which is precisely what they did this Friday, right before the weekend stretched out to Fourth of July.  A successful conservation effort between land owners and oil and gas industry types that had been working for eleven years was, for all intents an purposes, summarily spiked by Biden's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).  They've proposed a rule to declare the dunes sagebrush lizard "endangered" under the restrictions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and it's too bad, so sad for the oil industry that the little scamps just happen to live all over the Permian basin.

Biden Brags About Killing Coal Plants As Grid Operators Warn Of Rolling Blackouts.  President Joe Biden boasted that there will be no more new coal-fired power plant developments in the U.S. during a Wednesday speech in Chicago, Illinois, even as the U.S. continues to grapple with energy problems.  Biden bragged that his economic and energy policies have disincentivized any future development of coal-fired power plants while touting the merits of green energy technology his administration's policies favor, according to video of his speech.  His remarks come about one month after a May 2023 grid assessment report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which warned that the power grids serving most of New England and a large majority of Americans who live west of the Mississippi River face "elevated risk" of rolling blackouts this summer if weather conditions are hotter than normal.

Greta Thunberg's War on Prosperity.  Swedish Doom Pixie Greta Thunberg is at it again, this time leading a protest during which access to several oil tankers in Malmo Harbor was blocked for five days.  Her message remains as it has been: We must surrender our modern technological lifestyle. [...] She's protesting wind turbines?  Seems she is now.  It seems she's against anything that supports our modern lifestyle, by which I mean anything that has any potential to provide energy, whether cheap or otherwise.  Of course, her own lifestyle would seem to be pretty comfortable.  And that is the great irony that is Greta Thunberg — her war on working-class folks.

Time To Buy Stock In Candle Companies.  The green energy "revolution" is taking us backward, to an era in which there won't be enough electricity to meet the demand.  Members of the House Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security were told last week to expect "potentially catastrophic consequences" due to dispatchable generating sources being retired "far too quickly" in the race to replace those sources — natural gas, coal and nuclear, which are available on demand — with renewables, primarily wind and solar.  Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark C. Christie told the congressmen that lawmakers' and activists' obsession (our characterization) with green energy threatens "our ability to keep the lights on."  Though obvious to us all, it's important to continually point out that wind can't produce electricity when it doesn't blow and solar can't generate power when it's dark (or the sun is screened out by smoke from forest fires that are caused by man's refusal to properly manage forests, not his emissions of carbon dioxide).

The EPA Threatens to Turn Out the Lights.  Imagine flipping a light switch and not knowing if the lights will come on.  Normally unthinkable.  But the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed power-plant rules would destabilize the energy grid, resulting in less-reliable electric service.  The EPA's aggressive standards require all coal-fired power plants to use a new and still-tricky technology called carbon capture and storage, or CCS, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 90% by 2035, or begin co-firing with natural gas.  In addition, natural-gas-fired plants must capture 90% of emissions by 2035 using CCS or switch almost entirely to hydrogen by 2038.  The only other option for both:  shut down.

Biden Wages Terrifying, Suicidal War on Energy Security.  The Biden administration's new 681-page EPA-proposed regulatory rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions for coal-and gas-fired power plants.  This is but the latest attempt to eliminate America's fossil-fueled energy independence, prosperity, and global security.  Although last year the Supreme Court blocked the implementation of the Obama "Clean Power Plan," which would have forced a power shift to renewables from coal, the EPA now wants to include natural gas in their kill list.  According to Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), the EPA can regulate "pollutants" from stationary power sources through the "best system of emission reduction" that is "adequately demonstrated."

There Is No Green "Energy Transition".  The reason for the growth in humanity from 1 to 8 billion in 200 years is simple:  fossil fuels are abundant, cheap, and efficient, so they provide reliable and dense energy at scale that can be manufactured into usable products by humanity.  Renewables, on the other hand, cannot manufacture anything for humanity.  Fossil fuels have helped to generate a quality-of-life revolution for a portion of humanity, and people in poverty who have missed out on this blessing rightfully want what the people in the wealthy and developed countries already have.  Recently, Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright explained in his viral video, dishonest terminology surrounds the climate debate.  One of these terms is "Energy Transition."  This term gives the impression that there exists a quick, easy, and scalable alternative to eliminate fossil fuels without serious impact on humanity.

The EPA's death warrant for fossil fuel plants.  The Environmental Protection Agency has just released its most aggressive emissions rules to date.  The rules demand that coal and gas plants capture almost all of their emissions.  In essence, fossil fuel plants will have to cut their emissions by 90 percent between 2035 and 2040 or shut down.  Unless, of course, they can afford to run carbon capture systems or swap out natural gas for hydrogen.  But is that even realistic?

EPA v. The Grid.  On May 4, members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission delivered stark warnings to the members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  The agency's acting chairman, Willie Phillips, told the senators, "We face unprecedented challenges to the reliability of our nation's electric system."  FERC Commissioner Mark Christie echoed Phillips' warning, saying the U.S. electric grid is "heading for a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability."  His colleague, Commissioner James Danly, averred that there is a "looming reliability crisis in our electricity markets."  The commissioners pointed to several factors for the reliability crisis, including numerous coal plants that are being retired prematurely, insufficient pipeline capacity to assure natural gas can be delivered to power plants, insufficient high-voltage transmission capacity, and distortions in the electricity market caused by massive federal subsidies for weather-dependent renewables.

New EPA climate rules drive a stake through the heart of natural gas & coal power plants.  Why do we even have a Constitution?  Has anyone asked a Democrat that lately?  The general mode of operation with them in power has been to have a great, transformative idea no one in the country but them wants, sidestep every legal and constitutional avenue for implementing — or against — said great idea, wave a magic departmental edict wand and voilà!  Make it so.  As if that's all it took and that squawking in the background is just so much peasant babble to be ignored. [...] By executive fiat, they are taking aim at the source of the electricity that lights your house, maybe heats it as well.  The EPA, frustrated as the pace of the adoption of solar, wind, EVs and whatever other unicorn-ish fart schemes are floating out in the ether doesn't match their fever dreams, wants to cut the knees out from under electrical power plants run by natural gas and coal.

Joe Manchin threatens to oppose Biden nominees over upcoming power plant crackdown.  Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is threatening to oppose all of President Biden's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominees over an expected regulation targeting power plant emissions.  Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, blasted the Biden administration for aiming to shut down fossil fuel-fired power plants regardless of the impacts on the nation's power grid.  The Democratic lawmaker argued that neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), both of which he supported, gave the EPA authority to regulate power plant emissions.  "Neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards," Manchin said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Wednesday [5/10/2023].

The war on gas stoves is a war on all natural gas.  Remember when we were assured that there is no war on natural gas stoves?  That was always a lie, of course.  But it is bigger than just stoves.  New York is banning all natural gas connections in new construction.  [Tweet]  Maybe when the Democrats and their MSM allies assured that gas stoves weren't in the crosshairs they actually meant that not only gas stoves were going to be banned.  Natural gas appliances of all types are going the way of the dinosaur.

New York legislators set to ban natural gas hookups in new buildings.  Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) and state lawmakers reached an agreement to phase out natural gas hookups in new buildings beginning in 2025, a first-of-its-kind state law designed to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and transition to cleaner sources of energy.  Hochul said Thursday she reached a handshake deal with lawmakers on the agreement, which was included in New York's fiscal 2024 budget.  Though the budget stops short of an explicit ban on natural gas appliances, it will ban natural gas hookups in most new residential and commercial buildings under seven stories beginning in 2026.  By 2029, that will extend to larger industrial and commercial properties as well.

The Editor says...
If the goal is to "transition to cleaner sources of energy," what's cleaner than natural gas?  Most of the electricity in New York is generated by power plants that use natural gas [Source].

Biden admin preparing major crackdown on power plants that fuel nation's grid.  The Biden administration is reportedly finalizing a proposal that would force fossil fuel-fired power plants to substantially curb emissions or utilize costly carbon capture technology.  The proposal — which will soon be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — is expected to require coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to cut or capture the vast majority of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2040, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing officials briefed on a draft of the plan.  The regulation, if finalized, would represent the first-ever federal action curbing power plant emissions.  "EPA cannot comment because the proposals are currently under interagency review," EPA spokesperson Maria Michalos told Fox News Digital in a statement.

Kiss your gas goodbye.  All is takes is a bunch of vocal lunatics ruining their own states, and the horde of howling monkeys rattling the cage bars is enough to scare the rest of the sane people away.  That's essentially what's happening in the natural gas world right this very second.  You may own a gas stove or furnace, and you may just adore that appliance, and your state may not even be outlawing the stuff that makes it get hot as all get out and works even when the electricity doesn't.  But guess what?  The utility that sends that wonderous, gaseous fuel through the lines to your house is running scared, and they are already moving to divest themselves of what they see as a YUGE liability — owning natural gas pipelines.

Assault and Battery: Beware Those EVs.  There can be little doubt in any serious person's mind that Green technology is an unmitigated disaster.  It is no longer an issue of Big Oil, which the Leftwaffe is strafing and bombing daily, but of the multi-billion-dollar industry of Big Green, or the Climate-Industrial Complex.  The game has changed.  As The Epoch Times reports, "a powerful lobby of politicians, scientists, and media pushes climate-related falsehoods into the popular perspective," to the advantage of Big Business and the attendant cohort of technopreneurs.  Whether we are considering the fantasy of costly, inefficient, and environmentally harmful wind farms, the array of solar panels under the cloudy skies and grey winters of the northern hemisphere, or even the pending legislation against gas stoves — "now you're cooking with gas" is an expression that may have seen its last days — we must prepare for a penurious and meager future.  Moreover, renewables are not keeping pace with the doing away of conventional and nuclear sources of energy, which means that the national energy supply may be increasingly depleted before the shortfall can be made up — if ever.

When Will This Climate Madness End?  What do gas ranges, Dutch farmers, and moose have in common?  In a normal everyday context, very little.  But in the world of apocalyptic climate change, everything. [...] The enlightened climate cult solution is to ban everything that adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and embrace everything that lowers the concentration of greenhouse gases.  For example, gas ranges and ovens are bad because they use fossil fuels like natural gas and propane to cook food.  If gas stoves are banned, electric ranges and ovens can fill the gap.  No worries, right?  The same argument can be made for fossil-fueled vehicles.  Ban them, and switch over to electric vehicles.  Ditto for fossil-fueled power generating stations.  Ban them, switch to renewable sources, and have a happy day.  This sort of logic extends to another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.  In the Netherlands, the Dutch Government is trying to force up to 3,000 farms to close to meet European Union pollution limits on nitrogen oxides and ammonia.  This means that almost no form of agriculture is safe from climate change diktats.

Is the Mask of the Green Cult Finally Coming Off?  For decades now, you have heard leftist ear sores bloviate endlessly about "climate change."  The world will end in a decade if we don't take action now! screams AOC.  However, the more skeptical and rational among us tend to question the true motivation of the environmentalist Green cult.  The best example of a real environmentalist was probably conservationist John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club. [...] Just take a look at the Sierra Club's website today, and see what its goals are for 2030.  Within the next seven years, the Sierra Club hopes to eliminate enough coal and gas in the energy sector to make for 80% carbon "pollution"-free electricity by that time, in addition to decreasing oil used in the transportation sector by 18%, ending the sale of gas appliances, and halting the fossil fuel market by banning oil and gas exports and petrochemical expansion at the same time.

Biden is not only after your gas stove but also your fridge and washer.  An official on President Joe Biden's Consumer Product Safety Commission let it slip to a reporter earlier this year that the sale of gas stoves might soon be banned for health and safety reasons.  The Biden administration, using a bogus study from a group of environmental activists, was signaling its intention to spread a fake health scare over gas stoves.  This was to be a pretext for imposing a ban related to global warming alarmism — something most people care about less than health.  Public outrage over this news forced Biden's minions to rethink their plan.  But they didn't take long to sneak back to it.  The Energy Department announced regulations that will ban the sale of nearly all gas stoves on the market.  It would ban the sale of 96% of gas stoves currently being purchased, to say nothing of the models bought years ago.

Internal Memo Shows Biden Admin Wanted To Ban Gas Stoves Before Public Backlash.  The Biden administration claimed the need to ban gas stoves "reached a boiling point" before the conversation really got heated.  In January, Richard Trumka Jr., a Biden appointee to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), triggered an avalanche of headlines when he told Bloomberg News, "any option is on the table" regarding gas stove regulation.  "Products that can't be safe can be banned," Trumka said.  The comment draws on left-wing myths that gas stoves are a primary source of respiratory problems through indoor emissions.  Such claims, however, have nothing to do with science and everything to do with radical climate activism.  Corporate outlets jumped to downplay the administration's threat after public outcry forced the White House to backtrack such regulations. [...] Other outlets framed conservatives as the aggressors even as nearly 100 cities have already banned the gas appliance.  Another 20 states are considering similar regulations, according to the Washington Examiner.

Gas Ranges Targeted in Class Action Suit Against LG.  A class action suit filed in California alleges LG Electronics USA, Inc. sold gas range stoves in the United States without properly notifying customers of toxic emissions prior to their purchases.  The suit comes as the industry faces attacks and efficiency proposals by the Biden administration that would remove up to half the current gas range ovens on the U.S. market.  A California woman who purchased an LG gas stove from Costco in October 2022 claims in the suit that she was unaware of the "risks" associated with the product before purchasing.

Hess CEO States [the] Obvious on CNBC: Oil and Gas [will be] 'Needed for Decades to Come'.  Corporate America has fomented a culture that's so drunk on environmental, social and governance standards that a CEO stating the obvious on CNBC about the ongoing necessity of oil and gas actually seems profound.  Hess Corporation CEO John Hess wasted no time in pointing out that "oil and gas are going to be needed for decades to come" during the Mar. 7 edition of CNBC's Squawk Box.  Hess even stated that "oil and gas are key" in order to achieve an "affordable, just and secure" energy "transition."  Talk about irony.  Hess noted that "most people don't realize that oil and gas are a strategic industry for the United States."  Hess's comments come just as President Joe Biden is set to allow a program that was engineered to enable oil and gas development on the U.S. outer continental shelf to expire.  According to Forbes magazine, "the expiration of the program is troubling as it signals to oil and gas producers — and ultimately consumers — that the government has an antagonistic attitude towards more domestic energy production."

John Kerry Condemns Fossil Fuels That "Heat Our Homes" and "Propel Our Vehicles".  John Kerry condemned fossil fuels during remarks at the 2023 Our Ocean Conference in Panama.  Biden's so-called Climate Envoy John Kerry traveled all the way to Brazil and Panama this week to lecture on the virtues of making sacrifices to stop climate change.  John Kerry said we are facing a climate change crisis because of "how we live" and the choices we make on a daily basis.  "That crisis is caused by unabated emissions from fossil fuels that burn so that we can propel our vehicles, heat our homes, light our businesses," John Kerry said.

Biden Is Still After Your Gas Stoves.  Shortly after a Biden administration official boasted about how the federal government might ban gas stoves for being "unsafe," the White House reassured the public that no such ban was in the works.  We warned readers at the time not to believe such reassurances because "once this sort of train starts moving there is often no stopping it."  That was in early January.  It took less than a month for the Biden administration to prove us right.  Earlier this month, the Department of Energy released a proposed rule that, if implemented, would essentially regulate gas stoves out of existence.

AOC loses battle to slow GOP push to expand new oil, natural gas leases on federal land.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday failed to slow down the House Republican push for new oil and gas leases on federal land after GOP lawmakers shot down her attempt to require further study of the public health impacts of energy extraction.  The House Natural Resources Committee met Tuesday to adopt its work plan for the new Congress.  Included in that plan is language that says the Biden administration has leased fewer federal acres for oil and gas development than "any presidential administration" since the end of World War II.  "The Committee will examine the lack of oil and natural gas leasing on federal lands in the western United States, including focusing on administrative actions that have created permitting delays and disincentivized production on federal lands," the committee's plan said.

Fossil Future, Part 1.  I am going to try to persuade you of something that might seem impossible:  that one of the best things you can do to make the world a better place is to fight for more fossil fuel use — more use of oil, coal, and natural gas.  My case for expanding humanity's massive fossil fuel use might seem unworthy of even considering given that it totally contradicts what trusted sources tell us is the consensus of virtually all experts, but consider that 1) we know that sometimes what we're told is the "expert" view turns out to be catastrophically wrong, and 2) the "expert" view that we should rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use is a radical and potentially disastrous change in how we use energy. [...] Fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective source of energy, providing energy that is 1) low-cost, 2) on-demand, 3) versatile, and 4) on a scale of billions of people in thousands of places — which is why they are growing around the world, above all in places that care most about cost-effective energy, such as China.  Cost-effective energy is essential to human flourishing (our ability to live long, healthy, opportunity-filled lives) because the more cost-effective energy is, the more people can use the miracle of "machine labor" to produce vital material values such as food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.

Democrats, eco groups take aim at other home appliances amid gas stove debate.  Democrats and far-left green groups have set their sights on regulating a wide range of popular household appliances in a bid to push their broader electrification and climate agenda.  The push to regulate everyday appliances — including water heaters, furnaces, clothes washers, dishwashers, ceiling fans, microwave ovens and shower heads — comes as the Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers continue to set lofty net-zero and climate goals for weaning off fossil fuel dependence.  Environmentalists have argued that electrification, banning natural gas hookups and implementing strict energy efficiency standards could help accelerate emissions reductions.  "There's bad news for almost every room in the house," Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital in an interview. "Climate activists and the Biden administration want homeowners to stop using natural gas and to electrify everything.  That would affect appliances that come in natural gas and electric versions such as stoves, but also heating systems and water heaters."

Brickbat: Bad Gas.  The Colorado Public Utilities Commission has passed rules that could make it more difficult and more expensive to build new natural gas pipelines or extend existing ones in the state.  The rules require regulators to sign off on any pipeline construction plans by natural gas utilities with more than 90,000 customers.  Utilities would have to pay the full costs of pipelines up front.  Democratic Gov. Jared Polis has set a goal for natural gas utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4 percent by 2025 and by 22 percent by 2030.

New Colorado rules could limit natural gas line construction, expansion.  Natural gas for heating, cooking and hot water could be harder — or more expensive — to come by with the advent of new Colorado rules scrutinizing new gas line construction, or extending existing lines.  New rules affecting gas utility companies have the potential to limit system expansion and increase the costs of installing natural gas in new construction, say officials at the Colorado Energy Office.  Xcel Energy officials warned the new rules have the potential to, for all intents and purposes, ban line extensions.

The Coup We Never Knew.  Did someone or something seize control of the United States? [...] When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent to dirty coal?  How did prized natural gas that had granted America's wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature?  Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?

10 Steps to Save America.  [B]y 2020, the United States enjoyed inexpensive fuel.  It was all but independent in gas and oil.  It had become the world largest combined gas and oil producer.  That status radically curtailed the need for optional military engagements in the Middle East.  It gave America enormous clout against hostile oil exporters like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.  And such independence helped reduce vast trade deficits.  Again, the Biden Administration simply exploded the idea of fossil-fuel independence as a gradual transition to sustainable energy.  So simply doing the opposite of its policies would correct the pathology almost immediately:  Issue more federal gas and oil leases, approve the Keystone and Constitution pipelines, reopen the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and build nuclear power plants.  The present course of high-priced and scarce gasoline and oil is eroding the middle class, spiking inflation, widening class divisions, and reducing American autonomy abroad.

Soros-backed group advises Biden admin that Clean Air Act could be used to 'control or prohibit' gasoline.  Governing for Impact, a group funded by George Soros, recently issued a memo to lawmakers advising the Biden administration that the Clean Air Act grants the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to "control or prohibit" the manufacturing and sale of gasoline, Fox News Digital reported.  "The Clean Air Act provides the Environmental Protection Agency with a number of tools to reduce air pollution," the memo read. "One powerful provision is Section 211(c), which authorizes the EPA to 'control or prohibit' the manufacture and sale of any motor vehicle fuel (or fuel additive) if resulting emissions will endanger public health or welfare (or impair emissions control devices)."  The memo, written by GFI and the climate group Evergreen Collaborative, argued that the EPA could force gas stations to establish electric vehicle charging stations on their properties.  "Under this authority, more stringent regulations on vehicle fuels — for example, requiring certain gas stations or national brands to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure — could both reduce deadly air pollution (such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter) and incentivize the use of zero emissions transportation," the memo added.

The Editor says...
The rash pronouncement that nitrogen oxides and particulates are "deadly air pollution" assumes a lot of things that are not necessarily true.  Nobody is opposed to clean air, but surely the sponsors of the Clean Air Act didn't tell everyone that the law was intended as a weapon against gasoline.

UN considers trying to outlaw all fossil fuels on the planet.  The COP27 globalist gathering that recently took place in Egypt came with open calls for a global phase-out of, and eventual ban on, all fossil fuels.  Were this to actually happen, billions of people would die.  A tiny, failing island in the South Pacific called Tuvalu (ever heard of it?) made the proposition using the following quoted statement:  "We, therefore, unite with 100 Nobel Peace Prize laureates and 1000s of scientists worldwide to urge world leaders to join the fossil fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, to manage a just transition away from fossil fuels."  One wonders:  what does Tuvalu mean by the term "just transition?"  Is ending most human life on earth considered by the globalists to be the "just" thing to do?  Because that it what eliminating all fossil fuel usage would do.

Saskatchewan First Act introduced to literally keep the lights on in this province, and allow farmers to keep using nitrogen fertilizer.  Thou shalt not use coal for power generation post-2030, the federal government hath said.  And it's moving to do the same with natural gas by 2035.  It also wants to limit farmers' fertilizer usage, all in the name of climate change policies.  On Nov. 1, the Province of Saskatchewan said, "To hell with that," but in a more sophisticated, legal manner.  Saskatchewan threw down the gauntlet with the federal government on Nov. 1, introducing Bill No. 88, The Saskatchewan First Act.  If implemented in its current form, the Act basically says Saskatchewan will make its own decisions and rules on environmental standards, particularly those applying to greenhouse gas emissions and power generation.

The Cart Before the Horse.  [Scroll down] Speaking of natural resources, there's a popular notion that we can have comfort without the use of fossil fuels.  Many of us make the mistake of thinking of electricity as an environmentally safe energy source, not realizing that electricity is not a form of energy, but rather a form of energy delivery.  It has to be generated from an actual form of energy — coal, natural gas, oil.  Of course we could use hydroelectric power, but then we disturb the salmon.  What about solar?  Wind?  Those, of course, depend on the weather and there's nothing less dependable than weather.  Also, we have no practical way of storing this energy, which makes it available only when the wind blows or the sun shines.  While we're talking about fuels, let's explore another silly fantasy we're living in.  We're trying to transport goods and people without using fossil fuels.  Have you seen the latest stats on electric trucks?  It isn't pretty.  If we fail to transport goods cheaply, then farmers will have no way to get their products to market.

Austria sues European Union, claiming natural gas and nuclear energy are not 'green'.  Austria is taking the European Union to court over plans to characterize natural gas and nuclear power generation as sustainable energies amid efforts to fight climate change.  The Austrian government on Friday filed a lawsuit with the EU's top court over the classification used to define clean energy resources.  The EU's executive Commission plans to add certain nuclear and gas plants next year to a list that helps investors determine which projects are sustainable.  Austria's environment minister, Leonore Gewessler, warned that the measure could "greenwash" nuclear power and gas despite the environmental damage they cause.

