Iran's IRGC races to offload unsold oil in China before Trump takes office.  Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is seeking to sell oil stored in China before US president-elect Donald Trump can block sales with tougher sanctions, an informed source told Iran International.  Iranian authorities have instructed the IRGC to sell the sanctioned oil stored at Dalian Port in northeast China through intermediary firms, the source speaking on condition of anonymity said.  "The directive stems from concerns that a return of Donald Trump to power and the reimposition of his 'maximum pressure' policy might freeze access to these reserves, estimated to be worth around $1 billion," the source said.  "The sale of these reserves is reportedly being facilitated through financial guarantees provided by Iranian companies operating in China."

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.

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.

No one should believe economists — they are apologists for bad policies.  The following is a detail from Yahoo Finance, showing what crude oil prices did from just before the 2020 election, through the time Putin invaded.  November 1, 2020, before the election, crude oil closed at $37.14. The greedy oil companies and Trump somehow kept oil prices low throughout his first four years.  Then, Biden was declared the winner, and traders took Biden's campaign promises seriously and pushed the price up over 40% before he took office — January 17, 2021, the price was $52.17.  After one year of Biden, the price was up over 100%:  on November 7, 2021, oil closed at $80.21.  Before Putin invaded, it was up around 120%, reaching $86.82 on January 23, 2022.  It is pathetic that the media and economists refuse to blame Biden for the rapid rise in oil prices and overall inflation in the U.S. and around the world, when the facts don't support that narrative at all.

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.

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.

It's Not the Fed That's Causing Inflation.  In their first week in January 2021, Joe and Kamala cut off every source of oil within their jurisdiction.  In the very next month, three things happened: our domestic production of oil plunged from 13.1 million barrels per day to 9.7, oil prices doubled from $55 to $110 per barrel, and the monthly inflation rate leaped from 1.4 percent to 9.6 percent.  The red-herring inflation chart they offer shows inflation peaking six months later, which distracts from the fact that their action was the sole cause of inflation.  It is a "trailing average" chart.  It takes the 9.6-percent monthly rate and averages it with the previous 11 months, which averaged 1.8 percent, and so on.  Thus, the peak of inflation appears to happen six months after it actually peaked.  A monthly chart would show the truth: that the reduction of oil supply was the direct cause of inflation.

Here's How One Biden-Appointed Judge's Ruling Could Bring Drilling In Gulf Of Mexico To A Halt.  A single ruling from a judge appointed by President Joe Biden may end up halting oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in December.  Judge Deborah Boardman, the Biden-appointed district judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, sided with suing environmentalists in August to vacate a key National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) environmental review — known as a biological opinion — underlying offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  Unless the federal government manages to revise the biological opinion by Dec. 20, and barring intervention from a higher court or the Congress, the ruling could force offshore oil and gas drilling to grind to a halt as developers decide whether to proceed at their own risk or shut down their operations until a new review is issued, according to multiple energy sector experts and stakeholders.

Report: Biden Has Taken Over 200 Actions Against US Oil.  President Joe Biden and his administration have taken over 200 actions against the U.S. oil and natural gas industry as energy prices have gone up, according to a new report.  "President Biden and Democrats have a plan for American energy:  make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase," the Institute for Energy Research states in a new report.  "Since Mr. Biden took office, his administration and its allies have taken over 200 actions deliberately designed to make it harder to produce energy here in America."  The analysis highlights actions Biden took on his first day in office, listing them chronologically through March of this year.  The first act was canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, issuing a moratorium on all oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and revoking Trump administration executive orders that decreased regulations in order to expand domestic production.

Energy is not Joe Biden's strong suit.  [Joe] Biden thought he would be able to stick it to Trump's energy decision to drill, drill, drill.  Curtailing drilling for oil not only caused the loss of good-paying jobs, crippling towns where the workers lived, and became the genesis of our inflation, but also returned America to being energy-dependent on our adversaries.  Apparently, what Biden knows about the oil business could be put in a thimble.  He just does not have a "slant" on "dirty" energy technology.  He even stopped completion of the Keystone Pipeline, choking delivery of tar sand oil from Canada.  Meanwhile, oil industry folks decided to improve their ability to get more oil from their current wells, so America is now back to producing more oil than we can drink.  While all this was occurring, Biden drew upon stored oil to keep the price of gasoline from going to $10.00/gallon, and now he is replacing these strategic reserves, stored in case of war, at higher prices.

Shell Pulls Tankers from Red Sea Passage amid Houthi Rocket Attacks.  The oil company Shell plans to suspend tanker shipments through the Red Sea as repeated Houthi attacks on cargo ships have destabilized the vital transit route.  The Iranian-backed Houthi militia began striking shipping containers following the Hamas invasion of Israel in early October as a means of putting pressure on the international coalition supporting the Jewish State in its ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.  Shell's move, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, brings the gas giant in line with other major suppliers, including British Petroleum (BP) and Qatar Energy, which both recently opted to avoid the region altogether.  About 12 percent of the world's oil, crude and refined, travels through the Red Sea via the Suez Canal in Egypt.

There's Only So Much Joe Biden Can Do To Kill Oil And Gas.  One of the frequent boasts then-candidate Joe Biden made during his 2020 run for the presidency was that his administration would mount a frontal assault on the domestic oil and gas business, outlaw hydraulic fracturing and put policies in place that would assure the industry was out of business within a decade.  The President and his energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, made a habit of repeating that gone-within-a-decade promise throughout 2021 and 2022 as they aggressively worked to cement their Green New Deal agenda into place.  Funny thing, though:  A number of months have passed since we heard either Biden or Granholm repeat that pledge.  In fact, I was unable to find a single instance of either making the statement in 2023 at all.  Granholm had a prime opportunity to do that when she participated in a December 12 meeting of the National Petroleum Council, a DOE advisory committee made up largely of oil executives that serves at her pleasure.  But rather than go there one more time, the Secretary talked about her belief that the industry has a "trust gap" with the public related to climate issues, and urged the executives to do more to rein in their emissions.

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.

Alarm on Energy.  Fifty years ago, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, the Arab members of OPEC initiated an oil embargo against the United States.  The boycott was retribution for America's support of Israel during its brief war against Egypt and Syria.  What was true in 1973 remains true in the wake of Hamas's brutal terror attack on Israel on October 7: America's national strength depends on the availability of cheap, abundant, reliable energy.  Our national security, and that of our allies, depends on energy security.  Energy is the economy.  We forget these realities at our extreme peril.  Fortunately, some things that were true a half-century ago are no longer so.  Over the past decade or so, the geopolitics of energy have shifted dramatically in favor of the U.S., due mainly to the shale revolution.  Instead of relying on oil imports, the U.S. has become a huge exporter of both oil and natural gas.

Federal Judge Delivers Blow To Biden Admin's Efforts To Restrict Offshore Oil And Gas Drilling.  A federal judge on Thursday issued a setback to the Biden administration's efforts to crack down on oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  U.S. District Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction against the Department of the Interior's (DOI) move to reduce the area of an offshore oil lease in the Gulf by about 6 million acres and essentially impose restrictive protections for the Rice's whale in the region.  The injunction asserts that DOI and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) implemented the challenged actions in a way that was procedurally invalid, and that DOI's decision to do so was both arbitrary and capricious.

Biden admin unleashes 50-year mining, oil drilling ban across thousands of acres in New Mexico.  The Biden administration proposed to block of thousands of acres from future oil drilling or mining in northern New Mexico in an effort to protect Native American lands.  According to the Department of the Interior (DOI), the proposal would ban new mining claims and oil and gas development across more than 4,200 acres in Sandoval County, New Mexico, located north of Albuquerque.  If finalized and implemented, the action would remain in place for up to 50 years.  "Today we're responding to call from Tribes, elected leaders, and community members who want to see these public lands protected," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.  "We look forward to hearing more from the public to inform decisions about how activities, like gravel mining, may impact these lands, including the important cultural and natural resources."

Oil spikes above $91 on supply concerns.  The price of oil continues to rise as Wall Street traders eye a potential supply deficit after Saudi Arabia and Russia extended supply cuts.  Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices have climbed for three straight weeks to reach their highest peak since November and are now targeting their biggest quarterly jumps since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the first quarter of 2022.  That year, oil prices shot above $100 for the first time since 2014 amid the conflict as demand recovered from COVID-19 lockdowns.  Meanwhile, the global benchmark Brent Crude ended 2022 near $86 a barrel on fears of global recession.

What the Left Did to Our Country.  Biden warred on fossil fuels, cancelling federal leases and pipelines, jawboning lending agencies to defund fracking, demonizing state-of-the-art, clean-burning cars, and putting vast areas of oil- and gas-rich federals lands off-limits to drilling.  When gas prices predictably doubled under Biden and the 2022 midterms approached, he tried temporarily to lease out a few new fields, to drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and to beg the Saudis, and our enemies, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and the Russians, to pump more oil and gas that Biden himself would not.  All this was a pathetic ruse to temporarily lower gas prices before the mid-term elections.

A tanker believed to hold sanctioned Iran oil starts offloading near Texas despite Tehran's threats.  An oil tanker long suspected of carrying sanctioned Iranian crude oil offloaded its cargo near Texas on Sunday, tracking data showed, even as Tehran has threatened to target shipping in the Persian Gulf over it.  Ship-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed the Marshall Islands-flagged Suez Rajan began the hours-long ship-to-ship transfer of its oil to another tanker, the MR Euphrates, near Galveston, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) southeast of Houston.

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.

The gas is high.  It's hot here and some countries are cutting back on production.  The heat is the heat and I've lived plenty of it in Texas.  In fact, I remember when our second son was baptized back in 1988 that it was 108 around here.  That holy water must have felt great on that baby's head.  I remember 1980 when we had a whole 30 days of 100-plus temperatures.  What I don't remember was gasoline going up.  So what's the other reason?  Countries cutting back production.  Of course, why is that even an issue when Texas and Alaska could take care of our energy needs?  Why are we suddenly depending on countries for one drop of oil?  The answer is the Biden administration listening to the climate-change fanatics who want to attack the problem by having American families paying more for energy.

Biden's balk at energy independence.  The ups and downs of energy prices have been mostly up over the last 2½ years.  And that's no accident.  Americans are paying dearly for the fuel that drives the modern world, thanks to President Biden's meddling in domestic oil production.  The characteristic sawtooth pattern of oil prices on the global market has taken a steeper upward jag lately, climbing more than $10 a barrel since Saudi-led OPEC curtailed production by 1 million barrels a day this month.  Subsequently, U.S. drivers have been greeted by gasoline prices that, on average nationally, have risen 6 cents a gallon in a month.  On the local level, overnight spikes of 25 cents are not unusual.

Alaska's Budget Problems Are A Cautionary Tale For Texas.  What would happen to Texas if it's the Biden administration's ongoing efforts to restrict its oil and gas industry were to succeed?  What would happen to the state's budget and economy if, say, the proposed endangered species listing of the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard or Environmental Protection Agency's threat to hold the entire Permian Basin in violation of ozone standards had the impact of cutting production of oil and gas in half?  What has been happening in Alaska in recent years could provide a real-world example.  Biden's anti-energy policies have played a big role in leaving that state with a big budget hole, and some proposals to address the problem could place the state on a path to a California-like high-tax, slow-growth economy.

We should all give Biden great credit for what he has achieved in office.  We should be giving Biden credit for energy and spending policies that caused inflation to skyrocket from under 2%, despite COVID to over 9% or 4% in May.  Oil is still around $70 per barrel, or up around 75% from when Biden was elected.  I am sure people on fixed income, the poor, and middle class are extremely happy that food and energy prices have leveled off at such a high level.  When Biden was running for office, he repeatedly said he was going to destroy the oil and coal industry:  "I would transition away from the oil industry, yes," Biden said.  As soon as Biden took office, he dictatorially halted oil and gas leases on US land and water.  Biden also dictatorially cancelled the permit for the Keystone pipeline the day he took office. [...] As a result of Biden's anti-domestic oil policies, the price of oil skyrocketed from around $40 per barrel the day Biden was elected to $84 per barrel in October 2021, less than a year later, which was long before Russia attacked Ukraine.  When the price of oil inflates by over 110% in one year, it causes overall inflation to also go up rapidly, because energy prices affect everything.  It is a simple concept.  Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran benefit greatly when the U.S decides it no longer wants to be a major oil market competitor.

Native Americans block Interior Sec.  Haaland from entering event celebrating oil ban.  Biden administration officials were forced to temporarily postpone and relocate a weekend event to celebrate a ban on New Mexico fossil fuel development, after Native Americans blocked an access road and told officials to "go home" and stop "trespassing."  Navajo Nation group shut down the entrance of Chaco Culture National Historical Park on Sunday to prevent Interior Secretary Deb Haaland from leading the event celebrating a newly-enacted, 20-year ban on oil leasing, covering hundreds of square miles of New Mexico land.  The event was moved to a nearby location where Haaland said what had transpired was "less than ideal."  The ban — implemented June 2 — ends natural gas leasing within 10 miles of Chaco Canyon's World Heritage site, a move landowners were adamantly against, arguing that doing so negatively impacts them and surrounding low-income communities who benefit from the leasing.

Biden admin issues 20-year oil drilling ban near Indigenous site, ignoring pleas from Native Americans.  The Biden administration is moving forward with a 20-year ban on new oil and gas leasing near an Indigenous cultural site in New Mexico despite stark opposition from Native Americans in the region.  Interior Secretary Deb Haaland finalized the action Friday which bans fossil fuel and mineral leasing within a 10-mile buffer zone around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico.  The ban ultimately amounts to a withdrawal of approximately 336,404 acres of public lands from mineral leasing near the site some Native Americans consider sacred.  "Today marks an important step in fulfilling President Biden's commitments to Indian Country by protecting Chaco Canyon, a sacred place that holds deep meaning for the Indigenous peoples whose ancestors have called this place home since time immemorial," Haaland said in a statement.

'I Can Tell You Who It Wasn't': Trump Hints That US Blew Up Nord Stream Pipeline.  Former President Donald Trump appeared to hint that the United States was responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline during an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.  "I don't want to get our country in trouble so I won't answer it, but I can tell you who it wasn't, it wasn't Russia," Trump told Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller News Foundation, in an exchange that aired Wednesday [4/12/2023].  "How about when they blamed Russia — they said Russia blew up their own pipeline.  You got a kick out of that one too.  It wasn't Russia."

UN: Why would we investigate the Nord Stream blasts?  The mystery of the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines continues to generate controversy months after the fact.  Last week the Russians asked the United Nations Security Council to investigate the blasts as an act of war.  Yesterday the council held a vote and declined to conduct such an investigation.  The only members voting in favor of the resolution were China, Brazil, and, of course, Russia.  Everyone else either abstained or voted no.  Some of the members voting against the resolution actually offered a fairly good reason.  There is already an investigation underway and it would be premature to jump into the middle of it before we know the results.  But this definitely handed some additional ammunition to Moscow which continues to claim that it had nothing to do with it.