Green agenda now demands elimination of natural gas in homes nationwide.  The green agenda coalition now is demanding the elimination of natural gas furnaces and appliances in homes nationwide, a move that could trigger replacements costs of $12,000 for homeowners.  And the plan is being slammed as representing a federal government "out of control," according to a state lawmaker.  The plan is being pushed by the Sierra Club and dozens of other "environmental" groups, who are demanding the Environmental Protection Agency ban the use of natural gas for home heating[,] everywhere in the country.  The groups' petition claims that the federal agency absolutely has to regulate "deadly pollution" from the energy source.

Insurrection: New York Times Promotes Sabotage, 'Guerrilla Warfare' to End Fossil Fuels.  In January of 2021, The New York Times promoted a book titled How To Blow Up a Pipeline by transparently radical author Andreas Malm.  On Thursday, the Times directly promoted Malm by publishing his guest essay under the headline "History May Absolve the Soup Throwers." [...] While the Times routinely rails against the "insurrection" on January 6 and sees all "domestic terrorism" as a right-wing problem, it promotes a climate insurrection and left-wing domestic terrorism.  Malm explicitly champions sabotage and violence — even guerrilla warfare! — as an efficient path to ending fossil fuels: [...] Malm tyrannically insists "all oil and gas production in rich countries — including the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and Qatar — must be terminated within 12 years.  Not only can there be no new fossil fuel installations; 40 percent of reserves already developed must be left in the ground."

Protests have stymied gas production in the Netherlands that could replace most of Russia's supply to Germany.  This winter may see Europeans freezing to death, unable to heat their homes as natural gas supplies dwindle.  Unemployment and bankruptcies will soar, as companies find themselves unable to cover their costs due to high energy prices.  Germany's vaunted chemical industry, heavily dependent on natural gas feedstock, is likely to wither on the vine.  An economic and social disaster reminiscent of the 1930s is possible.  The word "deindustrialization" is becoming real.

Is California a Luddite Conspiracy?  California politicians continue to pass policies that, by all accounts, appear to be deliberately aimed at substantially reducing its residents' ability to have reliable, on-demand electricity. [...] California has, over the years, been a leader in "decarbonizing" their state.  In their enthusiasm, Californians rapidly shut down coal, oil, and gas power plants over the years, at a rate that the installation of renewable replacements simply could not keep up with.  Nuclear is on the chopping block as well, though the Diablo Canyon nuclear power station has just had its execution deferred for another few years.  Diablo Canyon supplies California with 9 percent of its electricity, and represents 15 percent of its non-fossil fuel energy.  It's worth noting that the only reason Diablo Canyon was slated to close in the first place was because Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, embarked on a long quest to force Pacific Gas & Electric to close it prematurely.  Electricity prices in California have risen six times faster than the rest of the country since 2011, and are more than double the cost of neighboring states' rates.

"Sue And Settle': Biden Admin Agrees To Cancel Oil And Gas Drilling After Settling With Eco Activists.  The Biden administration will stop oil and gas drilling on more than 58,000 acres of federally-issued land after reaching a legal settlement with environmental activist groups on Sept. 6.  The Interior Department's (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agreed to halt drilling permits on 113 oil and gas leases across 58,617 acres of land in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, according to the settlement.  The DOI agreed to stop drilling after a coalition of environmental nonprofits led by WildEarth Guardians and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the agency in January 2021.  "This is a sue and settle case," Paul Seby, a lawyer who specializes in environmental issues at Greenberg Traurig, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  "It's an abuse of the system and is being used to advance the policy goals of the Biden administration at the expense of the law."

Electricity Emergency.  A reliable grid is a foundation of our quality of life.  Our lives depend on ultra-reliable electricity for the refrigerators that preserve our food, the water treatment plants that keep our water drinkable, the air conditioning that keeps us cool, the factories that produce our goods, etc.  Ominously, our grid is in an increasingly fragile state.  Not only have we recently had statewide blackouts in California (2020) and Texas (2021), this summer shortages are occurring all around the US. [...] The root cause of our grid's reliability problems is simple: America is shutting down too many reliable power plants — plants that can be controlled to produce electricity when needed in the exact quantity needed.  And it is attempting to replace them with unreliable solar and wind.  Since at any given time solar and wind can go near zero, using them as replacements for reliable power plants doesn't work.

This is utterly delusional energy policy:
Janet Yellen: U.S. Must Look to 'Wind, Sun' for Energy, Not Oil and Gas.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday the United States must look to "the wind, sun, and other clean sources of energy" instead of relying on oil and gas.  Yellen's remarks came during a trip to Detroit, Michigan, where she boasted about the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act.  "Our plan — powered by the Inflation Reduction Act — represents the largest investment in fighting climate change in our country's history," Yellen told the crowd.  "It will put us well on our way toward a future where we depend on the wind, sun, and other clean sources of energy."  "We will rid ourselves from our current dependence on fossil fuels and the whims of autocrats like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," Yellen added.

The Editor says...
The U.S. under Donald Trump was not dependent on Russia, because we were utilizing our own petroleum resources to the maximum possible extent — or at least we were moving quickly in that direction.  Joe Biden has made domestic energy production far more difficult, in every way that he can, for no reason other than the political appeasement of environmental fruitcakes.

Fossil fools: How Germany's fear of nuclear power put Putin in charge of Europe.  On January 1st, 2000, a new leader of Russia ascended to power:  Vladimir Putin.  After his official inauguration that summer, Western leaders greeted him with open arms, hoping to leave Cold War attitudes in the 20th Century.  British Prime Minister Tony Blair would call him a reformer, visit him in the Kremlin, and welcome him into number 10.  President Bill Clinton stated that "no doors can be sealed shut to Russia" and would even float the prospect of welcoming Russia into the EU and NATO.  Gerhard Schröder, then leader of Germany, would embrace Putin too, first politically, then personally and professionally.  Elected in 1998 to lead a coalition with the Green Party, Schröder ran on the promise of phasing out nuclear power, a politically popular idea in Germany with a history of direct action and its own iconic tagline: "Atomkraft?  Nein Danke."  ("Nuclear Power?  No Thank You.")

Plan to demolish Klamath dams in California to save salmon gets boost from federal regulators.  A plan to save migratory salmon by demolishing four hydroelectric dams on California's Klamath River got backing from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Friday [8/26/2022].  FERC released the final version of the environmental impact statement evaluating the dam demolition plan.  FERC commissioners will vote on whether or not to implement the plan later this year.  The dam's operators filed an application to surrender the Lower Klamath Hydroelectric Project on Nov. 17, 2020.

Why We Lost Trust in the Expert Class.  For years, European policymakers had assured the world that the relatively rapid "transition" to "green" energy was the world's preordained future — regardless of the costs.  Accordingly, many European Union governments followed the advice of green experts.  They eagerly shut down coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants to transition immediately to "renewable energy."  Most citizens were afraid to object that in cloudy, cold Germany solar panels were not viable methods of electrical generation — especially in comparison to the country's vast coal deposits and its large, model nuclear power industry.  As a result, German government officials warn that this winter, in 19th-century fashion, families will have to burn wood — the dirtiest of modern fuels — to endure the cold.  And there is further talk of "warm rooms," where like pre-civilizational tribal people, the elderly will bunch together within a designated heated room to keep alive.

Rigging the War on Fossil Fuels.  [Scroll down]  In September 2020, a Gallup poll likewise found that climate change ranked eleventh in a list of registered voters' top concerns — well behind such items as the economy, terrorism/national security, the COVID-19 pandemic, health care, education, race relations, gun policy, crime, abortion, and immigration.  Notwithstanding the public's consistent and overwhelming lack of concern about climate change as an urgent problem, the main concern of the Biden administration and the entire agenda of the Democrat Party has been, and continues to be, driven by this issue.  In the words of President Joe Biden, "climate change poses an existential threat" — in fact, the chief existential threat to the United States — greater than terrorism, or Chinese expansionism, or the invasion by 2,400,000 unvetted illegal migrants annually across America's broken southern border.  So obsessive is the focus of Democrat leaders on the alleged "existential threat of climate change," that a centerpiece of their policies to oppose it is a war on fossil fuels, beginning with the cancelling of the Keystone pipeline, the shutting down of the ANWR oil field in Alaska, and the refusal for more than 17 months to sell oil-and-gas drilling leases on federal lands.

Americans Want Oil.  The Biden administration tells us that we are in the midst of a rapid transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar energy, and Pete Buttigieg says he can't understand why so many Americans haven't gotten on the bandwagon.  This author reminds us of what the Biden administration seems to have forgotten, but many Americans understand:  ["][W]ithout fossil fuel, nothing separates us from the pre-modern era.  For 99% of the world's population, that era was not a pretty Jane Austen movie.  Life was short, painful, diseased, filthy dirty, hungry, and either too hot or too cold.  Most people didn't live past 40 and half of children died before hitting 5.  There were only four energy sources:  Human labor, animal labor, and primitive wind and water energy.  (Five sources, I guess if you consider the sun drying laundry on the line.)["]  I think we can add that, beginning in the 18th century, there was also steam power fueled by wood.  Steam remains important, of course, but now we boil water using coal, natural gas, or a nuclear reaction, not wood.

Green Energy Chickens Coming Home to Roost.  This year will graphically demonstrate the malign consequences of the misguided efforts to replace cheap, reliable fossil fuel energy with unreliable, inefficient "renewable" energy like wind and solar.  Never in history has a civilization willfully embarked on destroying its material foundations, based solely on a hypothesis rather than scientifically established fact. [...] Here at home, warnings of electricity blackouts across the country this summer have not slowed down many states' increased efforts to shutter electrical plants powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear fission.  In New York, Governor Kathy Holchul has announced the state's commitment to enforcing a requirement that new power plants must achieve "zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions for new construction no later than 2027."  This policy of wishful thinking follows New York's Climate Act of 2019, which requires that all power generation comes from "green" sources by 2040, including 70% from renewable energy by 2030.

Without Fossil Fuels There Is No Need for Electricity.  America is in a fast pursuit toward achieving President Biden's stated goal that "we are going to get rid of fossil fuels" to achieve the Green New Deal's (GND) pursuit of wind turbines and solar panels to provide electricity to run the world, but WAIT, everything in our materialistic lives and economies cannot exist without crude oil, coal, and natural gas.  Everything that needs electricity, from lights, vehicles, iPhones, defibrillators, computers, telecommunications, etc., are all made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.  The need for electricity will decrease over time without crude oil. [...] And by the way, crude oil came before electricity.  The electricity that came AFTER the discovery of oil, is comprised of components made with those same oil derivatives from crude oil.  Thus, getting rid of crude oil, also eliminates our ability to make wind turbines, solar panels, as well as those vehicles intended to be powered by an EV battery.

Get ready for more blackouts because of environmentalist policies.  People across the United States and in many other countries are already experiencing sticker shock when they receive their utility bills this year.  The price of energy is continuing to climb along with the price of gasoline.  Unfortunately, according to the leader of one energy industry analysis group, that's not going to be the end of the bad news.  There are already places where the electrical grid is under so much strain that rolling blackouts have been enacted again and we're only going to see more of that going forward.  This issue has little or nothing to do with Russian energy supplies or the war in Ukraine.  The reality is that in many parts of the United States, we're barely producing enough electricity to meet the demand for power, and thanks to environmentalist policies put in place by the government, we're shutting down coal-fired power plants at a rate far faster than we can replace all of that juice through other methods.

Biden's Climate Czar May Have Inadvertently Revealed Deep Dysfunction In The Administration.  Top White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy copied a CBS News reporter on an email chain Wednesday announcing the administration would cancel a series of oil and gas lease sales.  "The Cook inlet sale was canceled.  It is not proceeding," McCarthy wrote to other White House officials in an email, CBS reported.  Another official reportedly responded immediately saying that a decision hadn't been made yet.  Interior Department (DOI) officials then reiterated that sentiment to CBS, also saying the agency hadn't decided if it would move forward on the lease sales Wednesday evening.

The World Does Not Run on Magic.  [Scroll down]  It seems that we assume the world can run in a magical way.  We need only wish a thing, and it will happen, because somebody will take care of it, or rather something, a mysterious agent in a black box.  To save the world from climate change, we should use electricity instead of burning fossil fuels.  But where do we get the electricity?  It must simply happen, like lightning from the sky.  I daresay we have all read hundreds of articles on the need to provide power in a clean, efficient, and sustainable way.  But how many address the fundamental problem posed: that is, that all electricity is generated by the brute physical fact of making a great shaft of magnetic metal turn?

Hundreds of oil wells to close in Long Beach under city efforts to go green.  In 1921, oil was discovered in Long Beach, California, and the city became one of the nation's biggest boomtowns — drilling 1,450 wells.  The port city once produced one-fifth of the nation's oil supply, more than 60 million barrels per year.  That has been scaled back to about 8 million barrels per year, and city officials hope it will dwindle to zero by 2035.  Now, a proposal to spend $1.2 billion to seal up operational oil wells has been discussed by the city's environmental committee.

Ten Steps to Totalitarianism.  Does anybody still think totalitarianism can't happen here?  Ask yourself how many of these steps we've already galloped past. [... #3] Control over Energy:  Whether you believe that anthropogenic climate change is an imminent threat or not, this much is indisputable: energy undergirds all economic activity.  Everything from agricultural production and industrial manufacturing to supply transport, shipping, and consumer shopping depends upon a constant supply of energy.  If everything bought and sold across the planet were viewed as a pyramid with the most luxurious items sitting at the top, hydrocarbon energy in all its forms provides the pyramid's foundation.  As governments seize greater control over hydrocarbon energy, they seize total control over the global economy.

Natural gas [is a] 'large part' of solution to climate goals, industry leader says.  A leading supplier of natural gas in Wyoming told Fox News there are misconceptions about the fossil fuel that powers everything from cell phones to electric cars.  "The single largest misconception about natural gas is that we can't do it clean," Jonah Energy Vice President Paul Ulrich told Fox News.  "We can," he continued.  "We've proven it here in the Jonah Field.  Other operators have proven it, and we absolutely are a large part of the solution to climate goals."  Ulrich said about 40% of electric generation in the U.S. is powered by natural gas.

The Sheer Madness of Today's Left.  Here in California, Governor Gavin Newsom has gone mad.  He reigns over the most expensive gas and diesel prices in the history of the United States, at over $6 and $7 a gallon respectively in most parts of the state.  Californians suffer under the highest gas taxes in the nation and are shutting down nuclear plants.  They seek reductions in clean burning natural gas generators at a time of drought when hydroelectric production is constrained.  So what does Newsom do?  To fuel his state, and keep a shrinking middle class sustainable, does he tap California's huge gas and oil reserves?  They are the seventh largest of the 50 states and might bring down prices in a state that consumes more fossil fuels than any state but Texas.  No, that would be green heresy.  So instead Newsom has proposed spending $11 billion in subsidies to drivers — at $400 per registered vehicle — so that the state's drivers can buy more smelly, dirty gasoline and diesel fuel that they otherwise would not at the prohibitive, but secretly desirable, $6-7 a gallon price.

Hollywood Celebrities Oppose Canadian Natural Gas Pipeline as Energy Prices Soar.  Hollywood celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, and Jane Fonda are protesting a Canadian natural gas pipeline that they claim represents a threat to the climate and indigenous rights.  Their demand to defund the pipeline comes as energy prices are soaring around the world, putting a squeeze on working class families and sending a dire ripple effect throughout the global economy.  The pipeline at the center of the fight is the Coastal GasLink, which transports natural gas across the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia to the Pacific coast.

What if we stop producing fossil fuels?  When oil is produced from wells, the fluid that arrives at the surface is usually a mixture of petroleum, gas, water, and sediments.  After initial treatment to remove water and sediments, petroleum is shipped to refineries to make various products such as gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel.  The gas, which is predominantly methane, also has gas liquids such as ethylene, propylene, and butylene. [...] What does it mean if we do not have these hydrocarbon building blocks?  We return to natural fibers for clothing.  Containers will be made from paper products or glass.  As a kid, I enjoyed searching for tossed soda bottles to get the deposit money from the local supermarket.  Some states who charge an exorbitant fee for plastic bottle disposal might not appreciate the lost revenue.  Maybe we will increase aluminum production for containers.  Aluminum requires a sizeable amount of power per pound of production.  I guess we will return to waxed paper wrapping for children's sandwiches for school lunches.  Forget about all those plastic containers.  How about tires for cars?  Someone had better get those natural rubber tree plantations going again.  What about diesel-engine-driven trains?  What about airplane travel?

The Green Immoralists.  [Scroll down]  Climate-change moralists love humanity so much in the abstract that they must shut down its life-giving gas, coal, and oil in the concrete.  And they value humans so little that they don't worry in the here and now that ensuing fuel shortages and exorbitant costs cause wars, spike inflation, and threaten people's ability to travel or keep warm.  The Biden Administration stopped all gas and oil production in the ANWR region of Alaska.  It ended all new federal leases for drilling.  It is cancelling major new pipelines.  It is leveraging lending agencies not to finance oil and gas drilling.  It helped force the cancellation of the EastMed pipeline that would have brought needed natural gas to southern Europe.  And it has in just a year managed to turn the greatest oil and gas producer in the history of the world into a pathetic global fossil-fuel beggar.

Stop Letting Environmental Groups Funded By Russia Dictate America's Energy Policy.  In aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one thing has become abundantly clear to the American people:  energy security is national security.  But after decades of indoctrination by environmental groups who have pushed a climate change agenda completely detached from reality, today America is left with neither.  Since the first day of his presidency, Joe Biden has capitulated to America's most powerful, well-funded, dark money environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and Climate Action Network, whose agenda is to shut down fossil fuels and restructure our entire economy around a socialist-style Green New Deal.

Manchin Objects to New Greenhouse Gas and Environmental Impact Policies on Natural Gas Pipelines.  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) February policy statements on interstate natural gas projects drew strong objections from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and the two FERC commissioners on the five-person panel who voted against the statements.  Those statements, which add consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts, including on "environmental justice communities," for FERC to approve natural gas infrastructure, were the subject of a March 3 hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources (ENR).  While FERC had previously determined project need on the basis of contracts to ship the gas from a prospective pipeline, the first new policy statement adds factors to assess "need."  It also directs FERC to consider environmental impacts, landowner impacts, and impacts on "environmental justice communities," among other factors.

AOC calls Biden's SOTU speech a 'lost opportunity' for failing to promote renewable energy.  U.S. Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said President Joe Biden's State of the Union address 'left a little to be desired' for Democrats because he did not push issues like renewable energy, student loan debt, education or immigration.  The New York Democrat said Biden's speech on Tuesday, where he focused on COVID recovery and the conflict in the Ukraine, failed to capitalize on moving away from Russian oil by committing to green energy.  'I think it was a lost opportunity,' Ocasio-Cortez, 32, told MSNBC.  'There is profound bipartisan support to a long-term shift away from fossil fuels.'  She added that Biden had glossed over issues of 'crisis in education,' student loan debt and immigration, key issues that she said deserved the Democratic party's focus.

The world needs more energy production, not less.
Before You Save the Planet, Save the People Who Live on It.  Not only do climate enthusiasts refuse to acknowledge the issue of ongoing energy poverty for billions of people across the world, but they promote policies that exacerbate lack of access to affordable, reliable electricity.  The socio-economic conditions of energy poverty, which can only be worsened by the forced replacement of fossil fuels with wind and solar, contribute to higher rates of both morbidity and mortality.  Lack of gas for cooking and heating is the major cause of death from indoor air pollution in the world.  The World Health Organization (WHO) states, "Around 2.6 billion people cook using polluting open fires or simple stoves fueled by kerosene, biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste)."  Around 4 million people among them die annually and many more millions suffer long-lasting illnesses.  Community-level energy poverty affects larger populations.  Some regions that are home to hundreds of millions of people in Africa and Asia have no access to electricity.  Among those who do have electricity, the supply is highly unreliable.  From inadequate supplies of drinking water to intermittent power in health care centers, energy poverty poses an imminent threat to the lives of these people.

You Can Thank Environmentalists for the Invasion of Ukraine.  Thanks to the West's environmentalists, those smug greenies who are more concerned with carbon output than world peace, [Russian President Vladimir Putin] controls much of the energy going to the European Union (E.U.).  Per Statista, here are the countries most dependent on Russia for natural gas.  The percentages tell us just how dependent:
  •   North Macedonia (100 percent)
  •   Finland (94 percent)
  •   Bulgaria (74 percent)
  •   Slovakia (70 percent)
  •   Germany (49 percent)
  •   Italy (46 percent)
  •   Poland (40 percent)
  •   France (24 percent).
It gets worse.  As of 2019, a full 27 percent of the European Union's crude oil, 41 percent of its natural gas, and 47 percent of its solid fuel (mostly coal) come from Russia.  Why?  Well, it's very simple.  Russia is not stupid.  Putin is not stupid.  He drills and digs and fracks while Western countries pat themselves on the back for closing coal mines, refusing oil leases, and shuttering nuclear power plants.

Biden looks to pressure investors away from fossil fuels via climate disclosures.  The pressure is increasing on companies to follow environmental, social, and governance standards from both the private sector and the government.  The Biden administration is prioritizing proposed rulemaking that would require companies to produce climate-related disclosures, most notably through the Securities and Exchange Commission, a form of indirect pressure on fossil fuel companies.  The SEC is debating the extent to which it can compel companies to disclose details about how much energy they buy and how they handle climate risks.  Such self-reported disclosures to investors have already become commonplace in business, and adding government-mandated ESG disclosure rules is a big goal for the administration.

When the Left Hates Green Energy.  Although progressives have advocated for renewables such as solar and wind power, they often oppose any increase in nuclear power, a carbon-neutral and readily accessible energy source.  The far left also disparages natural gas usage, despite the fact that the transition from coal to natural gas has lowered greenhouse gas emissions by 13% since 2005.  One would expect, at least in the short term, environmentalists to embrace nuclear and natural gas as part of a greener energy portfolio, with a corresponding reduction in coal consumption.  Although renewables have exhibited tremendous growth over the past year, a quick look at Germany's energy policy indicates that renewables are not sufficiently mature to power the entire globe.

Lawsuit Alleges Illegal Tactics in House Democrats' Climate Probe of Oil Companies.  House Democrats are using privately funded staff to investigate oil companies for spreading "disinformation" on climate change, a possible violation of federal law and the chamber's own rules, a lawsuit alleges.  A spokesperson for Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is conducting the yearlong investigation, said the committee has followed all relevant laws and rules in consulting with others.  Co-Equal, the private nonprofit group named in the federal public information lawsuit, denies being part of a major hearing in the climate-related investigation of oil companies.  Co-Equal, founded by two of House Democrats' former staffers who led the congressional tobacco hearings in the 1990s, is sponsored by Arabella Advisors, a liberal megadonor.  The group also received $300,000 from an organization backed by another major donor on the left, billionaire financier George Soros.