Willow Creek Oil Project.  It would be difficult to find another oil field approval on public land since Biden came to office.  Biden's earlier statements about ending our dependence on fossil fuels without regard for Americans going cold this winter; making electricity less and less affordable for the everyday citizen; and seizing the freedom a personal vehicle brings all show he believes such suffering will make us more pliable as the only alternatives are those that fold into his "green" energy agenda.  So why has the Willow Creek project just been approved?  Look no further than the imminent announcement of Biden's reelection.  His overlords use Clinton's famous triangulation tactic to win support from people who would otherwise not consider voting for him in 2024 and are not aligned with his climate politics.

Connecting the dots on Nordstream sabotage and China's sudden emergence as a Middle East peace broker.  The shocking announcement that China had brought together bitter rivals Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia to resume diplomatic relations in a deal negotiated in Beijing is a stunning defeat for America, threatening the basis of our Middle Eastern and world diplomatic power.  If, as it appears, Saudi Arabia is no longer a reliable ally that can be counted upon to keep the Armageddon-mongering mullahs in Iran at bay while warming up to Israel, then the entire power calculus of the Middle East is shattered.  At a minimum, American prestige and perceptions of our power have dramatically crashed, though our propaganda media are doing their best to prevent the domestic public from understanding this.

Alaska prepares for Biden to deny Willow project: This is 'the end of oil in America'.  As Alaska labor and political leaders plead with President Biden to approve America's largest pending oil and gas project in his final deciding moments, the state's governor revealed he's expecting the White House to turn it down.  "We're preparing for them to deny this," Gov. Mike Dunleavy said on "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" Tuesday. "And it's sad to say that, but their idea of a compromise, apparently, is to allow only two drilling pads for this oil play called Willow, about 180,000 barrels per day at peak, instead of the three or more that really the investors, ConocoPhillips, need to have to make this thing work for everybody."  The Willow project — currently the largest pending oil and gas plan in the U.S. — is a proposal by ConocoPhillips to develop energy resources in a small portion of what's known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on Alaska's North Slope.

Did Biden Seal a 'Clandestine' Saudi Oil Deal to Manipulate Prices Ahead of the Midterms?  Back in July, a seemingly desperate President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia on a high-stakes trip where he met the Saudi Royal family, including the controversial Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  The president took a lot of heat for the trip for several reasons, including his scheduled meetup with the crown prince, who had previously signed off on the murder of WaPo journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  Biden was also criticized for appearing to use the trip to request help from a foreign nation on the oil production front, though the White House denied that was the case.  However, in a bombshell revelation this week, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who will soon lead the powerful House Oversight and Reform Committee, announced that his committee will investigate what he believes to be a "secret deal" with Saudi Arabia regarding increasing OPEC+ oil production to manipulate the U.S. energy market ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Wyoming Sues Biden Administration, Alleges Suspensions of Oil Lease Sales [are] Illegal.  The State of Wyoming filed a second lawsuit against the Biden Administration, alleging that its suspension of oil lease sales were illegal.  Gov. Mark Gordon (R-Wyom.) announced that his state filed the lawsuit against the Interior Department for the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) decision to halt oil and gas lease sales in the state.  "This litigation is timely and vital to the interests of Wyoming citizens," said Gordon in a statement.  "Beyond that, Wyoming's energy resources can help power the nation and bring down costs at the pump.  BLM's decision to cancel lease sales sure seems to be a violation of both the letter and the spirit of the law.  "I firmly believe the pause in lease sales was politically driven and not based in law or fact," the governor continued.

If You Really Wanted to Destroy the U.S., Then...  First, you would surrender our prior energy independence.  Reduce new gas and oil leases on federal lands to the lowest levels of any president in history.  Cut back production at precisely the time the world is emerging from a two-year lockdown with pent-up consumer demand.  Make war on coal and nuclear power.  Drain the strategic petroleum reserve to make the pain for consumers more bearable for midterm election advantage.  Cancel the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas field.  Block pipelines like the Keystone oil pipeline and the Constitution natural gas line.  Overregulate and demonize frackers and horizontal drillers.  Ensure there is less investment in their exploration and production.  Making use of internal combustible engines or fossil fuel power generation is prohibitively expensive.  Achieve a green oil dependency along the lines of contemporary Europe.

Biden Admin Authorizes Chevron to Resume Oil Pumping in Venezuela.  The Biden administration authorized on Nov. 26 Chevron Corp.'s joint venture to resume oil pumping in Venezuela.  "The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued Venezuela General License (GL) 41, authorizing Chevron Corporation to resume limited natural resource extraction operations in Venezuela," the Treasury Department said in a statement.  The goal of the authorization is to "alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan people and support the restoration of democracy," according to the statement.  The Biden administration's decision comes after the Nicolas Maduro regime and opposition political alliance Unitary Platform resumed talks in Mexico City.  This was the first negotiation between the two parties since October 2021.

So Biden's letting Venezuela, but not the U.S., pump oil.  Energy prices, even though they have come down a bit, are still sky-high, whether it's heating fuel, gas-powered appliances, electricity, diesel, or the price for a fill-up at the pump.  Over here in San Diego, I saw gas at one station going for $4.99 a gallon, and everyone marveled at how "low" that price was.  We had been paying $5, $6, and $7 in the last six months.  Joe Biden knows this is a problem now that he's lost the House.  He actually thinks that inflation comes from oil rather than monetary printing presses turned up to 11 for government boondoggles, and he's emptied our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to add supply to the market so that gasoline prices will come down for a spell.  That's a solution that will last only so long as the SPR does.  Now he has given Venezuela the green light to pump oil in its partnership with Chevron.

Biden eases sanctions on Venezuela.  The good news is that the Biden administration is finally doing something about the Biden energy crisis, encouraging more oil drilling.  The bad news is that the drilling will be taking place in Venezuela, not the United States.  We saw some hints of this last month, but now it's apparently official.  Yesterday, in an effort to cut a deal with one of the worst socialist tyrants on the planet, Joe Biden lifted some of the sanctions on Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan oil giant PDVSA.  The eased sanctions will allow for additional oil to flow from Venezuela and be exported to a world that is currently running out of energy at an alarming pace.  So I assume that all of that unpleasantness over the past eight years or more is just in the rearview mirror now?  Stand by for a few reminders of just who it is that we're doing business with.

Biden Eases Venezuela Sanctions as Opposition Talks Resume.  The Biden administration Saturday eased some oil sanctions on Venezuela in an effort to support newly restarted negotiations between President Nicolás Maduro's government and its opposition.  The Treasury Department is allowing Chevron to resume "limited" energy production in Venezuela after years of sanctions that have dramatically curtailed oil and gas profits that have flowed to Maduro's government.  Earlier this year the Treasury Department again allowed the California-based Chevron and other U.S. companies to perform basic upkeep of wells it operates jointly with state-run oil giant PDVSA.  Under the new policy, profits from the sale of energy would be directed to paying down debt owed to Chevron, rather than providing profits to PDVSA.

Biden Eases Sanctions on Communist Venezuelan Govt.  Biden's administration yesterday authorized Chevron to begin drilling in Venezuela again, easing Trump-era sanctions and giving an economic lifeline to the tyrannical Maduro government who has brought the South American country to absolute economic ruin.  It's illegal in Venezuela to publish the actual currency conversion rates.  Most of the country's economy is now transacted illegally in U.S. dollars.  The sanctions preventing the development of oil reserves in the country were from 2019 when President Trump sanctioned the country for engaging in widespread voter fraud.  The 2020 elections in Venezuela lacked "any credibility", according to the US State Dept. at the time.  Part of Maduro's election-related crimes were creating false charges against political opponents and rounding up opposition leaders and jailing them.  The elections in Venezuela were conducted and overseen by Smartmatic until 2018. Smartmatic later said that the government had the ability to change the results on its systems if it so choosed [sic].  Communist tyrant Nicholas Maduro denounced all election deniers as insurrectionists and seditionists.