"ESG" = Extreme Shortages Guaranteed!  The Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors climbing up the agenda in the banking industry would have banks divest in fossil fuels.  This would lead toward a world like that in the 1800's, the last time the world was "decarbonized".  Back in the 1800's, we had no coal or natural gas power plants, and we had not discovered crude oil as something that could be manufactured into usable products.  Life was hard and dirty, and most people never traveled 100-200 miles from where they were born, and life expectancy was short.  Today, there is a lost reality that the primary usage of crude oil is NOT for the generation of electricity, but to manufacture derivatives and fuels which are the ingredients of everything needed by economies and lifestyles to exist and prosper.  Energy realism requires that the legislators, policymakers, and media that demonstrate pervasive ignorance about crude oil usage understand the staggering scale of the decarbonization movement.

Don't They Know We Will Still Need Oil & Gas?  [In England,] Both parties have of course called for a windfall tax on North Sea oil, which would effectively kill the entire sector stone dead anyway.  Meanwhile regulators have killed off the massive new Jackdaw gas field on spurious environmental grounds, and new North Sea projects will only be approved if ministers judge them to be compatible with the drive to net zero.  Yet none of these politicians seem to appreciate that the UK will carry on needing gas and oil, and lots of it too, for decades to come. [...] A rough calculation would suggest we would require 180 TWh of gas to produce 60 TWh of electricity, via CCS or hydrogen.  That is 60% of current consumption.  It is hard to see much of a decline in gas consumption in the other sectors.  Even if new gas boilers are banned in 2035, as mooted, it is unlikely many householders will have already converted to heat pumps beforehand.  Equally industrial users of gas will be loathe to spend billions switching to electricity, and a hydrogen network simply won't exist in any scale by then.  My guess is that natural gas consumption will still be around 700 TWh by 2035, only 14% lower than currently.

The Editor says...
The article above is somewhat informative, but this is the first time I've seen anyone measure natural gas in Tera-watt-hours, assuming that's what TWh stands for.  One of us is misinformed.

Oil and gas industry rallies against environmentalist Biden Fed nominee.  Oil and gas industry groups are coming out strongly against a top Biden Federal Reserve nominee who has called for the financial sector to pull investment away from fossil fuels.  Forty-one trade associations told Senate Banking Committee leadership on Friday that policies favored by Sarah Bloom Raskin, who is up for vice chairwoman for supervision at the Fed, would "wreak havoc" on the U.S. economy if enacted.  "Oil and natural gas provide the feedstock for thousands of products used every day, from anything with a computer chip to the COVID vaccines that have saved millions of lives across the globe," the groups wrote Chairman Sherrod Brown and ranking member Pat Toomey.  The trade groups include the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the Western Energy Alliance, and the Appalachia-based Marcellus Shale Coalition.

It's an Unraveling, Not a Reset.  Modern synthetic fertilizers are typically made using natural gas or from phosphorous-bearing ores.  The former provides the nitrogen that is critical to re-use of fields in commercial agriculture.  They constitute more than half of all synthetic fertilizer production.  So what happens when oil and natural gas extraction are crippled in industrialized nations?  One likely outcome is that the fertilizer manufacturing industry is also crippled, leaving both large commercial growers and smaller farms around the world starved of a key substance they need to grow food for hungry populations.

Federal judge throws out Gulf of Mexico offshore oil lease sale.  A plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore drilling was denied by a federal judge Thursday [1/27/2022].  U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras for the District of Columbia rejected the lease sale, which was held by the Interior Department in November for 80 million acres to be used for offshore oil drilling, saying it did not do a good job of estimating the effects on greenhouse gas emissions in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, according to the ruling.

Federal judge throws out oil lease sale in Gulf of Mexico.  A federal court has rejected a plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil drilling, saying the Biden administration did not adequately take into account the lease sale's effect on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, violating a bedrock environmental law.  The decision by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington on Thursday sends the proposed lease sale back to the Interior Department to decide next steps.  The judge said it was up to Interior to decide whether to go forward with the sale after a revised review, scrap it or take other steps.

Stop posing.  Start drilling.  The current energy crisis, with domestic bills set to rise some 50 percent in April, has confronted Net Zero-loving Westminster elites with the stark reality of the choices they've made.  Twenty-five retail energy companies have gone bust, another has been nationalised, along with a fertiliser plant — so that it can produce carbon dioxide for fizzy drinks — all now featuring as extra costs on either bills or taxes.  We are shipping fracked gas from the United States while banning fracking here, and we have undermined investment in the North Sea, while allowing Putin to use Nord Stream 2 as a bargaining chip over the future sovereignty of the Ukraine.  It is literally the case that we are using public money to import gas to manufacture CO2, while claiming to lead the world on tackling climate change.  Unsurprisingly, no one is following.

The campaign to ban gas stoves is heating up.  Over the past three years, dozens of cities across the country have banned natural gas hookups in newly constructed buildings as part of a growing campaign to reduce carbon emissions from homes.  The movement scored a major victory last month, when New York City's outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a ban on gas hookups in new buildings.  Though new laws apply to the entire home, the policy debate often focuses on one room in particular: the kitchen.  Gas stoves account for a relatively small share of the emissions released by a typical household, but they've become a proxy for a larger fight over how far efforts to curb at-home natural gas consumption in the name of fighting climate change should go.  Natural gas consumption accounts for 80 percent of fossil fuel emissions from residential and commercial buildings, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Editor says...
[#1] If you mean carbon dioxide emissions, don't say, "fossil fuel emissions."  Nobody is emitting fossil fuels from their houses.  [#2] If my house is heated in the winter by natural gas, and carbon dioxide is generated as a byproduct, here's what I care about most:  My house is heated.  If you have any courtroom-quality proof that the combustion of natural gas in the U.S. is harmful to the entire world, please step forward with it.

Germany 'Dramatically Behind' its Emissions Target After Abandoning 'Dangerous' Nuclear Energy.  Germany is now 'dramatically behind' its CO2 emissions target shortly after it abandoned half of its remaining nuclear plants, calling the tech 'dangerous'.  Germany's Climate Minister, Robert Habeck has said that Germany is "dramatically behind" its emissions targets for 2030, just weeks after the country abandoned half of its remaining nuclear power plants.  Habeck now says that the country has a "gigantic task" ahead should it still wish to achieve its goal of making itself climate neutral.

The Editor says...
One of these days, Mr. Habeck will wake up and realize that he can't have it both ways.  It is not possible to achieve unrealistic "emissions targets" while doing away with nuclear energy.

The Four Horsemen of the Left's Artificial Apocalypse.  [#4] For over two hundred years, the Malthusians have been obsessed with controlling the world's population.  Eugenics, genocide, and abortion are a few of the evils they have wrought.  Replacing the family with government is an easy and effective way for government to decide who may reproduce.  Convincing people that hydrocarbon energy must be swapped for energies popular a thousand years ago is the surest way to hinder innovation, economic wealth, and generational growth.  Brainwashing people into believing that the planet is about to die is the kind of psychological terror that coerces free people into subjugating themselves by handing total power to unscrupulous government thugs.

Leftist Response to Collapse of Build Back Better Legislation Highlights Originating Motive for COVID-19.  The apoplectic response to Joe Manchin's rebuke of Biden's Build Back Better deal in general, and specifically, their reaction to losing the climate change agenda within it, points toward the original intent of COVID-19 in the first place. [...]
[#1]   The "Build Back Better" agenda was never about anything except radical climate change legislation.  Once you accept that, now admitted, baseline, things start to become much clearer.
[#2]   The "Build Back Better" phrase came from the World Economic Forum and was promoted by a multitude of international leaders and left-wing organizations.  That reality then brings up the most important point.  To get to "building back better", you first need to destroy something.  That thing they needed to destroy was how the global economic dependency on carbon-based fuel supplies (oil, gas, coal, etc.).
[#3]   In order to destroy the 'something of that scale', the energy program for the entire world, something massive is needed to fundamentally change the entire world approach toward energy production.  Something is needed to create the crisis that provides the origin for the process to initiate.
[#4]   That triggering mechanism was/is SARS-CoV-2, or what we now call COVID-19 and all variants therein.

Environmentalists oppose every beneficial USE of energy, too.
European Environmentalists Have New Plan For Cargo Ships Based on Paris Climate Agreement Compliance.  To meet the compliance standards of the Paris Climate Accords and the subsequent treaty that all EU nations agreed to, they must reduce carbon emissions in freight and transit systems.  They have spent thousands of hours pouring over possible solutions and will begin the test phase next month. [...] Yes my friends, the extremely well educated scientists, physicists, climatologists, sustainability engineers and cross functional decarbonization problem solvers for the planetary saving climate justice agenda, have invented ... Sailboats!

The Editor says...
That's just brilliant.  If these are the people you're counting on to "save the earth," you're in for a big disappointment.  Anyone who has any experience flying a large kite knows a few things about wind:  [#1] the wind doesn't always blow, [#2] the wind doesn't always blow in the most favorable direction, and [#3] sometimes the wind blows with enough force to rip your kite to shreds, snap the line, or hurt somebody.  If you are foolish enough to use a giant kite to tow a ship across the Atlantic Ocean, at some point in your journey, you will probably have to reel in the kite after it drops into the sea, limp and useless.  Then you and your cargo can either sit there, stranded, or you can light up your good old reliable 50,000-horsepower diesel engines and get back underway.

European environmentalists' insanely stupid plan to decrease shipping pollution.  Environmentalism, as much as anything, represents semi-educated man's yearning to return to a less complicated past, one in which man was dependent upon nature's vagaries, rather than master of them.  Maybe that explains why European environmentalists have decided that the way to reduce carbon emissions from shipping is to use "giant kites" — or, as humans called them for thousands of years, "sails."  This is not a joke.  It's absolutely real and highlights just how ludicrous the modern left has become. [...] We live in an incredibly stupid era.  We are blessed to be removed from the travails of the pre-modern era but those who control our institutions are dragging us back to a time of tremendous human pain and suffering.

The Editor says...
Sometime when you're not busy, use your favorite non-Google search engine to hunt for the "average horsepower of a cargo ship," [1] [2] [3] [4] and you will immediately see the futility of this giant-kite idea.

New York City is banning natural gas hookups for new buildings to fight climate change.  The New York City Council on Wednesday voted to pass legislation banning the use of natural gas in most new construction, a move that will substantially slash climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions from the country's most populous city.  The bill now goes to Mayor Bill de Blasio's desk for signature.  Once signed, the measure will go into effect at the end of 2023 for some buildings under seven stories, and in 2027 for taller buildings.  Hospitals, commercial kitchens and laundromats are exempt from the ban.  Under the law, construction projects submitted for approval after 2027 must use sources like electricity for stoves, space heaters and water boilers instead of gas or oil.  Residents who currently have gas stoves and heaters in their homes will not be impacted unless they relocate to a new building.

Biden's oil and gas leasing "reform" proposal pleases absolutely no one.  When Debra Haaland snuck through confirmation (with 51 votes) to become the Secretary of the Interior, everyone who had been paying attention knew that she was going to be gunning for the oil and gas industry.  That made her a valuable ally for Joe Biden, who began working to shut down pipeline construction and "pause" energy exploration on public lands within hours of being sworn in.  (Unless the pipeline is owned by Russia, of course, in which case he basically finances it.)  Now, with gas prices spiking dramatically and in the midst of what is quickly becoming the Biden energy crisis, Haaland's Interior Department has released a "review" of the country's oil and gas leasing process, in which she finds "significant shortcomings."  The timing of this was no accident, as Joe Biden had been under pressure from progressive ecowarriors to find ways to stop drilling on public lands.

The giant climate energy ruse.  How can you tell when all your freedoms are under assault?  When Biden goes after your energy — all of it.  And what easier way to mask an energy grab than to tuck it under the solemn shroud of climate?  "Climate change," a vacuous term mindlessly embraced by equally mindless leaders, is an easy sell.  Openly throttling the energy essential to the mindful masses is a heavier lift.  So, under the veil of public virtue, petroleum is spirited off the power menu, swapped out for green notions barely amounting to a diet salad.  Energy is so deeply imbedded into society that it is largely taken for granted — that is, until we're all mugged by rising fuel costs as well as inflated prices for everything manufactured or delivered by energy — which amounts to everything. [...] On a human scale, and within our lifetimes, the global spread of energy has levitated a billion people worldwide out of poverty.  They won't be happy with a round trip.

Key Biden Nominee On Oil Companies: 'We Want Them To Go Bankrupt If We Want To Tackle Climate Change'.  Saule Omarova, Democrat President Joe Biden's Marxist-friendly nominee to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said earlier this year that she wants oil and gas companies to go bankrupt, which comes as Americans face surging gas prices.  "Here what I'm thinking about is primarily coal industry and oil and gas industry.  A lot of the smaller players in that industry are going to probably go bankrupt in short order, at least we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change," Omarova says in the clip, unearthed by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF).  Omarova, who made the remarks back in March at the Jain Family Institute's 2021 Social Wealth Seminar (SWS) series, later said that the economic fallout and number of job losses that would ensue would be too much for the U.S., saying, "we cannot afford" it.

Controversial Biden bank nominee said 'we want' oil and gas companies to go bankrupt.  President Joe Biden's pick for a top banking regulatory position said "we want" oil and gas companies to go bankrupt, although she acknowledged the country couldn't afford the loss of jobs.  Saule Omarova, a law professor at Cornell University who graduated college in the USSR, has faced pushback over her nomination to be comptroller of the currency from business groups and Republicans, who have said that she is extreme and opposed to the industry as a whole.  A video of her discussing the idea of a National Investment Authority — a new government bureaucracy that would act directly in financial markets to allocate "both public and private capital" to fight social ills — has resurfaced in which she muses about oil and coal companies failing in order to fight climate change.  "A lot of the smaller players in that industry are going to, probably, go bankrupt in short order — at least, we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change," Omarova said as part of the Jain Family Institute's "Social Wealth Seminar" series in March.
[Video clip here].

Biden's 'Marxist' Treasury Nominee Saule Omarova Wants To Bankrupt, 'Starve' Fossil Fuel Industry To Tackle Climate Change.  President Joe Biden's nominee for a key Treasury Department role admitted that oil, natural gas and coal firms need to go bankrupt to prevent climate change, a resurfaced video showed.  "Here what I'm thinking about is primarily the coal and oil and gas industry.  A lot of the smaller players in that industry are going to probably go bankrupt in short order, at least we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change," Saule Omarova — who the Senate is considering to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — remarked in a clip uncovered Tuesday by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative research group.  The comments were originally made during a March talk Omarova gave as part of the Jain Family Institute's "Social Wealth Seminar" series.

Al Gore: 'Time to say goodbye to coal, oil and gas worldwide'.  Former Vice President Al Gore called on the world to "say goodbye to coal, oil and gas" to fight climate change in a video released Friday ahead of the upcoming UN COP 26 global warming conference.  Oil, gas and coal are the source of 79% of U.S. energy consumption, according to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  Nuclear energy provides 9% of U.S. energy, while renewable energy accounts for 12%.  Gore called on public and private sector leaders to "get real" about immediately reducing greenhouse gas emissions and about moving away from fossil fuels to "clean" energy.

Supreme Court to hear challenge to EPA climate change rules for power plants.  The Supreme Court agreed Friday [10/29/2021] to hear a challenge to federal regulations over power plant carbon emissions, potentially resolving a years-long legal battle that has tied up two previous presidential administrations.  The appeal has its genesis in an Obama administration effort in 2015 to significantly reduce power sector emissions to address climate change.  The Supreme Court blocked those regulations from taking effect and President Donald Trump's administration repealed the rules in 2017, easing the requirements on the plants.  "Nobody contests that these issues have enormous importance," the North American Coal Corporation told the court in a brief earlier this year.  "What must be resolved as soon as possible is who has the authority to decide those issues on an industry-wide scale — Congress or the EPA."

When ideology drives legislation, common sense often ignored when it comes to fossil fuel.  There can be few better examples of ideologically convinced politicians running head-on into reality than a new California law known in the Legislature as AB 1346.  This bill, signed into law in September by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is the personification of today's faddish hostility to everything fossil fuel by the Democrats who dominate California government.  These ideologues want to ban natural gas appliances from new construction.  They want new cars to be all-electric before 2040, even if few have the range to travel from one end of California to another without long stops for recharging.  And they are getting their way.

How Many People Must Be Thrown into the Volcano Before the Left Is Happy?  The whole "global warming" schtick is predicated on the idea that fractional temperature deviations (what climatologists and geologists understood as a natural condition of the planet before their expertise could be used for political and financial gain) are a threat to human life.  Yet temperature fluctuations are poppycock compared to the loss of human life that will be precipitated by choking off the fuels necessary to generate electrical power.  Where electricity is neither stable nor cheap, surviving the winter with scant heat is never guaranteed.  Where refrigeration, water pumps, and lighting are scarce, so too are medicines, food, and personal security.  Killing electricity means killing people, plain and simple.

Anti-carbon Dems won't be happy until Americans suffer like Europeans.  Anti-carbon Democrats don't learn:  They continue to push to close pipelines and power plants while ignoring the dire consequences, now on display across Europe.  On Thursday [10/14/2021], more than 40 New York officials, including likely next mayor Eric Adams, demanded Gov. Kathy Hochul nix permits for a natural-gas plant to replace two in Brooklyn.  The facility would "undermine" New York's "aggressive renewable energy goals," their letter says.  "Aggressive"?  What an understatement:  A 2019 law calls for 70 percent of renewable power by 2030, a goal that could cripple the state.  And it came amid a years-long crusade by ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to oppose gas pipelines, even as he forced the Indian Point nuclear plant to close.  Meanwhile, Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is aiming to shut down a key US-Canadian pipeline, in violation of an international treaty.  That would cut off delivery of more than a half-million barrels of oil and natural gas liquids every day.  Canada has officially invoked the treaty's dispute-resolution clause to block Whitmer.

Los Angeles County votes to phase out oil and gas drilling.  Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday [9/15/2021] to phase out oil and gas drilling and ban new drill sites in the unincorporated areas of the nation's most populous county.  Over 1,600 active and idle oil and gas wells in the county could be shuttered after the 5-0 vote by the board of supervisors.  A timetable for the phaseout will be decided after the county determines the fastest way to legally shut down the wells.  Among the sites is the Inglewood Oil Field, one of the largest U.S. urban oil fields.  The sprawling, 1,000-acre (405-hectare) site, owned and operated by Sentinel Peak Resources, contains over half the oil and gas wells in the county's unincorporated areas.  The field produced 2.5 million to 3.1 million barrels of oil a year over the past decade, according to the company.

Newspeak Doesn't Change the Fact Natural Gas Is Still Natural.  Academia, gentry class funders and special interests seek unrestrained power to rule the rest of us as if we were but serfs.  Their flagrant use of newspeak, an inartful form of propaganda via the manipulation of words and phrases, must be called out along with the slow but steady squelching of more and more free speech through intimidation, political correctness and subtle exercise of cancel culture sophistry.  Resistance of this on every front is demanded and Mark Mathis delivers.  [Video clip]

Reality Bites Biden's Policies.  The Democrats' idiotic anti-fossil fuel campaign took a hit this week when Biden begged the Saudis to up production after shutting down as much of domestic production as he could.  (Apparently, he believes that oil from the Middle East doesn't affect the climate as much as fossil fuel from Canada and the U.S. Or, if it does affect the climate by warming it, that's now a good thing.) Dane Bjorn Lomborg who, unlike AOC and Greta, knows what he's talking about, explains that more people (166,000 of them) each year die from cold than die from heat.  In like manner to Biden's begging OPEC for more oil, California's loony decarbonization program hit a snag as it is forced to rely on carbon fuels to prevent widespread blackouts.

Now is the Time to Get Serious About Nuclear Energy.  While no other "carbon free" method of producing electricity comes even close to nuclear energy, climate change alarmists refuse to even consider the option.  If you do an objective benefit-cost analysis of nuclear energy compared to the so-called "green energies" of solar and wind you learn that green energies have serious time and space limitations.  For example, you learn that with solar and wind there is a disconnect between when they're produced and when they're consumed.  Nighttime and cloudy days happen, and the wind does not always blow, but the need for electricity goes on.  The only solution to those limitations is reliance on batteries.  Batteries, of course, have their own problems.  It takes at least an hour and usually eight hours to charge an electric vehicle's batteries.  It takes only five minutes to fill your gas tank.

Nunes seeks to stop California from shuttering last nuclear plant amidst energy crisis.  California's push for clean energy has already created hardship for consumers, from a 40% decade-long climb in electricity costs to rolling blackouts that loom as a threat every heat wave.  Now the state is poised to exacerbate that crisis with plans to retire its last remaining, zero-carbon emissions nuclear plant in 2025.  The planned closure of Diablo Canyon, approved by the state in 2018, will take offline another 2200 megawatts of electricity production — nearly 10% of the state's needs — with no ready replacement.  As many as 3 million consumers could be impacted.  Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), one of the senior members of the state's congressional delegation, told Just the News he is moving to stop the closure.

Jane Fonda Encourages Anti-Pipeline Activists in Minnesota to Mess with Critical US Infrastructure.  The 83-year-old Communist and traitor encouraged activists to "raise a ruckus" and create a headache for the Canadian oil company, Enbridge.  "Biden has taken a very clear and very beautiful position on the climate crisis," Hanoi Jane said.  "But we are really facing a potential catastrophe and the science is very clear — it's not enough to do something good here like shutdown Keystone XL, shut down drilling on the Arctic national refuge and then allow Line 3 to go through." "We can't do this in bits and pieces," she added.

Ban on Fossil Fuel Funding Threatens Africa's Future.  Green propaganda, based on unfounded fears of climate doomsday, is beginning to threaten Africa's ambition for developing a reliable and affordable energy sector.  Christians concerned about the world's poor should take notice.  Almost all African countries signed the Paris climate agreement.  Now, in addition to the setbacks incurred due to climate pledges at Paris, the continent is facing a fresh wave of anti-fossil fuel policies and demands from international institutions.  For the people of Africa, this could be lethal.  Abundant, affordable, reliable energy is indispensable to whole societies' rising and staying out of poverty, and fossil fuels are the most affordable, feasible source for that energy.

Democrat Projectionists.  I'm not the first person to note that whatever Democrats accuse their opponents of doing, it is they, in fact, who are doing it.  If you are puzzled why the Biden Administration scotched the Keystone Pipeline but gave a thumbs up on the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, perhaps this explanation will help.  Under the banner of "green energy" to control emissions.  Germany began shutting down the cleanest emitting power stations:  nuclear.  In 2000, nuclear had a 29.5 percent share of its power generation mix.  In 2020 that share dropped to 11.4 percent and next year every one of its nuclear plants is scheduled to be shut down.  Where will the lost energy generation come from?  Russia.  Do you think that this will place Germany increasingly at the mercy of Russia?  I do, and it's not just Germany.

Oil companies told to stop drilling now to save the planet.  In order to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the influential group said in a report Tuesday that investment in new fossil fuel supply projects must stop immediately, and no new coal-fired plants should be approved.  The dramatic recommendations are part of a detailed strategy that the IEA says would result in the world achieving the Paris climate agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.  Why 1.5 degrees?  Experts have repeatedly warned that exceeding the threshold will contribute to more extreme weather, greater sea level rise, wildfires, floods and food shortages for millions of people.