Biden Admin Quietly Greenlights Plan to Build Huge Gulf Oil Terminal.  The Biden administration has quietly approved plans to build a new crude oil terminal in the Gulf of Mexico off Texas, seemingly in contradiction to the president's climate agenda.  The Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration approved the application for Enterprise's Sea Port Oil Terminal, one of four proposed offshore oil export terminals, on Monday.  According to the application, the port will be located offshore of Freeport, Texas.  It will have 4.8 million barrels of storage capacity and add 2 million barrels per day to the U.S. oil export capacity.  In its 94-page decision, the Maritime Administration said that it had approved the application because the construction and operation of the port is "in the national interest and consistent with other policy goals and objectives."

Joe Biden Complains Oil Companies 'Should Be Drilling More' After Vowing to End Fossil Fuels.  President Joe Biden complained that oil companies were not drilling enough for oil, despite his long history of trying to block oil and gas production in the United States.  "We haven't slowed them down at all, they should be drilling more than they're doing now," Biden said.  "If they were drilling more we'd have more relief at the pump."  The president spoke about high gas prices during a trip to New Mexico to campaign for Democrat candidates.  Biden, however, has acted several times during his first two years in office to lower the production of oil and gasoline in the United States.

How Joe Biden Spits on Sound Economic Theory.  The powers that be in Washington, D.C. created the Department of Energy [in 1977] in response to all the fear created when OPEC nations cut oil production. [...] It's interesting to note that until 1977, the United States relied on the private sector to deal with energy.  The question is, has the department of energy done anything about the so-called energy crisis since its inception?  We still seem to be in one crisis or another since 1977.  Up until the Department of Energy was created, the private sector seemed to do a better job of managing itself in the free market.  That should come as no surprise to those who adhere to a free-market economy.

Biden's failed secret deal with the Saudis.  Joe Biden, or at least Real President™ Ron Klain, thought they had a cut a deal with the Saudis that would save the Democrats' bacon in the midterms.  Now they are fuming that their conspiracy failed.  So says The New York Times in a bombshell story that were it about Donald Trump would lead to an impeachment.  But because we are talking about a Democrat the story will only cause the Establishment™ to shake their heads in embarrassment over the incompetence of this particular White House.  They tried to defraud the American people — all well and good — but failure is difficult to forgive.  Because they failed, Congress is likely gone.

America's suicidal energy policy has very real costs.  Last week, Saudi Arabia announced, in conjunction with OPEC+, that it would be cutting oil production in the face of dropping prices.  That decision came in spite of the Biden White House's lobbying in favor of increased production, which included a sycophantic visit by President Joe Biden to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  In response to the Saudi announcement, the White House quickly announced that the United States would be reevaluating its relationship with the Kingdom.  Meanwhile, the White House announced that it would be "preparing to scale down sanctions" on Venezuela's tyrannical regime, according to The Wall Street Journal.  The goal: increased oil production from the Marxist dictatorship via loosened restrictions on pumping for Chevron.  The White House continues to keep channels open with the Iranian mullahs as well, soliciting concessions from the same regime that shoots women in the streets for failing to properly wear Islamic head coverings.

Joe Biden Plays the Old Ugly American.  The Left used to accuse imperialist, resource-hungry Yanquis in Washington of cutting selfish deals with illiberal dictatorships in Latin America to grab their natural resources.  How odd then that Joe Biden is now begging the despicable Maduro regime in Venezuela — corrupt, murderous, and anti-American — to produce more of its oil solely to send northward to America.  Biden is quite willing to ease sanctions and condone the human rights abuses of Maduro — if his dictatorship will just open its oil spigots before the November midterm elections.

Saudi Arabia Condemns Biden Insults, Rejects Halting Oil Production Slash Until After Midterms.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia issued an outraged statement Thursday condemning the White House, without naming any official in particular, for claiming that Riyadh supported an OPEC+ decision to cut oil production by two million barrels a day because it had decided to side with Russia in the ongoing Ukraine war.  The extensive statement also mentioned rumors, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, that the leftist administration of President Joe Biden had attempted to convince Saudi officials to delay any oil production cut until after the midterm elections.  While the Foreign Affairs Ministry neither confirmed nor denied that American diplomats had made the request, it rejected the idea as potentially having "negative economic consequences."

It Sure Looks Like Joe Biden Is Trying to Blackmail Saudi Arabia to Interfere in the 2022 Election.  If you were alive during the Trump era, there was one phrase you probably grew tired of hearing: Quid pro quo.  For months on end, non-stop "quid pro quo" coverage dominated the news as Trump was accused of holding up military aid to Ukraine in order to secure an investigation into Hunter Biden's corruption in the country.  Eventually, that led to one of the more farcical impeachments in history, with no actual direct evidence of Trump being involved in said "quid pro quo."  I bring good news, though:  Quid pro quos are good again.  Well, at least if you are Joe Biden because it sure looks like he is trying to enact one in order to save the Democratic Party from excess pain in November.  According to Saudi Arabia, the president is attempting to get to the Kingdom to postpone a cut in oil production by a month, conveniently putting it off until after the mid-term elections.

Report: Biden Tried to Persuade Saudis to Delay Production Cut.  The obvious way to "fight OPEC's control of the energy market" is by producing all the oil and gas we can.  It was obvious to Donald Trump, anyway.  It is hard to believe that Biden and his advisers are actually this dim.  Instead of responding rationally by maximizing our own production, the Biden administration wants to "punish" Saudi Arabia.

America's Suicidal Energy Policy Has Very Real Costs.  Last week, Saudi Arabia announced, in conjunction with OPEC+, that it would be cutting oil production in the face of dropping prices.  That decision came in spite of the Biden White House's lobbying in favor of increased production, which included a sycophantic visit by President Joe Biden to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  In response to the Saudi announcement, the White House quickly announced that the United States would be reevaluating its relationship with the Kingdom.  Meanwhile, the White House announced that it would be "preparing to scale down sanctions" on Venezuela's tyrannical regime, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipelines?  On September 26, 2022, seismologists in Denmark and Sweden recorded underwater seismic activity in the Baltic Sea between 2.1 and 2.3 on the Richter scale, equivalent to an explosion of several hundred pounds of TNT.  After investigations, authorities in both countries determined that there had been apparent efforts to sabotage the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.  Both lines of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and one line of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, yet to be commissioned, were impacted. [...] As every fan of detective stories knows, determining the means and motive of suspects is the key to solving a mystery.  Given the geopolitical nature of this issue, it seems that there are four likely suspects: Russia, the European Union (E.U.), the United States (U.S.), and China.  Let's examine each one separately in an effort to determine if they had the means and motive to sabotage the pipelines.

The Beginnings of an All-Out Energy Catastrophe.  Gasoline at the pump will now be on a sizable upswing on Election Day a month from now as Americans vote for members of Congress.  Unbeknownst to the public until now, Biden officials spent weeks intensely lobbying OPEC countries, in person on their turf, hat in hand, not to cut oil supplies; in retrospect, this pathetic begging further exposes to the world the impotency to which U.S. influence has been reduced.  One OPEC diplomat described Hochstein and his colleagues' efforts as "desperate."  And it cannot be forgotten that the whole point of Biden visiting Saudi Arabia in the summer and meeting with the crown prince was to convince the pre-eminent OPEC nation to boost oil production in order to bring down prices for American consumers.  By contrast, during the pandemic in 2020, President Donald Trump's forceful phone negotiations with the crown prince to protect a then-revitalized U.S. oil industry from OPEC saturation amid a COVID-ravaged global collapse in demand was described as "an extraordinary display of U.S. influence over global oil output."  Some congressional Democrats have actually reacted to the oil supply cut by explicitly calling for the insane idea of completely ceasing our military engagement with Saudi Arabia and propelling the kingdom into the arms of Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Forget the blame game, Nordstream Sabotage is about the Great Reset & nothing else.  Last night it was reported that "blasts" had damaged both Nordstream pipelines that carry gas exported from Russia to Germany and other nations across northern Europe.  As a result, large amounts of natural gas were leaking into the Baltic sea, and supplies through the pipeline were completely shut off.  The alleged incident has caused a furious round of blame tennis, with accusations flying back and forth across what — for the sake of simplicity — we'll call Iron Curtain 2.0.  The European Union has claimed the pipes were "sabotaged", but doesn't directly blame anyone in their statement.  The Telegraph is already blaming actively the Russians, specifically Western Bogeyman President Vladimir Putin. [...] On the flip side, the Russians have said the idea they would sabotage their own pipeline is "stupid."  Some Western alternate media have pointed to Joe Biden's vow to totally shut down Nordstream 2 back in February as a sign the US was behind the alleged attack.  The former Polish defence minister has come right out and said that NATO forces blew up the pipeline, according to Forbes.  The question — one it seems I keep asking the last two years — is "does it really matter?"

Energy Inflation Isn't An Accident, It's A Planned Demolition.  The West is experiencing its third energy crisis.  The first, in 1973, was caused by the near-quintupling of the price of crude oil by Gulf oil producers in response to America's support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war.  Their action brought an end to what the French call the trente glorieuses — the unprecedented post-World War II economic expansion.  The second occurred at the end of the 1970s, when Iran's Islamic revolution led to a more than doubling of oil prices.  This again inflicted great economic hardship, but the policy response was far better.  Inflation was purged at the cost of deep recession.  Energy markets were permitted to function.  High oil prices induced substitution effects, particularly in the power sector, and stimulated increased supply.  In the space of nine months, the oil price cratered from $30 a barrel in November 1985 to $10 a barrel in July 1986.  It's no wonder that the economic expansion that started under Ronald Reagan had such long legs.  This time is different.  The third energy crisis was not sparked by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies or by Iranian ayatollahs.  It was self-inflicted, a foreseeable outcome of policy choices made by the West:  Germany's disastrous Energiewende that empowered Vladimir Putin to launch an energy war against Europe; Britain's self-regarding and self-destructive policy of "powering past coal" and its decision to ban fracking; and, as Joseph Toomey shows in a recent powerful essay, President Biden's war on the American oil and gas industry.

Energy Inflation Was by Design.  Like Obama before him, Biden promised that the public would readily embrace his Green New Deal and that it would reduce energy prices, create millions of new high-paying jobs, boost economic growth, enhance energy security, stabilize the electric grid, reduce energy dependency, and help save the planet.  Rather than achieving any of its stated goals, Obama's plan was characterized by high prices, Solyndra-style megaflops, increasing grid instability, rent-seeking, soaring public debt, destabilizing subsidies, further offshoring of green energy components, substandard economic growth rates, growing social division, and precious little in the way of green energy job creation.  The same will happen for Biden.

OPEC Humiliates Biden While the UK Increases Domestic Oil Production.  It hasn't been a good week for Joe Biden. [...] OPEC+ announced that it would be cutting oil production in the weeks leading up to the 2022 midterm elections, despite his repeated pleas for them to boost production.  It was the latest in a long line of humiliations for Joe Biden — and, of course, entirely his own doing.  He's the one who put the brakes on domestic oil production and drilling, outsourcing our energy to foreign nations — including our enemies.  Now, gas prices are going to shoot up just before the midterm elections because of Biden's war on domestic energy.  For sure, increasing domestic energy production would go a long way toward fixing this problem, but Biden either hasn't figured that out yet or just doesn't care.

Biden hates Republicans so much, he would rather give oil money to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia than Texas.  When Biden took office — not even two years ago — oil and gas were plentiful and cheap.  The United States had recently become, thanks to fracking, a net energy exporter for the first time in 50 years.  Now Democrats and the media are trying to pretend that presidents have nothing to do with the price of oil and gas.  But in fact, Biden shut down drilling, shut down pipelines and, with help from the "environmental and social governance" crowd in the financial industry, shut down capital to the fossil fuel industry.  Shockingly, prices skyrocketed for gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil and natural gas, with knock-on increases in costs for food, transportation, manufacturing, chemicals and electricity.  Then sanctions on Russian oil sent prices even higher, with no spare US production to pick up the slack anymore.  At first Team Biden celebrated these price increases, noting they would encourage consumers to use less energy and buy new, more efficient vehicles and appliances.

The Democrats Wrecked My Retirement.  On Day One, Biden cut the legs out from under American energy independence.  Oil, gasoline, and natural gas prices skyrocketed.  Why did the administration do this?  Because they think it's cool and woke to be Green.  The Squad likes Green, and the administration wants to be "in" with that ilk and with the extreme voters who support that.  Green energy and renewables can't come close to supporting our energy needs and won't for the foreseeable future.  Remember, Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, Obama, Gore, etc., etc. — none of them lives by Green rules.  But they expect you to.  All I know is, now that I'm a retiree, gasoline has gone from $2.11/gallon to $3.76/gallon.  And it'll be back over $4.00/gallon shortly, as soon as Biden's game-playing with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve runs out of tricks.

Biden's Finger Pointing At Gas Stations Shows His Policies Aren't Rooted In Reality.  In a baffling series of remarks this week, President Joe Biden admonished gas station owners to slash prices and to "do it now," blaming the latest gasoline price increase on greed.  The president's comments came as the average price per gallon hovers around $3.80 and as millions of Americans are worried about the rising cost of heating their homes.  Amid global instability, wildly fluctuating energy markets and rampant inflation, the president fails to realize that government policies and regulations have made matters worse.  There's even more proof of this at the state level, where policy decisions have caused energy prices to vary significantly state by state.

Biden's Anti-Drilling Policies Have Cut Oil Supplies as Much as OPEC+ Decision.  President Joe Biden's anti-drilling policies have cut oil supplies as much as the decision Wednesday by OPEC+ to slash two million barrels of oil production, an analysis by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity shows.  If former President Donald Trump's energy policies would have been continued, American oil production would be four to five times greater than the amount of oil Biden has released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).  According to the study, Biden's war on American energy will cost the United States nearly $100 billion in output every year, which translates to between two and three million barrels of oil a day, the same amount of production OPEC+ cut Wednesday.

America needs to drill, baby, drill, but Biden refuses.  Prices at the pump had already started edging up before OPEC+ decided Wednesday to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, ignoring the White House's frantic appeals.  "It's clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia with today's announcement," flamed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.  Wrong again, Karine:  The Saudis and the rest are simply serving their own interests by limiting supply to keep prices high; they're gettin' while the gettin' is good.  Too bad your boss, President Joe Biden, refuses to serve America's interests by unleashing US energy producers.  Instead, Biden is releasing another 10 million barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was already at a decades-long low from his prior actions.  And never mind that this will only make up for five days of the OPEC+ cuts:  The prez needs to do something basically symbolic — because his ideology stands in the way of doing anything meaningful.

Biden admin looks to scale down Venezuela sanctions, allow more pumping of oil rated among world's dirtiest.  The Biden administration is reportedly gearing up to wind down sanctions against Venezuela's authoritarian regime, clearing the way for Chevron to resume its oil operations and reopen U.S. and European markets.  People familiar with the proposal told The Wall Street Journal that any sanctions relief wound hinge on talks between the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the country's opposition regarding free and fair presidential elections in 2024.  So far, such talks have failed to materialize.