The Editor says...
"Experts have repeatedly warned" about all kinds of things that never came to pass.  Who are these anonymous experts?  How is CNN so sure they're right?  The proposed solutions would wreck the world-wide economy, and even if the experts are right, you'd never be able to tell if the earth warmed up one or two degrees overnight.  The "experts" are talking about one or two degrees of global warming per century.  That's not an emergency.  That's not a climate crisis.

New IEA Net Zero Roadmap Undermines America's Energy Security.  A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) urges investors not to fund new oil, gas or coal projects for the world to reach net-zero emissions by midcentury.  It is the starkest warning yet from the world's leading energy watchdog to curb fossil fuel use.  It is also the most irresponsible.  The Paris-based agency was founded by leading developed countries in response to the energy crises of the 1970s, but its latest report sows the seeds for the next oil shock.

Heirs of oil baron John Rockefeller pledge $30 million of their personal wealth to help protesters BLOCK new oil and gas developments.  Two great-great-grandchildren of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller Sr. are pouring millions of dollars into an effort aimed at supporting people on the front lines fighting new oil and gas development.  Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert and Peter Gill Case have created the 'Equation Campaign' and pledged a combined $30 million of their personal wealth to the effort.  Among the causes they are supporting are protests against the Keystone pipeline, in the Dakotas, and activists fighting the replacement and expansion of the aging 'Line 3' oil pipeline in northern Minnesota.

Biden's First Hundred Days:  A Failing Report Card.  [Scroll down]  Then there's the XL pipeline's cancellation, a completely irrational act.  Canceling it cost thousands of people jobs.  And what does it accomplish?  The oil from Canada will still come in, but now it will come in by the less safe and more polluting truck and rail.  Jobs lost, and nothing gained.  Indeed, the Biden climate policy, in general, is irrational.  Biden would have the country endure enormous costs for almost no gain in reducing the world's total output of greenhouse gases, particularly since China and India are the major contributors to that output.  Moreover, if Biden were serious about this, he would opt for clean nuclear power and natural gas rather than the unreliable eyesores of wind farms and solar panels.

13 largest U.S. electricity firms push 80% cut in carbon emissions ahead of Biden's climate summit.  Thirteen of the nation's leading electricity companies are pledging to work with President Biden to slash carbon emissions ahead of Thursday's international White House summit on climate change.  On Friday [4/16/2021], the companies sent a letter to Mr. Biden urging the administration to design a wide-reaching energy agenda to curb carbon emission more than 80% below 2005 levels by 2030.  "A federal policy framework can be designed to support the power sector's deployment of strategies that are technically feasible, ensure reliability, and maintain affordability for customers," the companies wrote.

Banks Face Growing Pressure to Phase Out Fossil-Fuel Lending.  Investors managing $11 trillion have called on the world's biggest banks to phase out financing of fossil-fuel companies and throw their weight behind the goals of the Paris climate agreement.  Asset managers, including Federated Hermes Inc.'s EOS division and Pacific Investment Management Co., have asked 27 banks to commit to eliminating emissions across their operations by 2050, including those generated from lending, trading and underwriting, and set interim reduction targets.  The group of 35 investors, which was convened by the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, also said the banks should expand their green finance activities and withdraw from any projects that are at odds with the Paris accord.

Biden 'Environmental Justice' Appointees Equate Energy Production, Fossil Fuels With Racism.  In February, Beverly Wright linked the legacy of slavery and the Jim Crow era with energy development.  In March, President Joe Biden appointed Wright to his White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.  Wright, the founder of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, is joined on the council by Jade Begay of the Indigenous Environmental Network, who co-wrote a 2018 op-ed in EcoWatch contending that climate change is "colonialism" and "cultural genocide."  Biden has named several activists that tie energy development to racial bigotry to the Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

Climate activists want to get rid of gas stoves, whether you like it or not.  Today [2/23/2021] the Washington Post published a story about the battle over the use of natural gas in homes and kitchens.  This is ultimately a battle between consumers, many of whom like their gas stoves, and activists who want to see gas removed from home heating and cooking in favor of electric appliances.  Naturally, this is a fight that began in Berkeley, California.

Biden's next big pipeline decision could deepen clash of greens and unions.  President Biden's pending decision whether to shut down the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline could deepen early tensions between environmentalists and unions that endorsed him.  Biden's day-one order to revoke a permit for the better-known Keystone XL oil pipeline between Canada and the United States drew backlash from organized labor and some centrist Democrats who say the cancellation will kill thousands of construction jobs.  Now, liberal lawmakers, celebrities, and indigenous leaders have asked the president to shutter Dakota Access, which critics warn would trigger more backlash since the pipeline is already operational, unlike Keystone.  The Dakota Access pipeline has been carrying oil for more than three years from North Dakota to Illinois.

New York City to ban natural gas hookups in new buildings by 2030: mayor.  New York City this week said it will join a growing list of U.S. cities banning natural gas hookups in new buildings.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday as part of his State of the City address that New York will "ban new fossil fuel connections in new construction by at least 2030."

The Editor asks...
What will be gained from this?

Buyer's Remorse?  Let's Blame the Press.  In his first week in office President Asterisk has done his old boss proud.  In just six days, lunch bucket Joe has signed 36 executive orders and put tens of thousands of jobs at risk.  He's cancelled major construction projects like the Keystone XL pipeline and the border wall — resulting in lost jobs for the very unions who endorsed him.  He is reestablishing a moratorium on energy exploration on federal lands and rejoined the Paris Agreement on climate change.  These orders will cause further job losses in the energy sector and lost revenue in states that supported him. [...] On the campaign trail he promised to end fracking, cancel drilling leases, open the borders, forgive student debt, provide Medicare for all, and rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement.  That this was unknown to his voters is a shocking indictment of the legacy media.

Oil And Gas Producers Pushing Back Hard On Biden Administration.  When Joe Biden signed an order banning any new leases and effectively halting drilling on federal lands for sixty days last week, people in the oil and gas industry were alarmed but not surprised.  Biden had made conflicting promises and claims throughout the primary and the general elections about his plans to satisfy the green lobby and the eco-warriors by "reducing carbon" and tackling Big Oil.  Once he was safely in office, he started delivering on those promises literally on day one.  But that doesn't mean that this is going to be a smooth ride for the "leave it in the ground" crowd that Biden is courting.  There are many companies currently holding contracts that employ tens of thousands of energy industry workers who are now at risk and are exploring their legal options.

Natural Gas Bans Meeting Resistance from Reality.  Some 40 communities in California have implemented bans or restrictions on the use of natural gas, which have ignited a backlash from some of California's prominent Black and Latino leaders, who indicate that the prohibitions on the fuel are a form of regressive tax on low- and middle-income residents.  This battle over the future of residential and commercial use of natural gas in California is an example of regressive taxation.

The Biden-Harris Fracking Plan, Explained.  Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris twice claimed Wednesday [10/7/2020] that Joe Biden would not ban fracking if he took office, but both Harris and Biden repeatedly said they would support a ban or phase it out during the Democratic primary.  Harris said there was "no question" she favored banning fracking during her failed presidential run.  Biden now says he is only for preventing new fracking leases on federal lands, but he said at a primary debate there would be no room for it in his administration, said at another debate there would be "no new fracking," told a climate activist he would "love to" get rid of it though it would take time, and also said he would "phase out" the practice and get rid of fossil fuels.

The Grifters of the Left.  [Joe] Biden at least got elected by the people of Delaware.  So many of the movers and shakers on the left aren't elected by anybody.  With a lot of them you aren't even allowed to know who they're working for.  Take the environmental movement, as a perfect example.  The enviros make nothing that anybody wants or needs.  In fact, they spend all their time attempting to stop other people from making things people want and need.  There's an entire fake industry that has sprung up out of a governmental impulse, fed by lobbyists and PR consultants and other spin doctors, to take money from taxpayers, rate payers, and other users of energy and feed it into zombie businesses that aren't otherwise competitive in the marketplace.  This industry depends on demonizing fossil fuels and the companies who extract them.  Because if the public were to fully appreciate the good the oil and gas industry has done for America's and the world's economy, it would be very rare that anyone would consent to paying extra for an electric car or wind or solar power.

Joe and Kamala, the Demagogic Duo.  According to media accounts, a "power outage" delayed the debut of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Wednesday [8/12/2020] — a foreshadowing of what we can expect from an anti-energy Biden-Harris administration.  Both are committed to an extreme environmentalism that will cripple America's oil and gas industry.  Harris is opposed to all fracking.

Will the Left Kill America's Energy Dominance?  If the "liberal" green movement had the political power during earlier periods of our nation's history that it has now, we would not have built the railroads.  Also, there would be no interstate highway system, and the electric grid system that powers our country would be disconnected and shattered.  What else can one conclude when a significant and vital energy pipeline, the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline from West Virginia into the southern states, has been canceled because of environmental activist opposition?  Another pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, has been suspended by a federal judge's order in recent days.  Even the urgently needed Keystone XL Pipeline, which will transport natural gas and oil from energy-rich areas in Canada and the Dakotas down to Houston for export and delivery across the country, faces a court-ordered injunction.  These actions are all said to be in the name of wetlands preservation, Endangered Species Act issues and other environmental protections.

Grim Day for Pipelines Shows They're Almost Impossible to Build.  To be an energy superpower, U.S. oil and natural gas requires a suitably gargantuan pipeline network that stretches for millions of miles.  The country's ability to expand that infrastructure is being tested like never before.  In the span of less than 24 hours, a court ordered the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline to shut down and the developers of the Atlantic Coast gas conduit said they were canceling the project.  It was a deluge of bad news for an industry that's increasingly finding that the mega-projects of the past are no longer feasible in the face of unprecedented opposition to fossil fuels and the infrastructure that supports them.  Armed with experienced lawyers and record funding, environmental groups are finding enormous success blocking key pipeline permits in court.

Climate Alarmists Want 'Surgeon General' Warning on Gas Pumps.  From the very onset of the global warming cultural movement, there was some fairly high-level pageantry at work. [...] And despite decades of exponentially escalating propaganda, the climate change crew is still finding new ways to scare the world into their pocket.

Biden Goes Extreme:  Give Oil Industry 'No Ability' To 'Continue To Drill', Take 'Millions' Of Cars Off The Road.  Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden made extreme remarks during CNN's presidential debate on Sunday night [3/15/2020], suggesting that he would end the oil industry's ability to drill, would ban new fracking projects, and would take millions of cars off the road.  "No more subsidies for fossil fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling including offshore, no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill," Biden said.  "Period.  Ends."

Feds reject removal of 4 Lower Snake River dams in key report.  Years and millions of dollars in the making, a draft federal report on hydroelectric dam operations in the Columbia Basin will not settle the decadeslong fight over saving imperiled salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers.  Federal agencies found that taking out the dams would "provide a long-term benefit to species that spawn or rear in the mainstem Snake River habitats," but also would have adverse impacts, including increased power costs, a rise in greenhouse gases and reduced reliability of the electric grid.

Oregon governor calls for breaching 4 Snake River dams; Washington's GOP House members outraged.  The governor of Oregon has come out in favor of removing four hydroelectric dams on the Snake River in Washington state, saying that is the best way to increase endangered salmon runs.  Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, sent a letter to Washington's Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee this week, offering her support for removing the dams.  Washington, under an initiative spearheaded by Inslee, has been gathering information on what Northwest residents think about breaching the four dams.  That report is expected in early March.

The Editor says...
Hydroelectric power is a rare natural resource.  Hydroelectric generators emit no carbon dioxide.  When the left-wing, tree-hugging, earth-worshiping socialists do away with coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, hydroelectricity will be one of the few remaining options for those of us who enjoy reliable 24/7 electricity.  There is no reason to live in a third-world blackout for the sake of a fish.

Renewable Energy Fairy Tales.  Electricity in the U.S. is generated by using coal, natural gas, nuclear energy and hydroelectricity.  About 7% comes from wind and solar.  Coal is well suited for generating electricity.  We have vast resources and modern plants are nearly pollution free.  But coal is being driven out of business by the Sierra Club that has a long running hysterical campaign against coal.  Although they blame coal for every medical malady imaginable, the real reason the Sierra Club hates coal is that it emits carbon dioxide when burned and they believe that a great global warming disaster from CO2 is looming.  Natural gas is gradually displacing coal because fracking has made it cheap and the plants are cheap to build.  Natural gas can be burned very efficiently and cleanly in combined cycle plants based on gas turbines.  But the Sierra Club does not like natural gas either, even though the natural gas industry gave them millions in the hope of hurting its competitor, coal.  Nuclear electricity does not emit CO2 or noxious substances.  The fuel is extremely cheap, costing much less than already cheap natural gas.  But, in the U.S. the nuclear industry has been driven to the wall by attacks from the environmental movement.  Essentially, they have destroyed the industry with legal and political attacks, making it impossible to build new plants.

Climate Serfdom Is No Future, It's the Road to Destruction.  The political world is saying "no" to policies that make energy less available, more expensive, less reliable, and more intrusive.  Hyperbole of peak demand is going the way of Peak Oil as the hydrocarbon production boom creates its own demand.  Little wonder that compared to 1988 when global warming became a political issue, U.S. fossil-fuel consumption has grown 13 percent despite generous government subsidies to ethanol, wind power, and solar power.  In fact, growth in carbon-based energies in the last 30 years almost matches the total production of these three subsidized renewables, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Florida to buy 20,000 acres in Everglades, largest purchase in 10 years.  A swath of land in the Everglades at the center of a fight between a family determined to drill for oil and a constellation of parties urging them not to might finally have a new future.  The state intends to buy the 20,000 acre tract outright and halt the threat of oil drilling on the protected lands near Broward County's western suburbs, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday.

Energy Paradoxes Put Europe in a Precarious Position.  Despite its cool Green parties and ambitious wind and solar agendas, Europe remains by far the world's largest importer of oil and natural gas.  Oil output in the North Sea and off the coast of Norway is declining, and the European Union is quietly looking for fossil fuel energy anywhere it can find it.  Europe itself is naturally rich in fossil fuels.  It likely has more reserves of shale gas than the United States, currently the world's largest producer of both oil and natural gas.  Yet in most European countries, horizontal drilling and fracking to extract gas and oil are either illegal or face so many court challenges and popular protests that they are neither culturally nor economically feasible.  The result is that Europe is almost entirely dependent on Russian, Middle Eastern and African sources of energy.

Triggering A Recession Tops The Dems' Presidential Agendas.  The 2020 Democratic presidential field is in near unanimous agreement that fracking has to be banned or at least regulated to death over time.  It plays well to the party's base, especially its green fringe.  It's also an endorsement of recession.  Joe Biden, currently atop the Democratic primary polls, recently said he would "love to" ban fracking "right now," and would also "love to make sure we can't use any oil or gas, period," reports Common Dreams, a website that caters to leftist and socialist devotees.  But the decelerated Delawarean's plan is to "transition away from" fracking rather than killing it all at once.  So put him in the "slow death" category among Democrat candidates.  Meanwhile, in the summary execution category we find Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and former Indianapolis Mayor Pete Buttigieg.  Warren even said that on the day she is inaugurated, "I will ban fracking — everywhere."

Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming.  A surge of oil production is coming, whether the world needs it or not.  The flood of crude will arrive even as concerns about climate change are growing and worldwide oil demand is slowing.  And it is not coming from the usual producers, but from Brazil, Canada, Norway and Guyana — countries that are either not known for oil or whose production has been lackluster in recent years.

The Editor says...
The article above, apparently from the New York Times and quoted by MSN, reeks with bias.  Oil is not produced and has never been produced "whether the world needs it or not."  Oil production is always a response to steady demand.  The combustion of hydrocarbons (resulting in carbon dioxide as a byproduct) does not cause climate change.  The climate is not changing.  Most of the global warming in the 20th century occurred before 1940, when internal combustion engines were still relatively rare.  An abundant supply of cheap oil is a good thing.  The writers at the New York Times apparently hate America, and can't stand to see capitalism succeed.

Long Island liberals wake up to how green extremism hurts constituents.  "A gas shortage threatens the Long Island region," bleat six Long Island state senators, all Democrats, in a letter pleading for approval of a pipeline proposed to fix the problem — belatedly admitting that the policies they've long favored don't work for their own constituents.  This year, Sens. Todd Kaminsky, John Brooks, James Gaughran, Anna Kaplan, Monica Martinez and Kevin Thomas all voted for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Green New Deal law, whose very purpose is to further crimp energy supplies, and for a $100 million hike in taxes on energy.  And, as Senate GOP leader John Flanagan (their fellow Long Islander) notes, all were AWOL when the Williams pipeline was up for consideration by the state Department of Environmental Conservation — which recently issued a pseudo-scientific veto of the project.  Or maybe anti-scientific is the right word:  The DEC pretends the Williams pipeline is a threat to water quality.  But it would run under New York Harbor roughly parallel to an existing pipeline (now at capacity).

Green Dream to End Fossil Fuels Also Means Going without Plastics.  The current crop of Democratic Party presidential wannabees have drunk the Green New Deal (GND) Kool-Aid.  Stop fracking!  Stop oil and gas production on federal lands!  Ban offshore oil and gas production!  Most of these "rocket scientists" come from states that import their refined products for transportation fuels and heating oil.  They do not want any of those stinking oil refineries in their backyards but please continue to import the gasoline and diesel from refineries in the Virgin Islands or from Venezuelan-owned refineries.  So where do we get plastics if oil and gas production ceases?

Democrats' Campaign Promise:  We'll Destroy America's Energy Sector, And Economy.  Eight of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates say they want to ban fracking.  Eleven others would limit the process or "regulate it better," says the Washington Post.  Could these politicians possibly be that ignorant of how ruinous their prohibition lust would be in the real world?  First, let's get it straight why the political left hates hydraulic fracturing.  It's not because it's an environmental threat.  They know it's clean process and has been both an ecological and economic boom, in no small part due to the increased production of natural gas, a cleaner alternative to coal for producing electricity.  No, the left loathes fracking because it is so efficient in taking fossil fuel out of the ground.

67 protesters arrested for demonstration at coal power plant.  Scores of climate change protesters were arrested outside a coal power plant in New Hampshire on Saturday [9/28/2019] as they staged a demonstration calling for the facility to be shut down.  About 120 people gathered outside Merrimack Station in Bow, New Hampshire, on Saturday afternoon, with 67 people being arrested, according to the Bow Police Department.

One thing to change:  Anecdotes aren't data.  People are terrified of nuclear power (the most scalable form of carbon-free energy) because of images of Three Mile Island (which killed no one), Fukushima (which killed no one; the deaths were caused by the tsunami and a panicked, unnecessary evacuation), and Chernobyl (which killed fewer people than are killed by coal every day).  They imagine that fossil fuels can be replaced by solar energy, without doing the math on how many square miles would have to be tiled with solar panels to satisfy the world's vastly growing thirst for electricity.  And they think that voluntary sacrifices, like unplugging laptop chargers, are a sensible way to deal with climate change.  How do we change this destructive statistical illiteracy and disdain for data?

Kimberley Strassel: 2020 Dems [are] vowing to 'kill every coal job, every oil and gas job' with climate goals.  Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel warned on Saturday that 2020 Democratic candidates' climate proposals could cause the loss of millions of jobs.  "When you talk about banning fracking.  When you talk about a carbon-free economy by 2030 or 2050, you are saying 'we are going to kill every coal job in the country, every oil and gas job, all of the shipping jobs that they do — we're talking about millions of positions," Strassel said during the "The Journal Editorial Report."

Seattle Might Ban New Homes and Buildings From Using Natural Gas.  The Seattle Times reports that Seattle's city council is considering legislation which would ban all new homes and buildings within city limits from using natural gas, and mandating that these edifices must use electric heating and cooking.  Councilmember Mike O'Brien will likely introduce the legislation next week.  If passed, it is expected that the regulations will go in effect next summer.  "We know that some people rely on natural gas at home and on the natural-gas industry for jobs, so we want to be thoughtful about how we transition," O'Brien said.  "But in the meantime, let's not continue to make the problem worse."

The Editor says...
This politician says he doesn't want to "make the problem worse."  What problem?  He didn't say, because there is no problem to solve.  Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, if that's what he means.  Mandating electric power instead of natural gas simply means that the gas will be burned at a central power plant instead of individual residences.  Left-wing politicians are really good at offering solutions for which there is no problem.

Joe Biden in New Hampshire:  "I guarantee you we're going to end fossil fuel"; Idiot Leftists Clap Like Monkeys.  It's a cult.  Democrat Joe Biden stumped in New Hampshire:  "I guarantee you we're going to end fossil fuel."  The liberal audience clapped like monkeys.  As Zach Parkinson reported 80 percent of the households in the Granite State are heated by oil, gas, and propane.  The others are burning something else.

Sierra Clubbed.  Why do donors give money to the Sierra Club?  Are they trying to strangle the American economy?  The liberal green group is celebrating its "victory" of putting America's major coal producers out of business — to say nothing of the tens of thousands of miners placed in unemployment lines.  Several thousand more mining jobs were lost last month.  Now the Sierra Club wants to similarly bury the oil and gas industry.  Here is how the Sierra Club spokeswoman, Lena Moffit, explains the strategy:  "We have moved to a very clear and firm and vehement position of opposing gas.  We oppose any new gas-fired power plants.  We also have a policy opposing fracking."

Elizabeth Warren's Energy Plan Is Unplugged From Reality.  Not only does she want to eliminate oil, natural gas, and coal as energy sources, she also wants to get rid of nuclear energy — which, in case you're wondering, emits no CO2.  Warren says, "In my administration, we're not going to build any new nuclear power plants, and we are going to start weaning ourselves off nuclear energy and replacing it with renewable fuels.  We're going to get it all done by 2035, but I hope we're getting it done faster than that.  That's the plan."  To understand how completely detached this idea is from reality, let's look at the data on energy production today, which are helpfully compiled by the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Democrats [are] struggling to face fact that their plans would all but end fossil fuels.  Most Democratic presidential candidates running for president have rallied around a shared goal:  Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050.  However, few candidates appear to appreciate the ambition of that target, or explicitly say that it would necessitate almost entirely ending the use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.  Fossil fuels — petroleum, natural gas, and coal — accounted for 80% of U.S. total energy consumption in 2018, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Without Mining There Is No 'Green Revolution'.  The recent threats by Beijing to cut off American access to critical mineral imports have many Americans wondering why our politicians have allowed the United States to become so overly dependent on China for these valued resources in the first place. [...] The U.S. Geological Survey reports that we still have about 86% of key mineral resources such as copper and zinc remaining in the ground, waiting to be mined.  These resources aren't on environmentally sensitive lands, such as national parks, but on the millions of acres of federal, state and private lands.  The mining isn't happening because of extremely prohibitive environmental rules and a permitting process that can take five to 10 years to open a new mine.  Green groups simply resist almost all new drilling.

The Solar Energy Racket.  [Scroll down]  It is useful to remember that 86% of CO2 emissions come from outside the United States, where they are increasing.  But U.S. emissions have been decreasing due to substitution of natural gas for coal and due to energy conservation.  The other justification for solar is that we will run out of fossil fuels.  The sun won't run out of sunshine for around 10 billion years.  There is no prospect for running out of fossil fuels anytime soon.  Fracking has just unleashed a 100-year supply of natural gas and oil.  The U.S. has coal for 500 years.  The supply of nuclear fuel is, for practical purposes, unlimited.  What we have is an alliance among hysterical environmental groups, profit-making solar developers, and politicians eager to make important friends.  The environmental groups need a stream of impending catastrophes for which they propose impracticable or crackpot solutions.  That's how they excite interest and stay in business.

The trillions of dollars wasted on global warming hysteria, properly deployed, could have improved and saved many lives.  Energy costs are much higher in Britain, due to radical green opposition to the fracking of gassy shales.  The anti-oil-pipeline campaign has cost ~$120 billion dollars in lost oil revenues and destroyed ~200,000 jobs in Alberta and across Canada.  This is an enormous financial and job loss for Canada.  The funds wasted on baseless global warming hysteria, anti-fossil-fuel fanaticism and destructive green energy schemes, properly deployed, could have saved or improved the lives of many millions of people.

"Green" Energy Policies Hurt the Environment, Another Case Study.  Britain has a fracking industry — or could have one, anyway, if it weren't for the Greens' political clout.  It finally became too much for Natascha Engel, Britain's "fracking czar," who quit with a blistering letter of resignation: [...] The United States is the only country to reduce significantly its CO2 emissions; we did it by substituting natural gas for coal in power generation.  But Britain's Greens won't let that country develop its considerable natural gas reserves.

Beto O'Rourke Might Halt New Oil and Gas Drilling on Federal Land.  Former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke said Thursday [4/25/2019] he's willing to consider a moratorium on new leases to drill for oil and gas on federal lands as a way to help combat climate change.

The New Nihilism.  Vastly expanded natural gas and oil production has ended the Persian Gulf stranglehold on US foreign policy.  Cheap fuel has empowered the middle classes and helped to expand the economy as well as created trillions of dollars in national treasure.  Yet "The New Green Deal", within a decade after its passing, would call for the end of the internal combustion engine, without ensuring that Americans have reasonable ground, air or sea transportation, affordable methods to heat and cool their homes, or the means to replace the sources of 83 percent of our generated electricity.  Is the point to make power and fuel so expensive that few can use it — on the theory that the planet in 1840 was preferably cooler than it is now?

A nuisance lawsuit turns into a serious problem:
Colorado Supreme Court rules in favor of oil and gas regulators in Martinez environmental case.  The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday [1/14/2019] overturned a lower court's decision that said the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was required to weigh the impact of oil and gas development on public health and the environment in deciding whether to approve new drilling permits and rules pertaining to the oil and gas industry in Colorado.  Colorado Supreme Court Justice Richard Gabriel wrote the unanimous 7-0 decision that was released Monday [1/14/2019], which found that the COGCC "properly declined to engage in rulemaking to consider a rule" proposed in 2013 by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and a group of Boulder teenagers.

Ocasio-Cortez: 'There's no debate' that fossil fuel production should stop.  Democratic House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied an audience of supporters in Washington Thursday evening [10/11/2018] with calls to implement single-payer health care and tuition-free college — along with an appeal to stop fossil fuel production entirely.  Ocasio-Cortez, who is running to represent New York's 14th Congressional District, has made no secret of her opposition to fossil fuels.  She's called for politicians to forsake donations from the industry and is pushing a "Green New Deal" plan which entails a shift to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035.

Is 100 Percent Renewable Energy Possible?  One definition of renewable energy is that it is naturally replenished on a human timescale.  Solar energy and wind energy fit in nicely with that definition.  Most fans of renewable energy explicitly reject renewable hydroelectricity if it involves damming a river.  Most renewable energy-lovers are also dam-haters.  They literally feel that fish are more important than people. [...] Even if hydro were allowed, there are not enough good sites to provide enough energy for the needs of the U.S.

Judge dismisses Chaco-area drilling lawsuit.  Environmental activists are regrouping after a federal judge Monday tossed a lawsuit against the federal government regarding drilling permits in the San Juan Basin, including sites near the Chaco Culture National Historical Park.  Despite an earlier ruling that signaled the claims had merit, United States District Court Judge James Browning issued an opinion and an amended order late Monday [4/23/2018] determining federal land managers did not violate historic preservation laws since they considered the effects of the wells on historical sites.

The Editor says...
In a way, the whole country is a historical site.  I'm not opposed to drilling in "historical sites" that nobody has ever heard of.  Moreover, a private land owner should be able to drill for oil anywhere on his property.  In this case the issue appears to be energy production on federal land, which is so often controversial because the government controls too much land.

Vox's New "Genius" Idea:  Cut Off Fossil Fuel Supplies.  The Vox #fancystats eggheads are at it again with a proposal they're sure will save the environment:  cut off the supplies of fossil fuels.  David Roberts writes the Restricted Supply Side idea is a really good one and believes it could actually help (!?!?!?!?!) the economy.  His particular notation is a study done by London School of Economics and Political Science professor Fergus Green (rather aptly named) and Richard Denniss at Australia Institute.  What's interesting is the fact Green and Denniss don't 100% believe it's feasible, at the moment, and also admit to putting oil, coal, and gas in the same bucket when it comes to "the relative strengths of supply-side policies vary among fossil fuel-types."  It doesn't mean the two aren't planning to try to convince environmentalists to add supply restrictionist policies to their framework.  The key idea on making restricted supplies economically viable has to do with purposefully harming the consumer who uses the item.

Love those 30 year old coal and nuclear plants — nothing gives cheaper electricity.  A US report shows how fantastically cheap and bountiful old coal and nuclear plants are.  The LCOE or the Levelized Cost of Electricity includes the costs of the concrete, turbines, car parks and coal, plus the maintenance and salaries.  It reveals that thirty year old, and even fifty year old coal plants, are the gift from past generations — enormous infrastructure, built and paid for, and ready to churn out bargain electrons.  Or in crazy-land, ready to be blown up.

Subverting US Energy Policies:  A Summary.  Although there has been a lot of press coverage about Russian interference in our political process, they are actually attacking us in a much more effective way, with very little attention being paid to it. [...] There is significant evidence that our country's enemies (esp.  Russia and China) are purposefully subverting our energy sector in a variety of ways.  Of course they are being clandestine about this, in hopes that few citizens will notice.  One of their most effective tactics is for them to support US organizations whose energy agenda is synonymous with theirs.  For example, carefully consider these key energy questions.  Who is it that wants:
  •   US nuclear energy facilities to close down?
  •   US fossil fuel reserves to stay in the ground (onshore and offshore)?
  •   the costs of fossil fuels to go up (e.g. with a carbon tax)?
  •   a high percentage of the US electric grid to be based on unreliable sources?
  •   the US to waste trillions of dollars on unreliable electricity?
  •   our national security weakened by wind energy interference with our military?
If you answered:  "the Sierra Club and their allies," you'd be right.  However the correct answer is also our communist opponents:  Russia and China.

The Real Reason Barack Obama Was Touting The Saudi-Funded Global Warming/Climate Change Hysteria.  The Saudis (as well as Russia and China) spent billions of dollars in media propaganda, university funding, political donations, United Nations funding etc. during Barack Obama's eight years in office to further push the global warming agenda.  None of that effort had anything to do with global warming/climate change though. [...] It should also be noted that that same forces behind all the global warming/climate change propaganda are also the same ones funding the open borders and gun restrictions movement in America as well.  There is no greater collusion of foreign influence upon this country's political process than that.

How Environmentalists Keep Heating Bills High.  How can a nation with massive deposits of very cheap natural gas — such as the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia — be importing natural gas?  One reason is that we don't have pipelines to inexpensively transport the natural gas to the Northeast.  Environmentalists who hate oil and gas have spent years blocking this vital infrastructure — not just the Keystone Pipeline but also many other pipelines that should be transporting shale oil and gas efficiently across the country.  It doesn't seem to bother the green groups that the biggest victims of anti-fossil fuel policies are low- and middle-income Americans.

Obama said we can't drill our way to energy independence.  Actually, we did..  In 2012, no less an authority than Barack Obama told us that calling for increased production by increased drilling — "drill, baby, drill," he called it — was not a plan, but rather "a bumper sticker."  Mr. Obama assured us, "You know, we can't just drill our way to lower gas prices," as if all the people who disagreed with him were simply refusing to admit that, deep down, they were wrong and he was right.

The Editor says...
"Drill, baby, drill" was a campaign slogan used by Sarah Palin, not Barack H. Obama.

California Will Block Oil And Coal Shipments, Risks Constitutional Battle.  California officials plan on preventing the federal government from transporting oil and gas using existing pipelines in the state, according to a report Wednesday [2/7/2018] from The San Francisco Chronicle.  Officials on the California Coastal Commission are urging the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to rescind plans allowing companies to drill for oil off the coast.  They are still hoping for an exemption from the oil drilling plan, that Florida has received.

The Environmentalists' Human Shields.  What was it that took humanity out of a life that was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short?"  It was cheap power.  It was the ability to heat your home AND cook your food, not having to choose between the two, on a modest income.  Not filling your lungs with smoke from burning wood or animal waste.  Not having to spend back-breaking hours chopping and carrying that wood.  Not losing days from your work and years off your life through those poisonous inhalations and hard labor.  Cheap power is what made modern life possible.  It made everybody's life better, but especially the poor (which is the case for so many other life-changing achievements of capitalism).  It is truly remarkable that "liberals" and "Progressives" champion the most regressive energy policies imaginable.  Higher energy prices generally and electricity prices specifically mean deprivation, hunger, suffering and even death.  And it means these things especially for the poor because the rich are, well, rich.

Green Power is Part Time Power.  24/7 electricity users such as hospitals, trains, factories, refineries, fuel and water pumps, cash registers, infrastructure and mines cannot operate on part-time electricity.  Moreover, every part-time power producer (using sun, wind, batteries, hydro, gas or coal) consumes money full-time for operations, standby, maintenance and replacement.  Each also has to fund its own specialised generators, transmission lines, access roads and workforce.  Electricity becomes both unreliable and expensive, and consumers suffer.  Using taxes, subsidies, dictates and mandates to replace a full-time power producer like coal with up to five part-time power producers only makes sense in the part-time minds that inhabit Greentopia.

8 Really Bad Laws That Went Into Effect Today.  [#5] Fracking ban in Maryland:  After a two year moratorium, Maryland this year passed a complete ban on fracking, which goes into effect today.  The law is not based on sound science but on rank fearmongering.  A 2015 study from Yale found that fracking does not contaminate drinking water, a popular bugaboo for fracking opponents.  The Obama Environmental Protection Agency also found fracking had a negligible effect on drinking water.  Other lies about fracking have also helped to motivate opposition to fracking — fracking does not make it possible to light your drinking water on fire.  Fracking fluid can't seep into groundwater and poison your tap, Fracking doesn't increase air pollution.  It doesn't cause cancer.  And the natural gas freed by fracking is decidedly better than coal.

Now it's a War on Pipelines.  For years, activists claimed the world was rapidly depleting its oil and natural gas supplies.  The fracking revolution (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) obliterated that argument, by sending US oil and gas production to new heights.  Indeed, record gas supplies and plummeting gas prices combined with the Obama EPA war on coal to shutter many coal-fired power plants.  So the battle increasingly shifted to the far more emotional claim that continued reliance on fossil fuels (which provide over 80% of the US and global energy that powers modern civilization and living standards) will cause dangerous manmade global warming and climate change.  This gave birth to the climate and renewable energy consortium and the "keep it in the ground" movement.  No evidence to the contrary will budge them from their hysteria-laden talking points on looming climate cataclysms.

North Carolina Governor Opposes Offshore Drilling.  Putting himself at odds with President Donald Trump, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced he does not want the federal government to allow oil and gas exploration or production off the state's coast.  Cooper's position marks a reversal of policy from his predecessor, Gov. Pat McCrory, who favored oil and gas exploration off North Carolina's portion of the Outer Continental Shelf.  "I can sum it up in four words:  not off our coast," Cooper said at a July 20 Atlantic Beach, North Carolina press conference.  "It is simply not worth the risk."

Dakota Access Pipeline Developer Sues Greenpeace Over 'Eco-Terrorist' Campaign.  Energy Transfer Partners, the developer behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, has sued Greenpeace and several other groups for what it calls a 'campaigns of misinformation."  ETP argues in the lawsuit filed Tuesday [8/22/2017] that environmental groups are running a racket designed to raise money by emotionalizing issues.

Lawmakers Cite Evidence Russia 'Colludes' With US Green Groups to Block Fracking.  Forget about allegations of Russian interference in U.S. presidential elections for a moment, or even "collusion" between Russian officials and Trump campaign operatives.  The real action is in the European and U.S. energy markets, according to a letter from two Texas congressmen to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that details what they call "a covert anti-fracking campaign" with "little or no paper trail."  The Daily Signal obtained a copy of the June 29 letter to Mnuchin from Reps.  Lamar Smith and Randy Weber, both Republicans who chair energy-related House panels.

Why the Greens Hate Nuclear Power.  Let's stretch our imaginations for a moment and assume that the left is right that global warming will bring apocalyptic warming by the end of the century and that the only way to save the planet from extinction is to stop using fossil fuels right now.  That will be a spectacular disruption to world economic prosperity, because cheap fossil fuels account for about two-thirds of all electric power generation and at least 80 percent of transportation fuel.  But if we did stop using fossil fuels, what would make the most sense as a mass-scale substitute to coal, natural gas and oil?  What could reduce carbon emissions while also keeping energy affordable and reliable?  If you answered "wind and solar power," you flunk.

Why I Spend So Much Time and Effort on Climate Skepticism.  It is now clearer than ever that the alarmists have no intention of reaching a symbolic compromise that while unjustified might be livable by the rest of society.  Rather, their apparent intention is to keep pushing the US and other developed countries into a fossil fuel-less society in which all energy used will come from wind and solar or a few other "renewables" but not including either hydro or nuclear.  This is just what the Democratic Party included in its Party platform last year.  And if their candidate had won, this is exactly what the US would now be trying to do.  She even endorsed Al Gore's objectives just before the election, perhaps in hopes of added votes from "environmentalists."  If this had happened, this is a recipe for a financial disaster and probably the end of the US as a global innovator and economic leader.

Apocalyptic Progressivism.  During the 2008 campaign, gas prices at one point averaged over $4 a gallon.  Then-candidate Obama reacted by pushing a green agenda — as if the cash-strapped but skeptical public could be pushed into alternative energy agendas.  Obama mocked then-Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's prescient advice to "drill, baby, drill" — as if Palin's endorsement of new technologies such as fracking and horizontal drilling could never ensure consumers plentiful fuel.  Instead, in September 2008, Steven Chu, who would go on to become Obama's secretary of energy, told the Wall Street Journal that, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

Australia's green delusions:  A diesel in the shed.  Today, after Aussies have enjoyed decades of abundant reliable cheap electricity from coal, green energy gambling has taken Australia back to the era that kept a diesel in the shed.  Tasmania is the greenest state in Australia.  It once had a vibrant economy that created mines, sawmills, farms, orchards, oil and metal refineries, dams, hydro-power, and railways.  It is now a green no-go land.  Greens have stopped new hydro developments, opposed mining, crippled the timber industry, prevented new wood chip developments, and will probably celebrate when the last refinery closes.

The Pigpen Left:  Dead body found in DAPL protest debris.  With the snows melting in icy North Dakota, the mounds of frozen garbage left by far-left Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters are finally being cleared.  What should the police find in all those acres of debris?  A dead body, not surprisingly, nestled among all the garbage-barge-like flotsam and jetsam such Occupy-inspired campout protests always leave in their wake.  The body was of a California man who hung out at protests as an "activist" and who had been reported missing by his stepbrother last October.  It was found in the Cannonball River, where it had been left among all the detritus of the protesters, apparently none of them particularly caring, yet all full of self-righteous virtuousness about saving the earth as their demonstration spun into chaos.  That's right:  they left a fellow protester's dead body behind in a river but piously lectured the people of the North Dakota about the horrors of the Dakota Access Pipeline polluting some lake.

Animal rescue finds dogs left behind amid tons of trash at Dakota Access protest camp.  Along with tons of garbage left behind at the Dakota Access protest camp, at least eight dogs have been discovered since protesters departed last week under a federal evacuation order.  The canines — two adults and six puppies — were picked up by volunteers with Furry Friends Rockin' Rescue after the last of the protesters exited the Oceti Sakowin camp, allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to join the massive cleanup effort.

Arson is certainly a way to go out with a bang, but aren't these the same people who said they were worried about pollution?
Dakota Access campsite goes up in flames:  Protesters set fire to their tents as deadline to evacuate looms.  Several protesters who camped out on federal land near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation were arrested Wednesday after the Army Corps of Engineers began to shut down the area.  Those at the six-month-old camp had until 2pm local time (3pm EST) to get off the land before authorities went in to either give them a bus home or arrest them.  About 100 protesters voluntarily left before the 2pm state deadline, but a total of 10 were taken into custody. [...] Demonstrators also torched their tents as the deadline to evacuate approached.

Sanitation Crews Search for Dead Bodies Amid Piles of Pipeline Protester Trash.  Authorities in North Dakota are working to prevent an environmental catastrophe caused by the massive amounts of trash left behind by anti-oil pipeline protesters, local media report.  State and tribal sanitation crews are rushing to remove piles of waste and debris left over from the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline before weather warms and the mountains of trash turn toxic.  According to cleaning crews, they're worried they might even find dead bodies among the piles of refuse that now pollute areas where anti-pipeline protesters camped out for months.

The Environmental Left and Keystone XL.  [Scroll down]  With respect to climate change, Keystone XL would transport 830,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude oil, the total GHG emissions from which would be 147 [to] 159 million metric tons per year on a life-cycle basis.  In the extreme case in which that oil does not displace any other crude oil production elsewhere in the world, the increase in GHG emissions would be about 0.4 percent of the world total.  So:  what would the resulting temperature effect be in the year 2100, using the National Center for Atmospheric Research climate model, under the highest IPCC assumption about the climate sensitivity of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations?  Answer:  about four ten-thousandths of a degree, a number rather inconsistent with apocalypse view of Keystone XL as a "carbon bomb that would cook the planet."

Dakota Access Pipeline protest leader charged with inciting a riot, 74 arrested.  Dakota Access Pipeline protester Chase Iron Eyes was arrested this week and has been charged with inciting a riot, which is a felony.  Iron Eyes allegedly led a group of several dozen protesters who set up a new camp on higher ground, out of the flood plain where the current camp sits.  The only problem:  The property the new camp was set up on is owned by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Dakota Access Pipeline protesters evicted over pollution concerns.  A few days after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed executive orders moving the approval process for the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines forward.  A week later, the then acting secretary of the Army instructed federal officials to issue the easement necessary to build a controversial segment of the Dakota Access pipeline.  Now, the Corps of Engineers has issued an eviction notice to the protesters who have plagued the construction of the pipeline ... because they are polluting the environment.

Dakota Access Pipeline:  Easement Expected to Allow Project to Be Completed.  The controversial Dakota Access pipeline will receive a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to allow construction of the $3.7 billion project to be completed, according to North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp.  The pipeline has been at the center of months of protests that has galvanized Native Americans and environmental activists.  It would carry oil from North Dakota, through South Dakota and Iowa to be shipped out of Illinois.  Members of Congress were notified of the decision earlier on Tuesday [1/31/2017], according to two sources with knowledge of the decision.

N.D. Sen.: Army Corps told to allow construction of pipeline.  The Army Corps of Engineers was ordered to allow construction of the Dakota Access pipeline to proceed under a disputed Missouri River crossing, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven said on Tuesday [1/31/2017], the latest twist in a months-long legal battle over the $3.8 billion project.  The Standing Rock Sioux, whose opposition to the project attracted thousands of supporters from around the country to North Dakota, immediately vowed to again go to court to stop it.

North Dakota wants hired pipeline protesters to pay state income taxes.  After spending more than $22 million on the Dakota Access pipeline protest, North Dakota wants to make sure any paid activists remember to submit their state income taxes.  Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger said his office is keeping an eye out for tax forms from environmental groups that may have hired protesters to agitate against the 1,172-mile, four-state pipeline project.  "It's something we're looking at.  I can tell you I've had a number of conversations with legislators regarding this very issue," said Mr. Rauschenberger.  "[We're] looking at the entities that have potential paid contractors here on their behalf doing work."

The Editor says...
What could be more heartwarming than to watch the tax-and-spend liberals go after the anti-capitalist liberals?  The earth-worshiping hippies are about to learn that their liberal utopia comes at a higher price than they had anticipated.

Islamists Join Environmentalists At Standing Rock To Delegitimize America.  In ironic ways, Standing Rock united America.  Positioned as a moral issue that merged land rights with environmental activism, Standing Rock captured the collective imagination of America's varied activist groups.  Since they are far better organized and more comfortable with "direct action" than conservatives are, Islamists seized the opportunity Standing Rock presented to elevate their platform.  Once Standing Rock gained national attention, various chapters and supporters of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations joined the battle.

Green Weenie of the Week:  Standing Rock Blockheads.  This news story from Reuters requires no commentary to explain why the pretentious protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline near Standing Rock deserve a coveted Power Line Green Weenie Award.

Pipeline protests resume after Trump revives Keystone, Dakota projects.  Holding hands, hundreds of protesters opposed to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines took to the streets of Washington Tuesday night [1/24/2017] for a fresh round of demonstrations after President Trump signed executive orders clearing the way for the controversial projects to move forward.

Malia Obama gets political at Sundance.  Malia Obama got political at Sundance by attending an event in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Monday [1/23/2017].  "It was amazing to see Malia," activist and actress Shailene Woodley told Democracy Now.  "To witness a human being and a woman coming into her own outside of her family and outside of the attachments that this country has on her ... because she recognizes, regardless of her last name, that if she doesn't participate in democracy, there will be no world for her future children."

The Editor says...
It is apparent that young Ms. Obama believes that the world will come to an end if the Dakota Access Pipeline is completed.  This level of ignorance and superstition is almost unimaginable.

North Dakota tribe formally calls on pipeline protesters to disperse.  A Sioux tribal council on Saturday [1/21/2017] formally asked hundreds of protesters to clear out of three camps near its North Dakota reservation used to stage months of sometimes violent protests against the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline.  The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on Friday unanimously passed a resolution calling for the camps to be dismantled, it said on its Facebook page on Saturday.  The tribe has been encouraging protesters to go home since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to an environmental review of the $3.8 billion project in December.

Dakota pipeline protester will defy grand jury to "keep his dignity".  The Dakota Access Pipeline protests have largely faded into memory of late.  This is largely because they're in North Dakota... and it's January.  But that doesn't mean that all of the legal activity surrounding this mess is over by a long shot.  One rather nasty incident which took place back when the weather was a bit more tolerable was the serious injury suffered by Sophia Wilansky, the 21 year old professional protester from New York.