Tucker Carlson Discusses Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage, Almost Certainly a U.S. Covert Action Against Russia.  Tucker Carlson accurately outlined the most likely suspect of the sabotage against Russia's Nord Stream I and II pipeline today.  When you consider the media blitz by Joe Biden's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, last weekend (ABC, CNN, NBC and CBS); specifically pointing out the U.S. position against Russia; it is almost a certainty that U.S. action was behind the underwater detonation of explosives to take out Nord Stream pipeline system.  [Video clip]

SPR Oil Level Hits 40-Year Low as Hurricane Season Fires Up.  Thanks, Brandon.  [A]lmost anytime even a moderate strength hurricane enters the Gulf of Mexico, oil production on the rigs at sea to the refineries that dot the southern U.S. Gulf Coast tends to shut down or is heavily restricted until the storm passes.  For especially ferocious storms that hit vulnerable areas in the Gulf and trigger longer work stoppages at the refineries or rigs, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) usually makes the news headlines, as the U.S. government relies on the emergency supply of crude oil to keep the country running and to stave off high prices and panic.  That's what it's there for — emergencies.  The U.S. government has tapped the SPR after several hurricanes in the past, including Ida, Gustaf, and, of course, Katrina.  But under the current administration, the SPR is also routinely used as a political expediency tool.  President Joe Biden, in a desperate effort to bring gas prices down after they skyrocketed thanks mainly to his anti-American energy independence policies, has released and sold off hundreds of millions of barrels of oil from the SPR.

Summers: "Insane" that Biden's blocking pipelines for oil transport.  Is there anything sane about Joe Biden's energy policies?  For that matter, was there anything sane about Barack Obama's energy policies while Larry Summers served as Obama's National Economic Council chair?  Answer:  not really.  We got continually lectured during that administration that we couldn't drill our way to energy independence, an argument proven false almost as soon as Donald Trump took office.  Biden and his team haven't made that argument, at least not explicitly, but they have made it very clear that they have no intention of drilling more to re-acquire energy-independent status.  Even with that, however, Summer considers hostility to pipeline creation "kind of insane."  The oil still has to get transported, no?

Judge Permanently Blocks Biden Oil and Gas Leasing Pause in 13 States.  A federal judge Thursday issued a permanent injunction against the Biden administration's pause of new oil and gas leasing in federal lands.  The injunction applies to the 13 states that sued the Biden administration over the moratorium in March 2021, including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.  Terry Doughty, the U.S.  district judge for the Western District of Louisiana, ruled that the White House overreached in the ban.  President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14008 on Jan. 27, 2021, banning all new oil and natural gas leases on federal lands and offshore waters.  The order didn't cancel existing leases on federal lands and offshore waters.  Leases on private lands were also not affected.  Thirteen states led by Louisiana sued the Biden administration, saying the lease ban violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), which governs offshore oil and gas leases, and the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA), which governs onshore land leases on federal lands.

Chinese Economy Nosedive Continues, Sinking Oil Prices.  A poll conducted by the Caixin news service on Monday found China's economy foundering as the second half of 2022 began, with slower manufacturing activity, higher unemployment, and a depressed real estate market.  China's weakening economy reduced its demand for oil, combining with downbeat manufacturing data from other countries to bring oil prices down by four percent.  Caixin's poll found that Chinese manufacturing activity slowed considerably in July — or possibly even contracted — after the latest round of coronavirus lockdowns ended in June and produced an exuberant surge in production.

Cash Bonanza:  Iran Has Made $44.7 Billion in Illegal Oil Sales Since Biden Took Office.  Iran's illegal oil trade has boomed under the Biden administration, with the hardline regime selling more than $44 billion worth of its heavily sanctioned oil to malign regimes like China, Syria, and Venezuela, according to figures published by a watchdog group.  From January 2021, when President Joe Biden took office, to June 2022, Iran sold around $44.7 billion in oil primarily to China.  The regime's export revenues between March 2021 and March 2022 from oil, gas, and related products "totaled $39 billion, compared [with] $22 billion for the previous year — a rise of 77 percent and an extra $17 billion," according to United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), a watchdog group that tracks Iran's network of illegal oil tankers.

Biden Depletes America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Another Historic Low.  The Department of Energy announced the release of an additional 20 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Tuesday afternoon [7/26/2022], marking yet another desperate measure by the Biden administration to lower gas prices at the pump.  "The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) today announced an additional Notice of Sale of up to 20 million additional barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).  This Notice of Sale is part of President Biden's announcement on March 31, 2022 authorizing the sale of crude oil from the SPR to address the significant market supply disruption caused by Putin's war on Ukraine and help lower energy costs for American families," DOE released in [a] statement.

Biden Energy Security Official Says Administration Cannot and Will Not Accept or Approve Long-Term Oil and Gas Development.  This guy popped up after the trip to Saudi Arabia and has been spouting hypocrisies ever since.  In this first segment, White House senior energy adviser Amos Hochstein, in charge of U.S. energy security, says the administration cannot accept or approve any long-term oil and gas development that undermines the urgency of the crisis they are exploiting.  Instead, Hochstein says U.S. energy producers should invest in oil and gas development that turns an immediate profit.  Keeping the oil and gas industry in a perpetual state of shortage, overcapacity and expense, allows the "transition" to windmills and solar to remain urgent.  Put another way, the energy crisis is part of the plan.  [Video clip]

Biden Begs [a] Middle East Nation To Give Us Oil After He Throttled U.S. Energy.  President Joe Biden landed in the Middle East on Wednesday with high hopes for his first visit to the region as commander-in-chief.  The agenda included revitalizing a nuclear deal with Iran, pursuing peace in Yemen, and desperately pleading to the Saudis for increased oil production.  While the Biden administration has sought to throw cold water on claims that his first trip to the Arabian Peninsula is an effort to produce more oil, the president himself nearly said as much in The Washington Post.  In justifying his upcoming visit with the Saudi crown prince — the same prince the U.S. government says is responsible for the execution of Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi — Biden explained that the nation's "energy resources are vital for mitigating the impact on global supplies of Russia's war in Ukraine."

Why Biden Is Putting Us In Danger.  On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the Biden Administration's policy of sending American oil to China and other nations.  "When it comes to the oil, it is something that oil companies decide...  The Department of Energy can't dictate what oil companies do with the oil they purchase or where they ship it to sell."  But the United States Department of Energy (DOE) does decide to whom it will sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).  "A total of 16 companies responded to this notice, submitting 126 bids for evaluation," noted DOE.  A dozen won contracts.  One was Unipec America, the trading arm of Sinopec, the China Petrochemical Corporation, which is wholly owned by the Chinese government.  There is no evidence that DOE went out of its way to sell American oil to Unipec, and little reason to believe that the U.S. could have refined that oil into gasoline, diesel, and other products had it remained in the U.S.  After all, U.S. oil refineries are operating at 94% capacity.

Oil from U.S. reserves [is being] sent overseas as gasoline prices stay high.  More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency reserves release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices hit record highs.  The export of crude and fuel is blunting the impact of the moves by U.S. President Joe Biden to lower record pump prices.  Biden on Saturday renewed a call for gasoline suppliers to cut their prices, drawing criticism from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Those US Oil Reserves Joe Biden's Tapping to Lower Our Gas Prices Are Going Overseas.  The nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created in 1975 after the Arab oil embargo caused fear and angry gas-station lines across the country.  The underground reservoirs, believed to be the world's largest, were intended as an emergency oil-savings account for an actual energy crisis threatening national security.  The SPR was not intended for a political crisis when Joe Biden's Democrats face midterm election annihilation over inflation and outrageous gasoline prices above $6 a gallon caused by the same president's ideological war on fossil fuels.  Biden's announced "plan," which drew considerable criticism, is to draw down a million barrels a day for 180 days from the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve stored in vast underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana. [...] But it turns out, contrary to what you might have thought and hoped with all the Biden administration hype about easing gas prices for his countrymen, the consumers who will directly benefit from using up American reserves are not Americans.