Native Americans fight Texas pipeline using 'same model as Standing Rock'.  Indigenous activists have set up camps in the Texas desert to fight a pipeline project there, the latest sign that the Standing Rock "water protector" movement is inspiring Native American-led environmental protests across the US.  The Two Rivers camp, located south of Marfa near the border, has attracted dozens of demonstrators in its first week to protest the Trans-Pecos pipeline, a 148-mile project on track to transport fracked natural gas through the Big Bend region to Mexico.

Pipeline protesters arrested at Vikings stadium.  Minneapolis police have arrested two Dakota Access oil pipeline protesters who unfurled a huge banner inside U.S. Bank Stadium during a Minnesota Vikings game.  The man and woman were arrested Sunday afternoon after climbing into a catwalk just after the Vikings' season finale against the Chicago Bears ended around 3 p.m. [1/1/2017]

Report: Obama Will Permanently Block Arctic Drilling Before Trump Takes Office.  The Obama administration will use a legal strategy crafted by environmental activists to remove sections of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans from future offshore drilling lease sales, according to two sources familiar with the plan told Bloomberg.  For months, environmentalists have been urging President Barack Obama to use Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a 1953 law governing offshore drilling, in a way it's never been used before — to block offshore drilling leases in the Atlantic Ocean and the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

Sometimes A Picture Speaks More Loudly Than Words.  The Standing Rock Sioux, a tribe of about 10,000, are leading the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, which they claim could pollute the Missouri River, the tribe's main source of drinking water, and harm cultural lands and tribal burial grounds.  The tribe is working with the environmental group Earthjustice and has filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers, claiming the government didn't properly consult them before approving the section of pipeline that runs near the reservation.  Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, says it has followed state and federal rules, met with Native American tribes, and proposed different versions of the pipeline route.  The pipeline is 92 percent complete, only the small portion near the reservation is being contested.  The pipeline does not enter the Standing Rock reservation.

Trump's Energy Revolution Can't Come Soon Enough.  In July, the Corps said it had approved 200 water crossings and easements for the 1,172-mile pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea and the Missouri River.  When it's finished, the $3.8 billion project will transport 450,000 barrels of oil a day from western North Dakota to Patoka, Ill.  But then protests erupted, fueled by environmentalist and misguided Native Americans, who said the pipeline's crossing of Lake Oahe could pollute water of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota.  In September, President Obama egged the protestors on and said the Corps would look for alternative routes.  On Sunday [12/4/2016], the Army Corps decided to overturn itself, and deny the Lake Oahe easement until it explores these alleged alternative routes.

Van Jones on Pipeline Protest: 'This Feels Like Selma!  It Feels Like Montgomery!'  Van Jones, a CNN commentator and former adviser to President Obama, on Monday compared the pipeline protest in Cannon Ball, North Dakota to the civil rights movement of the 1960s:  "This feels like Selma!  It feels like Montgomery!  It feels like a time when a group that nobody paid attention to, black folks in the South, stood up and the world stood with them, so it's a very powerful, emotional moment, I think, for the tribal communities," Jones told CNN's "New Day."

Trump supports completion of Dakota Access Pipeline.  U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday [12/1/2016] said for the first time that he supports the completion of a pipeline project near a North Dakota Indian reservation, which has been the subject of months of protests by tribes and environmentalists.  A communications briefing from Trump's transition team said despite media reports that Trump owns a stake in Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, Trump's support of the pipeline "has nothing to do with his personal investments and everything to do with promoting policies that benefit all Americans."

Dakota Access pipeline protest erupts into 'ongoing riot'.  Tension flared anew on the Dakota Access pipeline as protesters tried to push past a long-blocked bridge on a state highway, only to be turned back by a line of law enforcement using water cannon and what appeared to be tear gas.

Green Energy Companies Helped Bankroll Tribe Behind Dakota Protests.  Two green energy companies contributed a quarter of a million dollars to the American Indian tribe spearheading a months-long demonstration against an oil pipeline in North Dakota.  Standing Rock Sioux voted unanimously April 5 to accept two $150,000 donations from ConEdison Development and Fagen Inc., both of which have partnered up to build windmills in the North Dakota area, according to internal documents kept by the tribe.  ConEdison Development acquired land near Standing Rock's reservation and began construction on a wind power facility last year.  Fagen was a contractor on the project.

What a Trump Presidency Might Mean for Your Electric Bill.  Solar and wind power, intermittent by nature, are nothing without the backup provided by natural gas — a fact lost on the Sierra Club, whose goal of moving "beyond natural gas" would move us beyond modernity and into a state of perpetual brownouts.  Relatively cheap natural gas remains critical to the long-term success of renewable energy, and Trump has made clear his commitment to the infrastructure and political support necessary to ensure its procurement.

World War II memorial vandalized in apparent pipeline protest.  Someone who was against the Dakota Access Pipeline apparently vandalized the World War II memorial in Washington, the National Park Service said Tuesday [11/8/2016].  Spokesman Mike Litterst said someone spray-painted the North Dakota section of the memorial.  A photo provided by the park service showed the phrase "#NoDAPL" was written in paint.  The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has been fighting along with other tribes and environmental groups to stop the completion of the $3.8 billion pipeline, saying it would threaten the water supply for millions of people.  Supporters say the pipeline is a safer way to move oil than trucks and trains.

Vote Republican to keep the lights on.  The U.S. is now the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas, despite President Obama's costly energy regulations.  Hillary Clinton is campaigning for the presidency not by celebrating the shale extraction that has made us less dependent on energy from parts of the world hostile to America.  Rather, she focuses on renewable energy, claiming that it can supply a third of electricity needs.  Where Obama talked about an "all of the above" energy policy, Clinton focuses on "clean energy" with a $60 billion Clean Energy Challenge aimed at expanding the role of renewables, such as wind and solar power.  She has pledged to cut oil consumption by a third and generate enough from renewable sources to power every home in the country.

Some Standing Rock Sioux want pipeline activists to go home as violence escalates.  The thousands of anti-pipeline protesters creating mayhem in rural North Dakota are wearing out their welcome with some members of the Standing Rock Sioux.  Robert Fool Bear Sr., a tribal district chairman, said the outside activists camping out near Cannon Ball are creating headaches for the locals as the Dakota Access pipeline protest approaches three months.  As far as Mr. Fool Bear is concerned, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II should tell them to pack their bags.

The Editor says...
I presume that the pipeline protesters set fire to this pile of trash and old tires as part of their tantrum.  This is remarkable, because their alleged concern about the pipeline is that it might potentially someday leak and pollute the water table.  In reality, these people are probably the worst polluters in the state this week.  Hypocrites!

Company asks pipeline protesters to leave North Dakota land.  The developer of the Dakota Access oil pipeline said Tuesday [10/25/2016] that the dozens of protesters who have camped on company-owned land since the weekend are trespassing and that "lawless behavior will not be tolerated."

Sheriff warns of North Dakota pipeline protesters' criminal pasts as more arrests made.  More demonstrators were arrested Saturday for infiltrating the Dakota Access pipeline construction site as law enforcement warned about a coterie of activists with lengthy criminal records inside the protest camps.  The Morton County [N.D.] Sheriff's Department reported closing down Highway 1806 and arresting 83 people on rioting charges after about 300 protesters marched three miles into private property at a construction site for the pipeline project.  Officers used pepper spray against some activists after they tried to break the police line, during which one protester grabbed a canister and sprayed an officer in the face.

Industry [says] Obama [is] unraveling [the] rule of law with Dakota Access stoppage.  The Obama administration may be unraveling the very fabric of U.S. democracy by holding up the approval of the Dakota Access oil pipeline after a federal court said it could move ahead, a coalition of diverse industry groups said in a letter sent Thursday night [10/20/2016] to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other federal agency officials. [...] The Dakota Access pipeline has become a symbol for the environmentalist movement in recent weeks, where activists and some Democrats have galvanized opposition against the pipeline as an affront to tribal rights and as a way to combat climate change.  But with the pipeline going through two federal courts for review, and both saying it can go forward, it would appear that politics is taking over where the law has left off, say observers.

Report: 'Keep It In The Ground' Policy Would Cost Billions, 380,000 Jobs.  A recent report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy, estimates if the United States adopts a "Keep It in the Ground" (KG) policy — advocated by major environmental groups wishing to end the development of fossil fuels on federal holdings — the U.S. economy and government revenues would suffer greatly.  The report, titled What If ... Energy Production Was Banned on Federal Lands and Waters?, projects up to 25 percent of U.S. oil, gas, and coal production would be abruptly stopped if KG is implemented.  Among the potential consequences of such a policy are federal and state governments would lose an estimated $11.3 billion per year in royalties and rental fees.  The report also estimates the economy would lose 380,000 jobs, and the authors say as much as $70 billion per year of gross domestic product could be threatened.

Hillary's In League With Groups To Destroy Energy Independence.  This week, Politico reported that Hillary Clinton is aligned with the same groups who are pushing to end the use of coal and shale energy in the United States.  These policies will be destructive to states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Colorado and severely impact energy rates and jobs across the country.

Green Pixie Dust Energy Policies.  [The Democratic Party Platform] supports impeding or rejecting oil and gas leasing, drilling, fracking and pipelines, as well as gas-fired power plants — while accelerating and incentivizing wind and solar installations and transmission lines.  It says America should "lead the fight against climate change," locally and globally.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton has said she would stringently regulate hydraulic fracturing, banning oil and gas extraction from public lands is a "done deal," and her party is "going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."  (But it will re-train miners and fund their pensions with taxes and red ink.)  In short, Democrats support a government mandated and regulated energy system that would require constant infusions of taxpayer and consumer subsidies via grants, loans, feed-in tariffs and crony-corporatist arrangements.  It will oppose fossil fuels that provide reliable, affordable energy [...]

Only Canada lets 8377 "losers" and "paid harassers" delay a $36B energy project.  After a three-year delay, Ottawa approves a $36 billion energy project in British Columbia.  Natural gas will be produced through fracking, piped to the coast, liquefied — that's what LNG means, liquefied natural gas — then shipped to Asia.

The Obama Administration Temporarily Blocks the Dakota Access Pipeline.  The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the hundreds of Native protestors who have joined them in rural North Dakota won a huge but provisional victory in their quest to stop the Dakota Access pipeline, as the U.S. government announced late on Friday afternoon [9/9/2016] that it was voluntarily halting work on the project.

Activists, Feds Block Two Proposed LNG Export Terminals in Oregon.  The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied on March 11 an application for the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal proposed for Oregon's Jordan Cove.  FERC's decision surprised many.  The agency had approved the LNG terminal's environmental impact statement in December 2015, clearing the way for the project's long-awaited construction.  Just one month prior to the Jordan Cove project's cancellation and after a decade of haggling with local officials and fighting with environmental activists, Oregon LNG, another LNG developer, informed local and state officials it was withdrawing its proposed $6 billion LNG terminal and pipeline, which had been planned to be built on the nearby Skipanon Peninsula.  On April 15, The Daily Astorian reported a "coalition of residents, environmentalists and fishermen" had put significant pressure on government officials to deny the LNG proposals.  According to the Astorian, the coalition "attacked the project as misguided and potentially dangerous."

Book review:
The Global War Against Fossil Fuels.  The global war against fossil fuels is a war against progress, prosperity, and the poor.  No one has ever explained this better than Stephen Moore and Kathleen Hartnett White do in Fueling Freedom.

The few, the loud, the anti-fossil fuel crowd.  If you get your news from the mainstream media, you likely think the views expressed by the environmental activists represent the majority of Americans.  After all, their highly visible protests against the Keystone pipeline — sit-ins in front of the White House, locking themselves to the White House fence and then being arrested for it, and parading down the National Mall carrying a huge inflated tube emblazoned with the words:  "Just say no to Keystone" — were effective.  Despite repeated polling that showed a majority of Americans supported the pipeline, with a small minority opposed, the loud theatrics of the anti-fossil fuel crowd eventually won out.  After years of stall tactics, President Obama finally bowed to their demands and said no to the job-creating infrastructure project.

Feds Sued For Illegally Refusing To Sell Oil Leases.  Western Energy Alliance (WEA), an industry-aligned interest group, sued the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Thursday [8/11/2016] for failing to hold quarterly oil and natural gas lease sales on public lands.  Though the Mineral Leasing Act requires BLM to hold quarterly oil and natural gas lease sales in each state where lands are available and industry interest exists, the agency has cancelled lease sales and auctions during the Obama administration.  Environmental groups have simultaneously organized to lobby the federal government to postpone the sales so as to discourage or delay drilling on the public range.

Germany waters down climate protection plan.  Germany has abandoned plans to set out a timetable to exit coal-fired power production and scrapped C02 emissions reduction goals for individual sectors, according to the latest draft of an environment ministry document seen by Reuters on Wednesday [6/29/2016].  An earlier version of the draft document that was leaked in May had suggested that Germany should phase out coal-fired power production "well before 2050" as part of a package of measures to help Berlin achieve its climate goals.

Energiewoopsie, Or, What Happens When You Dump Nuclear Power.  The greens have been aflutter for years about Germany's energiewende, or "energy revolution," partly because it involves a lot of their sacred windmills and solar panels and partly because it's a revolution man, so dig it!  Better put the patchouli-infused hemp robes away for the moment, because Germany is backpedalling fast.

Al Gore's daughter arrested in Boston pipeline protest.  Organizers say the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore was among 23 people arrested during a protest of a Boston pipeline under construction.  The arrests happened Wednesday at the site of Spectra Energy's West Roxbury Lateral pipeline.  Forty-two-year-old Karenna Gore was among demonstrators that tried to block construction activity on the site by lying in a trench.

Natural Gas Production Declines on Federal Lands.  Natural gas production has declined on federal lands even while increasing on private property, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.  Private lands produced 15,601 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2010.  Production has grown by 55 percent on private lands, rising to 24,143 billion cubic feet in 2015, the latest year for which data is available.  Natural gas production on federal lands has declined by 27 percent since 2010.  Private lands also produce a greater share of the total natural gas produced in the United States.  Privately held property produced 84 percent of the total natural gas produced in the entire United States in 2015, while federal lands produced only 16 percent of the total.

U.S. "built the equivalent of ten Keystone pipelines" while stalling XL extension on "climate change" grounds.  The United States has built the equivalent of ten Keystone XL pipelines while figuring out whether to approve the extension.  They've surpassed Saudi Arabia in oil and gas production with horizontal drilling techniques which have made their once inaccessible resources accessible, putting them into competitor status.  With the third largest oil reserves in the world, Canada has the potential to surpass the U.S. in production and exports but they're not being tapped because we're buying into the climate change and environmental fear mongering whipped up by a country that has surpassed the largest producer in the world.

Taxpayers Finance Anti-Pipeline Activists.  An obscure program nestled deep in the bowels of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is funneling taxpayer money to environmental activists who oppose natural gas pipelines, according to an investigative report issued by InsideSources.  In 2009, Congress created the Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) program in DOT's Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to provide funding to nonprofits and local governments to act to "improve damage prevention, develop new technologies, or otherwise improve [the] pipeline safety" of natural gas and hazardous liquids pipelines.  During the first five years of the program, over $6.4 million in TAG grants were awarded to 110 recipients.  While much of the money has gone to organizations undertaking projects to improve pipeline safety, InsideSources uncovered several instances where TAG grantees had clear conflicts of interest and engaged in advocacy, in violation of the program's guidelines.

New Rules Expected to Curtail Gulf Oil Production.  The Obama administration finalized new rules it says will improve drilling safety in the Gulf of Mexico, but some experts are saying the regulations will undermine safety.  The Interior Department, which is responsible for licensing and regulating oil and gas production on the U.S. outer-continental shelf, unveiled the sweeping new regulations on April 14, 2016.  The centerpiece of the new regulations is a plan to monitor the safety of offshore wells.  Under the regulations, monitoring of well safety would shift from being located on-site — at the offshore drilling platform — to being stationed at onshore electronic observation centers.

Climate Weenies Held Protests Against Fossil Fuels.  I've perused many, many articles on this, and not one reporter asked any of the protesters two simple questions:
  •   Did you take a fossil fueled vehicle to this protest?
  •   Have you given up your own use of fossil fuels in your own life?  Warmists really do not like questions like that.  They say they are immaterial, because "we all have to make sacrifices in our lives", meaning that Government must be empowered to force these changes.  It also means that they know they are hypocrites, and unwilling to practice what they preach, so, they need to change the conversation.

Don't Let The Nuts Keep America's National Treasure Buried.  Thanks to the technological miracle of "fracking," America now has the proven reserves to be the world's number one producer of oil, number one producer of natural gas, and number one producer of coal.  Imagine what that would be like for America's own economy to include the world leading industries of all three of these crucial sources of energy.  America would then be the Saudi Arabia of oil, the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, and the Saudi Arabia of coal, all within just one economy.  That would mean hundreds of thousands of good paying, blue collar jobs in those three industries alone.

Climate activists protest oil shipments at New York port hub.  Climate activists from around the Northeast gathered Saturday at a key crude oil shipment hub on the Hudson River in upstate New York to denounce fossil fuels and promote an accelerated transition to renewable energy sources.

"Climate Hustle" demolishes climate alarmism.  Without presenting it to the US Senate, as required by the Constitution, President Obama has signed the Paris climate treaty.  He is already using it to further obligate the United States to slash its fossil fuel use, carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth[,] control our lives, livelihoods, living standards and liberties[,] and redistribute our wealth.  Poor, minority and working class families will suffer most.  China, India and other developing economies are under no such obligation, unless and until it is in their interest to do so. [...] That's why these countries have built over 1,000 coal-fired power plants and are planning to build 2,300 more — while unaccountable EPA bureaucrats are shutting down US coal-fired generators, and getting ready to block natural gas production and use.

Pipeline-killing Cuomo plainly doesn't care about New York jobs.  Is Gov. Cuomo trying to kill the upstate economy — or is he just so desperate to suck up to enviro-nuts that he doesn't care what happens to that region?  It's a fair question, after his decision to kill the Constitution Pipeline — a vital, 124-mile conduit meant to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York and beyond.  The move "will have a direct and immediate negative impact on our state's economy," says Heather Briccetti, president of the Business Council.

Oregon manages to stop construction of huge LNG export terminal, costing thousands of jobs.  Oregon is always at the forefront of saving the world and every other SJW agenda item these days, or so it seems.  And when it comes to environmental extremists you'll find no lack of them along that stretch of the Pacific coast.  They've scored another huge "victory" this month in the form of halting the proposed construction of a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal near the mouth of the Columbia River.  The project had been in the works for years, but took on increased significance after the American energy boom of the past half decade.  The world is hungry for LNG and it represents a major opportunity in terms of evening out our trade imbalance.  But thanks to the dedicated efforts of green energy warriors and Oregon politicians, yet another refusal of a construction permit seems to have been the final straw for The Oregon LNG company and they've pulled the plug on the entire project.

Fighting Junk Science.  The government's Environmental Protection Agency promotes junk science because it gives the bureaucracy mission and funding.  The Sierra Club is little more than a junk science 5th column.  The club has adopted global warming as its primary tool for frightening people into paying dues.  The club's war on coal promotes numerous imaginary scares concerning the alleged toxicity of coal.  The Sierra Club deserves much credit for destroying the nuclear power industry and promoting radiation hysteria to scare [...] everyone in the 1970s and 1980s.  The Sierra Club would rank high in a list of subversive organizations that threaten the national welfare.

Gas pipeline opponents hope to influence NY presidential primary.  Fracktivists, as anti-hydrofracking activists are called, hope to play a role in New York's presidential primary.  They are asking Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, as well as Republican candidates, to take a stand against the Constitution Pipeline and other natural gas pipelines, that if approved could criss-cross the state.  More than 200 fracktivists held a rally Tuesday [4/5/2016] to oppose natural gas pipelines in New York, and to call on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ban them.

Obama to Energy Producers: Drop Dead.  You know, I'm starting to think the Obama Administration really doesn't like old-fashioned hydrocarbon energy.  And since when has the Federal government worried about "adverse effects on landowners"??  Well, at least the Obama Administration is going to carry through on allowing new offshore oil drilling.  What's that?  ["]Obama Rejects New Atlantic Ocean Oil Drilling["]

Obama to kill off Arctic oil drilling.  The Obama administration promised to protect Atlantic waters for future generations on Tuesday, raising expectations that waters off the US east coast and Alaska would be protected from oil and gas drilling.  The expected decision reverses Barack Obama's move just last year to open up a vast swath of the Atlantic coast to drilling — and consolidates the president's efforts to protect the Arctic and fight climate change during his final months in the White House.  The five-year drilling plan, which will be formally announced by the Interior Department, was expected to block immediate prospects of hunting for oil in the Arctic and much of the Atlantic, according to those familiar with the proposals.

'Keep it in the ground' at work in the real world.  Going forward, we know what the new year of environmental activism looks like.  They have told us.  They have made it perfectly clear.  They call it:  "Keep it in the ground."  The campaign is about all fossil fuels:  oil, gas, and coal.  Instead of an "all of the above" energy policy, when it comes to fossil fuels, they want "none of the above."  A big part of the effort is focused on preventing the extraction of fossil fuels on public lands — which is supported by presidential candidates Senator Bernie Sanders and Secretary Hillary Clinton.  The recent moratorium of leasing federal lands for coal mining, announced by Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell, is considered a great victory for "keep it in the ground."

America's Energy Outlook Is Bright — and Obama Hates It.  [By 2040, oil and coal] will provide for 80% of the world's energy needs.  Nuclear energy, projected to double by 2040, will provide most of the remaining 20%.  Wind power will deliver a mere 2% of global energy.  Solar even less.  Fortunately, there are ample supplies of oil and gas to power the world economy well beyond 2040.  The International Energy Agency estimates that recoverable oil and condensate resources now stand at 4.5 trillion barrels, replacing earlier "peak oil" estimates of one trillion barrels.  By 2040, it is likely that recoverable oil will have risen again, perhaps by a factor of five and certainly enough to power the global energy through the end of the century.  Recoverable natural gas resources are even greater.  According to IEA, current gas resources are enough to supply the current level of global needs for another 200 years.  And this estimate does not include vast reserves that will result from new exploration and advances in technology.  With the U.S. now self-sufficient and exporting natural gas, the West's energy security is assured to a degree that has not existed in the past.  That's good news for the American people and for the world, even if it is not news that Obama wants to hear.

Republicans furious over Obama move on coal leases.  Congressional Republicans are slamming the Obama administration's decision to halt new coal mining leases on federal land.  Administration officials said Friday [1/15/2016] they would hold off on new lease sales while overhauling the coal leasing program to account for climate change costs.  Republicans, who have badgered Obama for energy and environment policies they say constitute a "war on coal," let loose on the decision Friday.

Obama halts new federal coal mining.  The Obama administration is halting major new leases to mine coal on federal land for about three years as it works to reform the controversial program.  Obama officials want to hold off on the new sales while they figure out how to account for climate change caused when the coal mined on federal land is burned, which could include higher fees and royalties for the private companies that extract the coal.