Biden is Selling America's Reserve Oil to Foreign Countries.  As a result of his domestic war on the oil and gas industry, energy prices for American families continue to hit records with no relief in sight.  For months, President Joe Biden has repeatedly tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and claimed it was helping to ease the pain at the pump.  Not only has the depletion of the emergency supply not decreased gas prices, we're learning the supply is being sold to foreign countries.  "More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency oil reserves release aimed at lowering domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices touched record highs," Reuters reports.  "The export of crude and fuel is blunting the impact of the moves by U.S. President Joe Biden designed to lower record pump prices." [...] While Biden has been selling off America's reserve oil, he's been publicly berating oil companies and private gas station owners.  The White House has also classified oil producers as unpatriotic.

Biden Plan to Cap Russian Oil Prices Could Seriously Backfire, Which Means It's Likely to Happen.  The G7 plan to create another economic sanction against Russia by capping the price anyone could pay for Russian oil has a serious downside.  If Russia slows down the export of oil, global oil prices will jump dramatically.  That policy outcome would mean a massive increase in the price of gasoline for U.S. consumers.  Because the consequences are horrible, that's precisely the reason Joe Biden might push to have the Russian price cap.  Every policy Joe Biden has historically supported, has been the exact opposite of what should have been done.

Biden Takes Aim at America's Largest Oil Field, Threatens to Stop Production, Sending Gas Prices Soaring.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to cite the United States' largest oil field for violating ozone pollution standards, a move that will threaten the end of oil and gas production in the region.  According to the Texas Governor's Office, the proposed regulations will directly affect the Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the United States, accounting for 95,000,000 gallons of gasoline per day or 40% of the oil produced domestically.  This would be just one more move from Biden's administration to impact the lives of every American by reducing the fuel supply and causing gas prices to soar well beyond Biden's record of $5 per gallon.

Five Reasons to Impeach Joe Biden.  [#3] Biden is waging war on the energy sector to deliberately destroy the American economy.  Under Trump, the U.S. became energy independent.  Biden reversed Trump's sensible energy policies, causing the worst inflation in 40 years, runaway gas, food, and heating prices, and looming recession.  As far back as the 2020 election, Biden has boasted about his intention to destroy our reliance on fossil fuels.  "Harvesting of fuel was cut back drastically," said Bill O'Reilly, "and that caused the price of gas at the pump to rise, and that lit inflation, as all other goods went up in price as well because they are trucked to the stores and businesses.  That is all on President Biden."  Now millions of Americans can't afford to put food on the table.  Biden's decisions are informed by his surrender to the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party.  Their plan is to destroy the American economy in order to bring about a Marxist, socialist tyranny controlled by the unaccountable bureaucrats of the Deep State.  We cannot tolerate a president who seeks the transformation of America into another Venezuela.

Karine Jean-Pierre tells gas companies it is their 'patriotic duty' to increase production and lower profits.  White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on oil companies to produce more oil and gas products as a 'patriotic duty' to counter rising prices amid Russia's war on Ukraine.  Her message came after President Joe Biden accused big oil companies of seeing their profit margin triple on refining, amid global energy shortages and record gas prices.

The Editor says...
Has Karine Jean-Pierre ever run a business, or worked in a profit-making organization?  Not as far as I can tell.

Putin Is Now Selling More Oil at Higher Prices Than Before Joe Biden's Embargo.  Joe Biden's much-heralded international embargo of Russian oil purchases has flopped.  Vladimir Putin is selling more oil to the world now than before his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine provoked Biden's ineffective boycott.  Not only that, but because of the economic and political uncertainty surrounding the Russian's "special operation" and the mixed response of other countries, the global price of oil has surged about 30 percent.  So, Putin is not only selling more oil because of his war.  He's also reaping much greater revenues at higher prices because of his war.  Which provides far greater sums to finance the now prolonged fighting that Biden professes to oppose.

Leaders of Latin-America Nations, Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala and Honduras Boycott Joe Biden's Latin-America Summit.  Within the same 30-day cycle Joe Biden asked Venezuela to produce and deliver more oil in order to help him politically.  The Venezuelan government, having been the subject of an attempted coup and sanctions driven by the DC interventionist mindset, refused to assist.  Joe Biden then refused to invite Venezuela to his Latin-America summit scheduled for this week.  Latin-America leaders are not stupid.  It doesn't matter whether the self-interested bully comes from the east or the west, they are not blind to the parasitic self-interest contained within the blackmail of any larger nations on the geopolitical stage; especially as the cleaving of the west and east is taking place with increased ferocity.  Today [6/6/2022] Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador announced he will not attend Joe Biden's Latin-America summit.

Don't grovel abroad, President Biden:  Drill at home.  President Joe Biden is walking back all his tough talk on the Saudis in hopes the perfidious princes will pump more oil to alleviate the global crunch that has America suffering $5-a-gallon prices.  But rather than grovel in Riyadh, he should take his foot off the neck of the US energy sector.  Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah state" back in 2019 for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.  But now The New York Times reports he's looking to travel over there and shake MBS's hand as a thank-you for OPEC's decision to expand oil production Thursday.  (Biden denies the report.)  Yet the prez won't drop his war on US energy production, even as surging prices are one reason inflation is at 8.3%.

Energy trader:  US may let sanctioned Iranian oil onto market without nuclear deal.  The US may allow more sanctioned Iranian oil onto global markets even without a revival of the 2015 nuclear accord, according to a Sunday report that quoted a major independent crude trader.  "Uncle Sam might just allow a little bit more of that oil to flow," Mike Muller, head of Asia at Vitol Group, said Sunday on a podcast produced by Dubai-based Gulf Intelligence, according to Bloomberg.  "If the midterms are dominated by the need to get gas prices lower in America, turning a somewhat greater blind eye to the sanctioned barrels flowing out is probably something you might expect to see," he added.  "US intervention in these flows has always been pretty sparse."

Ri-i-i-i-ight.
Team Biden Quietly Admits Math Error Behind Long Delays in Oil, Gas Permits.  The Biden administration privately acknowledged late last month that a mathematical error is delaying the federal government's offshore oil and gas program.  In an April 29 letter to industry leaders obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that a subagency "discovered a miscalculation" that has caused a massive backlog in permitting.  Richard Spinrad acknowledged in his letter that the National Marine Fisheries Service — the subagency tasked with analyzing the impact of offshore drilling projects on wildlife — has used faulty computer modeling on such impacts.

Biden team's bright idea to get Venezuela to pump oil for us panned by senior diplomat.  A few weeks ago, the Joe Biden team, in response to Congress cutting off Russian oil imports, tried to get Venezuela to pump some oil for us.  The logic, of course, was to let bygones be bygones, and ignore the inconvenient little detail about Venezuela's oil company being full of drug dealers, which is among the things that got them sanctioned and cut off in the first place.  Why not have Venezuela replace Vladimir Putin for oil?  It sounded so logical, so easy.  Anything but pump our own.  Well, now the details of that caper are out and let's just say it isn't pretty.

Biden Maladministration Cancels Oil & Gas Lease Sales, While Demanding More Oil Production.  [Scroll down]  At $106/bbl and natural gas at $7.70/mcf, US oil companies are producing as much oil & gas as we can.  No amount of compelling can quickly increase production.  It takes years of investment to significantly increase production.

China Lurks Behind Most Crises Facing America.  Since the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last August and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it has felt like the world is on fire.  But in the midst of these attention-grabbing crises, there is an even more pernicious threat facing the United States and the signs are all around us.  Behind most major foreign policy issues lies China.  Take the Iran nuclear deal.  Media reports indicate that Iran's fleet of tankers has ferried at least $22 billion worth of illicit oil to the People's Republic of China since 2021.  This has provided the Iranian regime with a major source of revenue and raised questions about the Biden administration's lax enforcement of sanctions.  It is as good an example of China's duplicity as can be found today.  But it is not an isolated incident.