Obama Brags About Low Energy Prices, Then Proposes To Raise Them.  We did, in fact, "drill our way" to lower gas prices.  Thanks to fracking, oil companies are now able to produce vast amounts of previously unrecoverable oil.  In the past seven years, domestic oil production shot up a stunning 77%, according to the Energy Information Administration, making the U.S. the biggest oil producer in the world.  That's why gas prices are low today.  And why oil imports have dropped so sharply.  And none of it had anything to do with Obama, who tried to hamper oil production whenever he could — blocking Keystone, restrictions on federal lands, EPA attempts to hinder fracking.

Hydroelectric power is handicapped by an outdated licensing process.  "I was talking with someone in the nuclear industry the other day and he said, 'Gee, I didn't realize you people were having the same problems we have.'  When it comes to getting through the permit process, we're not much different from nuclear."  So says Jeff Leahey, deputy executive director of the National Hydropower Association, the Washington lobbying group that supports the hydroelectric industry.  NHA finds this particularly frustrating since it is in the midst of a revival that involves retrofitting existing dams with hydropower.

Paris climate summit: If liberal journos get their wish it may be lights out for billions.  The UN climate change conference (COP 21) is bringing thousands of environmental activists to still-shaken Paris to discuss what liberals consider a bigger threat than terrorism — climate change.  Heads of state are attempting, yet again, to reach a legally binding agreement for carbon dioxide emissions, even though satellite temperature records still show a pause in the warming trend.  That pause began more than 18 years ago in 1997.  The conference has no bigger supporters than the liberal media.  Journalists have worked together with environmentalists to attack nearly every energy source we use.  News outlets have targeted energy that provides more than 90 percent of U.S. power — oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear and even hydroelectric.

The Environmentalist Crusade Against Progress and Technology Aims at Making Man's Life a Hell on Earth.  Energy lights our homes and cities, keeps us cool in summer and warm in winter, moves our cars, ships, trains and airplanes, powers our industries and factories, and creates all the material goods on which our lives depend.  The whole of our civilization depends upon the production and use of energy.  But there is not a single viable energy source that Environmentalism does not attack. [...] It is important to note that environmentalists offer no alternative solutions to our needs of energy.  All of their efforts aim instead at banning, stopping, restricting and reversing all progress.  There is not a single industry or technology that Environmentalism does not attack, directly or indirectly.

Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not "Green".  A multi-billion-dollar government crusade to promote renewable energy for electricity generation, now in its third decade, has resulted in major economic costs and unintended environmental consequences.  Even improved new generation renewable capacity is, on average, twice as expensive as new capacity from the most economical fossil-fuel alternative and triple the cost of surplus electricity.  Solar power for bulk generation is substantially more uneconomic than the average; biomass, hydroelectric power, and geothermal projects are less uneconomic.  Wind power is the closest to the double-triple rule.  The uncompetitiveness of renewable generation explains the emphasis pro-renewable energy lobbyists on both the state and federal levels put on quota requirements, as well as continued or expanded subsidies.  Yet every major renewable energy source has drawn criticism from leading environmental groups:  hydro for river habitat destruction, wind for avian mortality, solar for desert overdevelopment, biomass for air emissions, and geothermal for depletion and toxic discharges.

The 7 Keys To Trapping As Many Americans As Possible In Poverty.  You want to make as many Americans poor as possible?  Then start by... [#7] Ratcheting Up Their Expenses: [...] Have the Federal Reserve print money non-stop, which drives up inflation.  Over time, that reduces the purchasing power of the middle class as the cost of everything seems to creep up.  It's also important to go after cheap sources of energy like oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power.  Not only does that drive up the cost the middle class pays across the board for products, it also hits people directly when they heat and cool their homes.

Environmental Activist Visits North Dakota, Makes Things Up.  Winona LaDuke is a political activist who, among other things, is the head of Honor the Earth.  That's the principle opposition group to the Sandpiper pipeline which would from Tioga, North Dakota, through Minnesota and down to Wisconsin.  LaDuke is also something of a fabulist, writing an op/ed about a recent visit to Williston which might leave some thinking that she's living in an alternate version of reality.

Obama: Nihilist or Just Incompetent?  Obama once bragged of sky-high electricity costs to come — echoed by Steven Chu's dream of European-level gas prices.  Obama mocked "drill, baby, drill" and claimed it was no solution to the energy crisis, as he tabled Keystone and put millions of acres of federal lands de facto off the market for energy exploration.  He tried to "bankrupt" the coal industry.  The EPA became a rogue agency.  Almost all his crony-capitalist Solyndra-like projects failed.  And?  Gasoline and natural gas prices have plunged, thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling.

Famous British Actress Recites Bizarre Poem On TV: Fossil Fuel Workers Are Basically Nazis.  Award-winning actress Emma Thompson recited a bizarre poem for news cameras Wednesday warning [9/2/2015] of an apocalyptic world of "liquefied slaughter" and melting ice caps all thanks to greedy fossil fuel companies.  Attending a protest against Shell's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, Thompson indulged Sky News reporters with a poem written all by her lonesome, lamenting the immense selfishness of those using oil to fuel their cars and heat their homes.

Gov. Jerry Brown takes aim at oil companies over 'highly destructive' product.  Gov. Jerry Brown, who is in the middle of a political battle over climate-change legislation, took aim at oil companies Monday, saying they sell a "highly destructive" product.  "The oil industry is in deep trouble," the governor told reporters Monday at a news conference on the shores of Lake Tahoe, where he was attending an annual meeting about the area's environment.  Oil companies "have a product that is highly destructive, while highly valuable at the same time.  And we're trying to work out the right policies," he said.

The Editor says...
How do you suppose the governor got to Lake Tahoe?  Not by bicycle, one can surmise.  More likely by way of gas-guzzling limo or gas-guzzling jet.  Maybe both.

Obama Hatches A Vast, Left-Wing, Green Conspiracy.  California Gov. Jerry Brown rips oil companies for their "highly destructive product," while President Obama calls the Koch brothers un-American. [...] Obama apparently sees nothing wrong with burning 25,000 gallons of fuel jetting to Las Vegas to attend Sen. Harry Reid's conference to push uneconomical "green" alternatives to fossil fuels while demonizing those who disagree with him.  Par for the course. Obama has set a goal of slashing CO2 emissions 26% by 2025, proposing that alternative energy sources such as solar and wind will serve as replacements — a key part of his much broader plan to "fundamentally transform" America.  The problem, contrary to Brown's foolish remarks, is that fossil fuels are anything but "destructive."  They are in fact the very source of our industrial economy — and our high standard of living.

Environmental groups raise concerns over Florida's new hunt for oil.  Renewed hunts for oil in sensitive Florida ecosystems have environmental groups raising questions about the state's regulation of the oil and gas industry.

Environmentalist: Clean Power Plan Is 'A Great Start,' But 'I Think We Can Do More'.  First coal, then natural gas?  Apparently so.  A spokesman for the Environmental Defense Fund defended the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan on Wednesday [8/5/2015], saying the benefits of carbon-reduction are "important" and "real" — and hinting that they are just a start:  methane emissions from natural gas may be targeted next.  "I think we can do more," EDF's Jeremy Symons told CSPAN's morning call-in show.  "I think once we get on this path, we will find that we can do more faster.  But it's a great start."  Under the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, each state must decide how to rearrange their energy mix to achieve EPA-mandated, pollution-reduction targets.  Basically, the plan will force states to abandon coal as an energy source in favor of the wind and solar industries, which are not as cost-effective or desirable in a free market.

Which is worse, Obama's plan to shut down coal plants, or McConnell's 'plan' to fight it?  President Obama is about to release a plan to fight imaginary global warming by shutting down many coal fired power plants.  Coal fired power plants produce a lot of carbon dioxide, which is a key element in the imaginary theory that CO2 causes global warming.  I say imaginary because (1) there hasn't been any global warming in 18 years, (2) man-made CO2 accounts for only about 3% of global CO2, which is mostly natural, and (3) CO2 is a tiny percentage of the upper atmosphere, and is not present in enough volume to be substantially trapping heat.  But Obama's plan to shut power plants is very real.

Obama to Require Steeper Emissions Cuts From Power Plants.  President Barack Obama will impose even steeper cuts on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants than previously expected, senior administration officials said Sunday [8/2/2015], in what the president called the most significant step the U.S. has ever taken to fight global warming.

Protesters in Portland dangle from bridge in a bid to block Shell icebreaker.  Trying to delay Shell's Arctic icebreaker in Portland, 13 protesters are dangling from the St. Johns Bridge, spanning the Willamette River in North Portland.  The protesters rappelled from the bridge deck at about 2:30 a.m. [7/29/2015] as a group of about 50 kayakers looked on, said Michael Foster, a kayaker from Seattle and veteran of earlier protests against Shell that took place in Washington state.  Foster said the protesters are now suspended in hammocks and bivouacs, the same gear used for rock climbing.  The dangling activists have enough supplies to hang for two days and plan to re-supply, Foster said.

The problem with enviros.  When President Barack Obama recently approved Shell's request to drill in the Arctic, anti-fossil-fuel activists lobbied the Port of Seattle to deny docking rights to the oil giant's Alaska-bound rig.  That effort failed.  Then activists persuaded Washington State's King County to refuse the company a wastewater-discharge permit — an inconvenience that did nothing to stop Shell's progress.  Turning finally to old-fashioned protest, environmentalists in kayaks tried, unsuccessfully, to obstruct the rig en route to Alaska.  The Shell battle highlights a new tactic among environmental activists: Unhappy with policies made in Washington, they're trying to use local regulations to set national policy.

Court rules against Obama administration in EPA case.  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday [6/29/2015] that the Obama administration failed to consider costs when deciding to regulate mercury pollution from power plants.

The Difficulties Of Powering The Modern World With Renewables.  In 2013 renewables supplied the world with 21.7% of its electricity, according to BP.  Take out hydro and they supplied the world with only 5.3% of its electricity.  Then take out "other" renewables such as biomass and geothermal and the percentage falls to 3.3%.  Why take out hydro and "others"?  Because their growth potential is limited by resource availability — too few good hydro sites, too few high-temperature geothermal fields, not enough wood to make biomass pellets etc. — and for these reasons they may never make a significant contribution to future global energy needs.

WH Science Adviser: 'Cars, Trucks and Planes Are Going to Have to Run on Electricity, Biofuels or Hydrogen'.  John Holdren, President Barack Obama's top science and technology advisor, said at a White House summit on clean energy on Tuesday [6/16/2015] that a "global low-carbon economy" by the year 2050 means that "cars, trucks and planes" will be powered by "electricity, biofuels or hydrogen."  "As we all know, a global low-carbon economy in 2050 is going to have to meet the energy needs of 9 or 10 billion people using technologies that will have to be more advanced than the technologies that are in place today," he said.  "Buildings, agriculture, machines must be dramatically more energy-efficient."

The Editor says...
Utopia comes at a very high cost.  Why not just stick with what works?  The left's idea of utopia also includes complete government control of everything.

Canada: Never mind. We'll just ship our energy to China.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, back at home, the feds keep pounding on ExxonMobil for the biggest fines they can manage, yet another Democrat is taking a run at shutting down fracking through a misinterpretation of the Clean Water Act and our restrictions on exports have led to our companies saturating the market to the point where we're now laying off oil field workers.

Environmentalists Fight Huge Solar Plant On Behalf of 100 Sheep.  The Natural Resources Defense Council said it had "significant concerns" about the project.  So what are we talking about here?  A new CO2-spewing coal plant?  Something that runs on "extraordinarily dirty" oil from the Canadian tar sands?  Nope.  These environmentalist groups are celebrating the likely demise of a solar power plant slated to be built in the Mojave Desert.  Bechtel Corp. says its 350 megawatt Soda Mountain Solar Project would generate enough power to light 170,000 homes in California, and the site chosen is ideal because of its "excellent solar resources, its location in an existing utility corridor and due to the low density of sensitive plant and animal species."

Obama admin gives final OK to Md. natural gas facility; environmentalists sue.  The Obama administration on Thursday granted final approval to a $3.8 billion natural gas export facility in Calvert County, Maryland — the first gas export site on the East Coast — but environmentalists sued within hours to stop the project.  After an extensive review that spanned multiple federal agencies, the Energy Department gave the green light to the Cove Point liquefied natural gas terminal.  The move allows the project's operator, Virginia-based energy giant Dominion Resources Inc., to ship fuel to countries with which the U.S. does not have free trade agreements.  The site, expected to come online by late 2017, is now authorized to export up to 0.77 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas per day for the next 20 years.

Environmentalism and Envy.  Environmentalists hate dams.  Dams provide lakes, prevent floods, store water for future use, and generate electricity.  Some dams are engineering triumphs that are beautiful and magnificent symbols of human achievement.  What's to hate?  Dams improve upon nature.  But, that's the problem.  Dams, with all their benefits, mock the moral superiority that nature is supposed to have over the works of man.  Somehow the generation of CO2-free electricity by dams is not considered worthy.  The legal definition of renewable electricity in California specifically excludes electricity generated by big hydroelectric projects.  Similarly, the Kyoto treaty to prevent global warming does not give credit to CO2-free nuclear energy.  Logical consistency is not an environmental movement strong point.

Nevada's Caesar.  In the summer of 2007, Nevada Power, the state's utility monopoly, was ramping up plans to build a $5 billion coal plant in the rural community of Ely.  Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, coming down with the green fever that would animate him for the rest of his career, was not pleased.  The Ely Energy Center, Reid asserted to me during an August television interview, "will never be built."  A month later, Nevada Power CEO Michael Yackira came on the program and pushed back against Reid's anti-coal crusade.

Fossil Fuels Will Save the World (Really).  The environmental movement has advanced three arguments in recent years for giving up fossil fuels:  (1) that we will soon run out of them anyway; (2) that alternative sources of energy will price them out of the marketplace; and (3) that we cannot afford the climate consequences of burning them.  These days, not one of the three arguments is looking very healthy.  In fact, a more realistic assessment of our energy and environmental situation suggests that, for decades to come, we will continue to rely overwhelmingly on the fossil fuels that have contributed so dramatically to the world's prosperity and progress.

King Barry.  Obama is a lawless leader, choosing to rule by memorandum, regulation and executive order — he is not a president; he is a king. [...] The EPA is now putting the finishing touches on the plan to save the world from global warming by tripling Americans' electric bills and throttling business by raising the cost of energy.  Barry does not like coal and the EPA, ever obsequious to Barry's wants, wants to shut down all coal-powered electrical generation in America.  Coal-fired plants produce almost 40% of the nation's electricity, and Barry... er, I meant the EPA, wants to shut them down.  Not to worry, the plan is to replace all that electricity with... well, nothing.  (Fracking?  The same crowd has plans for that too.)

Obama's Keystone Veto Is a Victory for the Lunatic Left.  President Obama's veto of the Keystone XL pipeline is difficult to understand unless you are aware of the wider context, which is the Left's war on the energy infrastructure of the United States.  It isn't just Keystone.  The Left is working to block every piece of energy infrastructure of any consequence everywhere in the country, in the hopes that doing so will hobble the oil and gas industries and usher in a new age in which the American economy runs on solar panels and happy thoughts.

Udall Votes Against Special Interest Bill for Keystone Pipeline.  Today [1/29/2015], U.S. Senator Tom Udall voted against a bill mandating approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, saying it was an unprecedented act for Congress to require the administration to approve a pipeline for a private, foreign corporation.  The vote came shortly after Udall offered an amendment to create a national Renewable Electricity Standard, which would require utilities to generate 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025.  His amendment received bipartisan support from almost half the Senate, demonstrating significant support for a forward-looking energy policy.

The Editor says...
In an ostensibly free country, the government should not have the power to tell a company how to run its business.  In this case, an elected representative is proposing a law that would require electric utilities to generate a substantial portion of their product from "renewable sources."  If the government can do this, they could just as easily tell bakeries what to put in their bread, or require automobile manufacturers to build some fraction of their cars out of titanium.

Greens clueless on energy.  In short, if campaigners get their wish and fossil fuels are phased out by 2040, the world will face an energy gap of at least 9.2 billion tonnes of oil equivalent.  That is the equivalent of 147 countries with no energy.

Climate scientists beg governments to leave buried fossil fuel reserves in the ground.  Vast underground reserves of oil, gas and coal should be classified as off limits if the world stands any chance of averting dangerous climate change, a major study of global fossil-fuel deposits has found.  Scientists calculated that a third of global oil reserves, half of gas reserves and more than 80 percent of coal reserves should remain in the ground as "unburnable" to avoid exceeding the 2[°]C "safe" threshold for global warming.

The Editor says...
Apparently these propagandists have decided that any temperature increase greater than two degrees would make life unbearable, but a world without petroleum and coal would be wonderful.

The Pipeline and the Damage Done.  [Scroll down]  The point is the oil won't remain underground.  It will be extracted, turned into gasoline, and keep cars running all over the world.  That means blocking the pipeline, should the president decide to do that, will have no effect on greenhouse gases.  That appears to make little difference to the environmental movement.  It opposes fossil fuels and anything that facilitates their use, period.  There's another reason the green lobby has exerted enormous pressure to kill Keystone.  It's a power play.  If it works, the political clout of the movement will grow.

Schumer: Dems have enough votes to thwart Keystone oil pipeline.  Republicans fell just shy of the 60 votes needed to move the pipeline in the Democratic-controlled Senate last month.  Now, flush with a new majority in the Senate, they plan to try again to force approval of a 1,200 mile pipeline from Canadian oil sands to the Gulf coast.  Democrats, readjusting to their status in the minority, plan to try to slow it down or make it more palatable with amendments.  Schumer said Democrats were planning to try to add amendments to add "clean energy" jobs, require the oil be sold here instead of exported, and require use of US-made steel.

Schumer: Obama Should Veto Keystone Jobs Even if Dems Get Every Amendment We Want.  Speaking Sunday [1/4/2015] on Face the Nation, Schumer outlined many of the amendments that Democrats would be seeking but then added, "in conclusion, we will have enough votes to sustain a presidential veto."  Bob Schieffer, rightly puzzled, then asked, "So even if these amendments pass, you will still urge the president to veto this legislation?"  "Well yes," Schumer conceded.

The Editor says...
This is remarkable.  Senator Schumer wants to load the Keystone pipeline bill with pork-barrel amendments, probably paying back political favors in every direction, but even if all that is loaded onto the bill, he still hopes it doesn't become law.  Senator Schumer must really hate petroleum — or capitalism itself.

American economy stronger than Obama incompetence.  The recovery might be robust if Mr. Obama's policies had not hamstrung recovery every step of the way, especially in the energy sector, where the president has been particularly hostile to affordable energy.  With his monomaniacal effort to put coal mines out of business, his curbing exploration for oil and natural gas on federal lands, opposition to fracking, construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and expensive carbon-emissions regulations, Mr. Obama has been the obstructionist-in-chief to affordable energy.  He employed remarkable audacity — the unkind might say mendacity — to take credit for the plunge in the price of gasoline over the past year.

Cuomo Killed Lots Of Jobs By Pointlessly Banning Fracking.  New York state found that fracking would mean more than 50,000 jobs for eight economically depressed counties bordering Pennsylvania.  In banning it, Gov. Andrew Cuomo chose green over black gold. [...] Environmentalists and government have been fishing in vain for evidence of health hazards from fracking for many years, but to Cuomo no evidence equals "uncertainties," hence the ban.

Renewable Energy Will Never Work, But Can Nuclear?  I am not sure how low the true cost of electricity produced through nuclear energy could go, but I will say this:  if climate alarmists really believed the claims they make about global warming — I don't think they do — they would be agitating tirelessly for lightly-regulated nuclear energy.

Purity politics, Democrat-style.  On a rainy Monday morning, 50 sodden liberal activists stood on the muddy front lawn of the Capitol Hill home of Sen. Mary Landrieu, advocating for the Louisiana Democrat's defeat.  "This house is high and dry, but the coastlines of Louisiana are sinking, very much like Senator Landrieu's career!" Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, shouted into a microphone.  The activists behind him, who had inflated a model of an oil pipeline on the senator's lawn using a generator and a window fan, erupted in cheers of "Woo-hoo!" and "Yeah!"

DA drops charges in case of blocked coal shipment.  Two environmental activists, who had planned to use the necessity defense against charges of blocking a shipment of coal to a Massachusetts power plant, walked out of court this morning after prosecutors abruptly dropped all charges against them.  Ken Ward and Jay O'Hara planned to use the unusual defense — arguing that they were acting to prevent harm from global warming to the planet — in a trial slated to start today that would have featured high-profile witnesses, including NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen and environmental activist and author Bill McKibben.

Greens are the enemies of energy.  Here in America and elsewhere around the world, Greens continue to war against any energy other than the "renewable" kind, wind and solar, that is more costly and next to useless.  Only coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear keeps the modern and developing world functioning and growing.

Colorado Dems Frack Backtrack is all about November.  In April 2013, the Mora County Commission voted, 2 to 1, and passed the first-in-the-nation county-wide ban on all oil-and-gas drilling.  It was spearheaded by Commission Chairman John Olivas — an environmental activist.  Since then, two lawsuits have been filed against the little county because of the anti-drilling ordinance.  Olivas didn't just lose in the Democrat primary election, he was, according to the Albuquerque Journal, "soundly beaten" by George Trujillo — 59.8% to 34.2%.  Trujillo campaigned on a repeal of the ordinance and has said he is open to a limited amount of drilling in the eastern edge of the county.  Mora County's ban on all drilling for hydro-carbons, not just fracking, was incited by an out-of-state group:  the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which has also been active in Colorado.
[Emphasis added.]

Lawsuits seek to stop work at coal mines in 3 Western states until more reviews done.  Coal industry representatives say lawsuits against mines in three Western states could have consequences across the U.S. as environmentalists seek changes in how mining is approved on federally owned reserves.

Bill Cosby and wife support opponents of proposed Massachusetts pipeline.  Comedian Bill Cosby and his wife Camille are supporting protesters marching across Massachusetts in opposition to Kinder Morgan's proposed natural gas pipeline.  The couple, who own hundreds of acres of protected land in Shelburne Falls, about 100 miles west of Boston, have been opposed to the pipeline since the company notified them last winter of plans to survey their land.

Bill Cosby: Natural gas pipeline disrespects 'flora and fauna'.  Comedian Bill Cosby and his wife Camille are supporting protesters marching across Massachusetts in opposition to Kinder Morgan's proposed natural gas pipeline.

White House Vows to Veto 'Unreasonable' Bill to Expedite Cross-Border Pipelines.  The White House has threatened to veto a bill expected to pass the House this week that would remove any Keystone-like delays from pipeline projects that enter the U.S. from Canada or Mexico.  The North American Energy Infrastructure Act, authored by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), requires the secretary of Commerce, with respect to oil pipelines, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), with respect to natural gas pipelines, or the Secretary of Energy (DOE), with respect to electric transmission facilities, to approve a request for approval of construction, connection, operation, or maintenance unless it is not in U.S. national security interests.

Admit it, greens — renewables can't power U.S. economy.  Big Green activists have taken their crusade against hydraulic fracturing to a number of state capitols for the same reason they oppose the Keystone XL pipeline.  They want the fossil fuels that power the U.S. economy to remain in the ground, untapped.  The fact that the ongoing natural gas boom is doing far more through market forces to reduce the use of coal than any government regulation is apparently irrelevant to them.  But the question they must answer is precisely how they propose to keep the American economy functioning until green power can actually replace fossil fuels.  It is an important question, because renewable fuel cannot do the job — not even under the Obama administration's most optimistic projections.

Keystone Pipeline Is D.C.'s Dumbest Debate.  From the start, the fight about Keystone XL has been symbolic.  As captured by Ryan Lizza in his terrific September 2013 New Yorker article on the topic, Kate Gordon, a leader of the anti-Keystone movement explains, "The goal is as much about organizing young people around a thing.  But you have to have a thing."  The environmental community, reeling from the failure of cap and trade, needed a fight around which to coalesce.  Blocking approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, the "tipping point in the fight against climate change," became the rallying cry.

Barbarians at the Power Plant Gate.  Although it hasn't attracted much attention outside the business pages, Energy Future Holdings, the largest utility in Texas, is going through the biggest bankruptcy proceeding since the collapse of Chrysler five years ago.  The story does not bode well for the future of American utilities.  Instead it sheds light President Obama's bizarre notion that the nation can shut down coal plants and replace them with "energy from sun, wind and soil" without suffering the kind of brutal economic consequences now being experienced in Japan and German.

Carter-Obama Energy Policy: From Gasoline Lines to Pipeline Obstructionism.  In the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter's petroleum price and allocation regulations, premised on the belief that we were running out of supply, put America in the gasoline lines.  Thirty-five years later, depletion fears refuted, Carter champions a letter to President Obama urging rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline segment (the last of four legs) on easily refutable arguments, discussed [in this article].  And Obama obliged.

Horses, teepees arrive on Mall for Keystone protest.  The "Reject and Protect" protest is a weeklong event hosted by the Cowboy and Indian Alliance, a group of ranchers, farmers and leaders of seven Native American tribes.  Protesters said activists also plan to project anti-pipeline messages onto the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday night, hold an interfaith ceremony outside the Georgetown home of Secretary of State John Kerry and stage an unspecified "bold and creative" bit of civil disobedience.

Dems May Regret Steyer's Keystone Payoff.  After a lengthy study of the plans for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, the U.S. State Department issued an 11-volume report back in January confirming what most experts had already concluded long before then:  the vital project would not damage the environment or increase the rate of carbon pollution.  But liberal activists weren't happy and have used the 90-day automatic review process that followed that report to furiously lobby the administration to stop the construction of the 1,700-mile pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast refineries.  The key player in that effort was Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental extremist who has pledged to give $100 million to Democratic candidates who do his bidding.

Greens Are Reds.  The greens are, in short, against almost all forms of electric power, except those that are prohibitively expensive.  They are against oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, and hydro, which together account about 90 percent of our electric power production.  They want wind and solar energy, which produce about 3 percent of our electricity and aren't even green.  We'd have to pave over entire states and vast stretches of desert with solar panels to produce enough electricity to power our $18 trillion economy.

Former US president joins opposition to Keystone XL.  Former President Jimmy Carter joined fellow Nobel laureates Wednesday [4/16/2014] in opposing Keystone XL, insisting that approving the pipeline would trigger "more climate upheaval" around the globe.  In an open letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, Carter and the nine other Nobel Peace Prize winners bluntly warned the leaders:  "Your decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will define your climate legacy."  The missive, published as an advertisement in Politico, represents the first time Carter has taken a position on the $5.4 billion project and makes him the first former president to come out against the pipeline.

The Democratic Civil War Over Energy.  A split is growing in the Democratic Party, one that ought to rival the divisions on the right that the headlines trumpet.  Greens are increasingly bitter about President Obama — annoyed that he's dropped climate legislation, scaled back green subsidies, ignored fracking.  They've channeled their frustration into the fight against Keystone, warning that they'll turn their significant money and resources against Mr. Obama's party if the president approves more "dirty oil."  Since this president cares about nothing so much as winning elections, he's sat on the pipeline for five years.

Activists to Kerry: Keystone a 'bigger mistake' than Vietnam.  Academy Award-winning actor Jared Leto and 13 other young activists, including the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, are calling on Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline.  After speaking with top State Department officials on Thursday, the activists sent a letter to Kerry, digging deep into the secretary's past when he testified in Congress against the Vietnam War.

Pipeline protesters arrested at White House.  They chanted 'climate justice now' and carried signs with slogans such as 'don't tarnish the earth' in an effort to persuade President Barack Obama to reject the pipeline.

The Editor says...
What is "climate justice," and where is the evidence that someone has "tarnish[ed] the earth?"

The Sierra Club Hates Energy.  The Sierra Club doesn't want to see the U.S. benefit from coal, oil and natural gas.  It wants to see the landmass filled with solar farms and thousands of wind turbines that would not produce enough electricity to meet the needs of nation, let alone a major city.  Because they are unpredictable, all require the backup of traditional plants.  Nor does the Sierra Club make any mention of the Obama administration's war on coal that has forced 153 plants to shut down.  It's Environmental Protection Agency has proposed regulations that would require new plants to employ carbon capture and sequestration technology that is not commercially available!

Obama's basketball strategy on Keystone XL.  Affordable power dissolves liberal fantasies.  White House wise men insist on spending the public's money to promote retro power plants such as windmills, which went out of fashion with the Industrial Revolution.  Eliminating the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would take cheap crude from the oil sands of Canada down to the Gulf Coast of Texas, is nevertheless a liberal priority.

Report: Keystone Pipeline Will Not Worsen Climate Change.  The threat of environmental damage was a major hurdle to the pipeline's approval. [...] Anti-pipeline foes are now effectively out of excuses.  The pipeline has shown to be quite popular among Americans of both parties, and the environmental effects have been shown to be a non-issue.  The pipeline is expected to create upwards of 2,000 jobs.

Chris Hayes Takes on Obama's 'Addiction' to Oil: Just 'Say No'.  Following the release yesterday [1/31/2014] of the State Department report on the environmental impact of the Keystone XL Pipeline, MSNBC's Chris Hayes delivered a blistering rebuke of America's dependence on fossil fuels, likening President Barack Obama's apparent willingness to embrace the project to a drug addicts trapped in a "self-destructive cycle."

NYC Mayor Supports Moratorium on Fracking in NY — 'Too Much Danger'.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio weighed in on the hydraulic fracturing debate in his state during a press conference Thursday [1/23/2014] in Washington, D.C.  "The one thing I'm firm about is I don't see any place for fracking," de Blasio told reporters at the U.S. Conference of Mayors when CNSNews.com asked what his policy would be "as far as developing oil, natural gas and other traditional energy sources in the state."  "The science simply isn't reliable enough; the technology isn't reliable enough, and there's too much danger to our water supply, to our environment in general," de Blasio said.

Environmentalists Defend Pedophilia Advocate.  Environmentalists are rallying to the defense of an anti-fracking activist who has advocated pedophilia and incest after a Pennsylvania court barred her from entering any land owned or leased by a local oil company.  Cabot Oil and Gas won a temporary injunction this week prohibiting Vera Scroggins, director of the anti-fracking group Citizens for Clean Water, from setting foot on any portion of the 200,000 acres of land for which Cabot holds leases.

Fracking protestors glue themselves to wrong gas station.  The group thought they were attaching themselves to pumps at a gas station owned by a company called Total.  They were upset after the company announced they would invest millions in shale oil and fracking.  But there was a pretty big oops involved.  Station manager Reezwan Patel told The Bolton News in Ruston Lane UK, "Total don't own the station any more.  It is owned by Certas Energy, but the signs haven't changed yet."  "We had to close for six hours," Patel grumbled.

Emails Show Extensive Collaboration Between EPA, Environmentalist Orgs.  Internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emails show extensive collaboration between top agency officials and leading environmentalist groups, including overt efforts to coordinate messaging and pressure the fossil fuel industry.  The emails, obtained by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, could fuel an ongoing controversy over EPA policies that critics say are biased against traditional sources of energy.  Emails show EPA used official events to help environmentalist groups gather signatures for petitions on agency rulemaking, incorporated advance copies of letters drafted by those groups into official statements, and worked with environmentalists to publicly pressure executives of at least one energy company.

More Pipelines in the Pipeline.  Environmentalists continue to resist pipelines such as the Keystone XL, even though pipelines result in fewer spillage incidents and personal injuries, and in a substantial cost advantage, when compared to road and rail.

Court declines to block big oil pipeline.  A big pipeline carrying oil from tar sands crosses many states and is opposed by environmental groups that warn of potential dangers.  Sound familiar?  No, not Keystone XL.  It's the Flanagan South Pipeline, proposed to carry oil between Illinois and Oklahoma.  And in a new decision, a federal judge has declined the environmental groups' request to stop the project with a preliminary injunction.

Enemies of the people.  The process of developing coalbed methane in the area has been ongoing for many years now.  In 2004 a local entrepreneur with a background in coal started drilling for gas, and latterly another company had taken on the task.  Neither could make the process economic.  In 2011, however, the licence passed into the hands of Dart Energy, a coalbed methane specialist, who have found a way to extract the gas profitably. [...] But this plan reckoned without the intentions of the greens.  Despite an incident-free operations history, despite electricity having been generated without incident, despite Dart being a local business, putting money into the hands of local people, a major campaign was launched to try to prevent any further development of the site.

Disclaimer:
Unfortunately, akdart.com has no connection whatever to Dart Energy.

Gore: The Keystone XL pipeline is "ridiculous," an "atrocity," a "threat."  Self-titled "environmentalists'" recalcitrance on acknowledging the reality that Canada's oil sands are coming out of the ground — regardless of whether or not the Keystone pipeline's northern extension is built — truly knows no bounds.  It's only too bad they don't seem to realize that terrestrial pipelines are the relatively cleaner, safer, and more environmentally friendly method of transport for oil, natural gas, and petroleum products, and that by blocking the pipeline, they're probably doing more environmental harm than good in the long run.

Canadians Riot Against Fracking.  Dozens of anti-fracking protestors were arrested in Canada after throwing Molotov cocktails and torches into at least five police cruisers on Thursday [10/17/2013].  The demonstrators were rallying against a shale exploration project in New Brunswick, Canada, home to the Elsipogtog First Nation tribe, the National Post reported.  Many of the protestors were tribe members and New Brunswick locals.

EPA Foils Clean Fuel.  By slowing the conversion of vehicles to CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) fuel The Environmental Protection Agency is causing needless nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate, and mercury air pollution.  It might just as well be renamed the Environmental Destruction Agency.  The EPA has set up a system that adds thousands of dollars to the cost of converting a vehicle from gasoline or diesel oil to CNG, thus sapping a large proportion of the possible fuel cost savings (CNG costs about half as much at the pump) from those who are thinking of switching.

Target: Natural Gas.  The oil and gas fracking boom increased household disposable income by $1,200 last year as lower energy costs flowed to consumers, according to a new study from IHS Global Insight.  So Americans may want to know that President Obama's nominee to chair the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) thinks natural gas is a "dead end."  That nominee is Ron Binz, and in March 2013 he spoke at an Edison Foundation panel on utilities and green technologies.  To fight global warming, he argued, government must adopt a "new regulatory model, because that's where it's going to start."

Environmentalism: The Road To A Primitive Existence.  The environmental movement is remarkably backward.  It prefers to push back man's achievements in return for some vague environmental gain.  Today's environmentalists are arguably anti-energy.  As others have said, they see energy as a problem, not a solution.  Sure, they like taxpayer-funded energy.  But it is too expensive for the market, too undeveloped, too unreliable for practical use, and is harder to produce than the energy we easily get from fossil fuels.  We can't run a modern and growing economy on costly experimental energy.

Demoralize the anti-oil fringe.  It has become a familiar scene at major oil company annual meetings.  Protestors, some of whom have purchased token amounts of stock to appear, confound the proceedings by asking oil companies to exit their business in the name of the environment.  According to this fringe, oil companies have a responsibility to protect the planet from the scourge of fossil fuels.  Oil companies are portrayed as pushing their product while the planet overheats.  This black-and-white view of energy policy puts the global warming issue into a moral context.  It assumes everyone who believes in catastrophic climate-change theory is good, and those who don't are bad.  It also asserts that replacing fossil fuels will make the world better and "sustainable."

Why Environmental Professionals Hate All of the Above.  For many environmental leaders, "clean energy" is a moving target.  What was acceptable last year is no longer so, and the question is why.  In terms of carbon emissions, natural gas is twice as clean as coal.  That was once good enough to earn it lukewarm praise from many green supporters.  Now, with the U. S. Energy Department projecting that gas will be the fastest-growing global fuel source through 2040, environmental leaders have turned against it.  They now claim that hydraulic fracturing causes catastrophic damage to the earth, air, and water, and that natural gas was never that clean to begin with.  What's behind this change of heart?  Maybe it's the need to continue the struggle.

Barack Obama expresses reservations about Keystone XL pipeline project.  Barack Obama has given the strongest indication to date that he holds reservations about the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, saying the project would not create many jobs and could raise gasoline prices.  In an interview with the New York Times, the president disputed a main justification for the pipeline — its economic benefits — and reaffirmed he would reject the project if it expanded carbon pollution.

Oh, my: Green group suing the State Department over Keystone XL.  After President Obama's big climate-change environmentalist pander-fest in June, during which he contended that his administration will not be approving the Keystone XL pipeline unless they find that doing so "does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," his ambiguity understandably sent radical environmentalists into a slow-burning tailspin of panic and desperation.

Trains full of fracked N. Dakota oil are heading our way.  Each week, more and more mile-and-a-half long tanker trains filled with oil travel into the Pacific Northwest.  The sweet crude — sucked from deep under North Dakota — brings opportunity for business and jobs in the Lower Columbia region and stirs fears the river will become a fossil fuel highway.

Bias alert!
It stirs fears?  I guess the earth-worshiping hippies of the Pacific northwest are afraid of massive shipments of oil coming their way, if this article is to be believed, and that's a big if.  If the people of Washington state are so afraid of oil, let them pay $5 a gallon for gas, and send the oil south instead!

Think of the Keystone XL pipeline as an IQ test for greens.
Can Environmentalists Think?  The reason oil is moved on trains from places like North Dakota and Alberta is because there aren't enough pipelines to carry it.  The provincial governments of Alberta and New Brunswick are talking about building a pipeline to cover the 3,000-odd mile distance.  But last month President Obama put the future of the Keystone XL pipeline again in doubt, [...]

Al Gore says Obama must veto 'atrocity' of Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.  Al Gore has called on Barack Obama to veto the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, describing it as "an atrocity".  The former vice-president said in an interview on Friday that he hoped Obama would follow the example of British Columbia, which last week rejected a similar pipeline project, and shut down the Keystone XL.  "I certainly hope that he will veto that now that the Canadians have publicly concluded that it is not safe to take a pipeline across British Columbia to ports on the Pacific," he told the Guardian.

Green groups to Obama: Designate lands to stop drilling.  Environmental lobbyists are pressing President Obama to turn more western lands into national monuments to prevent oil-and-gas companies from drilling there.  The Sierra Club is leading the charge and is sweetening its message with political sugar, saying Obama could thereby help Democrats win House and Senate seats in midterm elections year.

Democrat Congressman: The Keystone Pipeline is Bad Because...  Democrat Raul Grijalva of Arizona thinks you'll be persuaded to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline because rocks [...] sink in water.  That's the sum and total of his argument. [...] We all fret around here about the low-information voter.  How about the low-information politician?

Idiot Dems in California trying to kill fracking despite massive potential for jobs and energy.  Estimates are that there's billions of barrels of oil in the Monterey Shale formation and accessing that could provide millions of jobs.  But Democrats are proposing everything from banning fracking to burdening it with heavy regulations.

California Dems push anti-fracking bills, aim to curb potential oil bonanza.  California is on the verge of a new gold rush.  Expanded hydraulic fracturing — or "fracking" — at the Monterey Shale formation is sparking estimates that 15 billion barrels of oil could be accessed, along with millions of jobs and huge contributions to the domestic energy supply.  Even the state's green-friendly Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, says "the potential is extraordinary."  But standing in the way is a flurry of anti-fracking bills.

Misguided Energy Policy: Alone, Enough to Cause American Failure.  Nowhere is the threat to America's future more clear, and more easily avoided, than in the energy sector.  Therein, fairytale fears about climate change have grown to the point that the U.S. is now on the verge of committing suicide by turning off many of its most important energy sources to appease loud, misinformed climate activists.

The President's Ruinous Energy Policy: Once More with Feeling.  [Scroll down]  The reality is that in the decades to come, America will need all the carbon-based fuel it can produce.  If the U.S. fails to develop adequate carbon fuels, its economy will decline, and it will be outpaced as a global superpower.  Those who endorse the fantasy of a carbon-free future are, in effect, promoting the destruction of America as well.  Unfortunately, our current president is one of these.

Keystone XL Opponents Hypocritically Talk Property Rights.  Opponents of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline are increasingly trumpeting private property rights as a reason people should oppose the pipeline.  Drawing upon small-government conservatives' wariness of the federal government abusing its eminent domain power, environmental activist groups are suddenly presenting themselves as champions of limited government and private property.

Activists threaten massive protests over Keystone XL.  Environmentalists opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline are pledging to turn up the heat on President Barack Obama by risking arrest through acts of civil disobedience at fundraisers, political meetings and federal agency offices.  The planned protests are designed to build political pressure as Obama nears a final decision on the project.  They illustrate the political challenge facing Obama, who risks alienating at least one key Democratic base — environmentalists or labor unions — no matter what he decides.

Relentless Liars: The Great Green Edifice is Crumbling.  The Greens regard anything that would provide energy for any reason to anyone as the enemy.  That is why "a panel of experts will discuss fossil fuel projects in our state, their impacts, and ways to reduce that pollution."  Fuel is not pollution.  Fuel is what we use to heat or cool our homes, drive our vehicles, provide electricity, and conduct the business of the nation.  The air and water in New Jersey is so clean we actually invite people to live here, start businesses here, and to visit as tourists to enjoy it.

Environmentalists Plan 50,000-Strong Rally Against Keystone XL.  Environmentalists, terrified that Barack Obama may abandon them and approve the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would transport heavy crude oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, are threatening a massive act of civil disobedience with 50,000 people willing to be arrested.

The Dream of a World Without Oil.  [Mark Z.] Jacobsen's article provides a thorough assessment of the future of WWS [wind, water and solar].  Unfortunately, rather than buttress his argument, his figures undermine the conclusion that we don't need fossil fuels.

Why Environmentalists Are Wrong on Keystone XL.  It may seem arbitrary, given the large number of oil and gas pipelines that already criss-cross the US, that this particular one has generated such a high profile debate around energy security and the environment.  But this debate isn't really about a pipeline.  This pipeline isn't going to make or break the development of Canada's oil sands, nor — as I will show here — is it going to make a measurable difference with respect to climate change.  The truth is that the Keystone XL pipeline is symbolic.

Environmentalists 'outraged' by federal Keystone XL report.  Environmentalists are angry that the Obama administration's report on the Keystone XL pipeline did not find significant negative effects on the environment. [...] The State Department's draft assessment of the pipeline found that the pipeline won't have a huge impact on climate change, because it won't substantially impact the development of tar sands oil or the amount of oil refined in the Gulf Coast region.

Celebrities seeking to block NY gas drilling may be violating state lobbying law.  Celebrities of music, stage and screen who are gaining attention for the effort to block New York from approving a method of gas drilling may soon be getting more attention than they bargained for — from state regulators.

A futile and stupid plan to "save the planet".  The Obama administration continues to drag its feet on approving the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport crude oil from Canada through the American Great Plains to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.  Environmentalists oppose the pipeline because they hate oil, which they claim causes "climate change."

Obama Possibly Trading Keystone for More Taxes?  Pretty much everyone, including all of the major labor unions, is geeked about the Keystone Pipeline, which would create jobs and improve the United State's energy independence.  But a bunch of hippies hate it, and the hippies vote, probably illegally in seven states, so Barack Obama is totally against it for right now, you guys.  The Earth, it matters so much more than rebuilding the American economy by providing needed jobs to skilled and unskilled laborers in states across middle America, and ending the vice grip that backwards Middle Eastern nations have on our energy consumption.

Domestic Oil Production At Record Level Despite Obama.  Earlier this month oil output hit its highest level in the U.S. since the summer of 1992.  That's good, but it could be better.  The Obama administration won't get out of the way.

Just the Fracks, Ma'am.  Natural gas is a cheap, abundant American resource, and cleaner than all of its viable alternatives to boot.  It would be hard for a reasonable person not to favor natural gas as a component of our national energy mix, but then anti-frackers like Josh Fox, Yoko Ono and their ilk put little value on being reasonable people.  They are the neo-Luddites resisting a modern energy revolution, standing between the people and the prosperity promised by affordable domestic energy.

Protesters march on National Mall, demand Obama stop Keystone XL pipeline.  Around 40,000 people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Sunday [2/17/2013] to give President Obama a clear message:  the Keystone XL pipeline isn't welcome here.  The four-hour event began at the Washington Monument, where politicians and leaders of various eco-groups gave motivational speeches to the crowd.

Global Warming Believers March in D.C..  [Scroll down]  The global warming movement has staked a lot on the Obama administration blocking the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring oil from the rich Canadian oil sands south to the petrochemical complexes of Texas.  The problem for Obama is that if the pipeline is blocked, the Canadians will surely build a pipeline to either their East or West coast in order to sell the oil into the world market.  So, oil that would have been sold directly into U.S. markets at a good (for us) price will, instead, be cycled through world markets and we will end up paying more for oil that is no longer exclusively ours.

Bipartisan senators to Obama: Come on with the Keystone pipeline already.  Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed off on TransCanada's revised route through his state earlier this week, effectively clearing what the Obama administration has cited as a major hurdle to green-lighting the entire Keystone XL pipeline.  Having already been through years of multiple State Department reviews, and with the southern portion of the project already under construction, it appears that bipartisan members Congress in fact can agree on at least one thing:  The administration's level of well-orchestrated stalling on this thing is starting to get downright ridiculous.

With decision looming, green groups press Obama to kill Keystone XL pipeline.  More than 70 green groups urged President Obama in a Monday [1/7/2013] letter to kill the Keystone XL pipeline to make good on promises to address climate change. [...] In their letter, the groups said Obama should speak out more often on climate change, impose emissions limits on existing coal-fired power plants and focus on creating clean-energy jobs.  They added the president also should shut down the proposed pipeline that would bring Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

Hollywood's Fractured Logic.  One of the most hilarious — if not tragic — events that we as Americans witness is when Hollywood attempts to "inform" the public about energy issues, which often takes the form of fanatical opposition to oil and natural gas development.  During a staged protest against the Keystone XL pipeline this past summer, for example, Daryl Hannah and Margot Kidder were arrested while voicing their disapproval of U.S. infrastructure development.

Keystone XL critics now calling for more indepth climate change study.  With President Obama poised to decide whether to allow construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline — based on a second, more environmentally-sensitive path — critics now appear focused on derailing the project over a climate change study.

Protestors call on Obama to reject Keystone XL pipeline.  Less than two weeks after Barack Obama won his re-election campaign, protesters gathered Sunday to call on the president and his administration to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and to act on climate change.

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

— Barack Obama,    
January 17, 2008.