America's emergency oil supply is heading to Europe.  Biden's executive orders ending the Keystone Pipeline, along with exploration and drilling on almost all federal land, when combined with the Democrats' and RINOs' uncontrolled spending (made possible by printing money), has created unprecedented inflation in America.  To try to stave off the worst of it before the mid-terms, Biden recently announced he was releasing 1 million barrels of oil per day from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  However, it turns out that he's sending at least some of that oil to Europe!  When you have a government that destroys America's energy independence, you're going to have rising fuel prices.  (As an aside, Congress really needs to end the president's — any presidents' — power to have that kind of control over oil transport, drilling, and exploration in America.)  Maybe Americans could sustain those increased fuel prices but, if you add to that Modern Monetary Theory, which says that America can just print money forever and no one will notice, you've got trouble, big trouble.

Biden Puts the Lie to All the Democrats' Arguments About Fossil Fuels.  The Biden administration has, at long last, finally decided to follow the law — only just a bit.  And it really doesn't want people to know about it either way, which is why the announcement was made on Good Friday afternoon [4/15/2022].  After refusing to comply with a court order requiring him to sell leases for oil and gas exploration on federal land last year, Biden is finally succumbing to the pressure of high gas prices.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that he is selling a mere fraction of the leases the government would normally sell.  This probably belongs in the category of "better than nothing."

Rep. Ilhan Omar stands by vote against Russian oil embargo.  Minnesota 5th District Congresswoman Ilhan Omar took a lot of criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for her vote against a Russian oil ban last month.  It passed overwhelmingly in the House by a vote of 414 to 17, with just Rep. Omar, one other Democrat, and 15 Republicans voting against it.  "I don't think it's actually that controversial," Omar said in an interview recorded for "At Issue with Tom Hauser" on Sunday morning.  She said President Biden had already banned Russian oil imports through executive order and says that will make it easier to end the ban if it can be used as leverage to end the war in Ukraine.  Last week the Senate voted 100-0 to ban the Russian oil and sent the bill to President Biden.

The ship of state is adrift under Biden.  Recently the White House said it plans to release up to 180 million barrels of oil from America's strategic reserves, a million barrels a day for 180 days, to help bring down near-record gas prices that were climbing well before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  This will be the largest release of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve since it was established in the early 1970s.  It should be noted that the Strategic Reserve is an "emergency" stockpile of petroleum created in 1975 after oil supplies were interrupted during the 1973-1974 oil embargo.  It exists to mitigate future supply disruptions and should not be used as a political bargaining chip.  The release of oil is just the latest in a string of haphazard, impromptu policies that have sown confusion among our allies and projected weakness and indecision to the wider world.

It Took Just Four Days For Biden's Oil Price Scheme To Go Up In Smoke.  Oil prices shot up Monday [4/4/2022] despite President Joe Biden's plan to curb gasoline prices by releasing a million barrels of emergency oil reserves daily.  The Brent crude index, the global oil benchmark, increased to $108.07 per barrel Monday morning, surging more than 3.1% overnight.  The U.S. WTI index skyrocketed more than 3.4% past $103 per barrel Monday.  "Will the release of barrels from strategic reserves fill a shortfall caused by sanctions and buyer aversion to Russian oil?  In a word, no," Stephen Brennock, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates, told Reuters.  Biden announced Thursday that he ordered the Department of Energy to release a million barrels of oil stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) every day for six months.  The following day, the International Energy Agency said its 31 member nations pledged their own separate release of 62.7 million additional barrels of oil.

Oil prices shouldn't hinge on dictators issuing executive orders to kill fossil fuel companies.  Joe Biden and the Democrats have declared war on oil companies since the day Biden took office, and from that moment on, oil prices have spiraled.  Yet, not once has Biden taken blame for the ruination of the poor, the middle class, and small businesses that have taken the brunt of the higher prices. [...] This didn't happen because of Vladimir Putin, as Biden claims.  First, Biden called the price increases transitory.  Then, he and his administration claimed that his good economic policies caused growth and the demand caused the price increases.  What a joke.  We had high demand throughout Trump's term and ... low prices.  Then he said the oil companies were greedy and blamed them for the high prices.  Isn't it amazing that the greedy oil companies weren't that greedy while Trump was president?  Then, he started blaming Putin for all inflation even though it has been occurring since he took office.

Biden signals third year of offshore oil-leasing delay in gulf.  The Biden administration doesn't anticipate selling offshore drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico through at least October 2023, effectively stretching a delay in that activity to a third year, according to economic projections included in its newly released budget proposal.  The numbers show expected revenues from offshore oil auction bids and annual rental payments on existing leases are set to plummet in fiscal 2023 by about $370.4 million to just $25 million.  That reflects the government's typical haul from two auctions of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico.  The anticipated offshore leasing pause comes despite the war in Ukraine and high costs for oil, gas and gasoline that have prompted administration officials to implore energy companies to pump more crude.  The Gulf of Mexico generates about 15% of the nation's crude production.

Biden administration to release 1M barrels of oil daily from US reserves.  The Biden administration will release 1 million barrels of oil each day for the next six months from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum reserve in an effort to combat soaring gasoline prices.  Biden formally announced the move at a White House event Thursday afternoon, saying that his plan would release around 180 million additional barrels from the reserve.  That would leave the already-depleted SPR down to around 388 million barrels, the lowest level since March 1984.  The White House said ahead of the president's remarks that "This record release will provide a historic amount of supply to serve as a bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up."

The Editor says...
The Keystone XL pipeline, which Biden killed, would have delivered almost the same amount of oil per day.  Biden, or whoever makes his decisions, is systematically dismantling this country.

The Sheer Madness of Today's Left.  When Biden entered office, the United States was the largest gas and oil producer in the world.  Yet he immediately began jawboning the oil and gas industry about their fated doom on the horizon, pressuring lending agencies not to aid the American frackers, canceling pipelines, ending ANWR, and stopping all new federal gas and oil leases.  So Biden achieved his goal of higher prices and less U.S. production.  But now politics wars with green dogmatism.  And madness once again ensues.

The Biden Administration Does Not Have a Strategy.  Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is not picking up Joe Biden's phone calls.  How did we get to such an embarrassing moment in history?  The United States has been the security guarantor for the Middle Eastern country since the end of World War II, in exchange for the Saudi's continual provision of cheap oil and a pledge that the country would use the U.S. dollar to conduct all oil-related transactions with other nations.  The Saudi kingdom's flagrant violations of human rights against its own citizens were highlighted by later U.S. administrations time and again, but those demarches never seriously put the dominance of the dollar in jeopardy.

Turn On The Spigots.  President Trump quickly and radically reversed the focus and direction of America's standing on the international stage.  Yet even more quickly *President Biden has tanked America's position, drained her of her leverage, and seems content to literally have no say in events that the entire world will be shaped by.  None of this to mention that in cutting off our energy production Biden's administration personally funded Putin's war machine.  The solution to all of this is pretty simple, but the American people need to express the collective will that we tell Washington what to do — not the other way around.  Turn on the spigots.  Sell our energy to Europe and watch the price drop here at home.  We can bankrupt Russia and Iran in the process.  We can reduce the financial pain for every American who drives a vehicle almost overnight.  We can re-employ all the pipeline workers, and leased drilling operators immediately.  And we can alert the world that America is not diminished but potentially stronger than ever.

U.S. Imports from Russia in January Nearly 5-Times as Great as Exports.  The value of the products that the United States imported from Russia in January — before U.S sanctions were imposed on Russia after its February 24 invasion of Ukraine — was nearly five times as great as the value of the products that the United States exported to Russia during that month, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  In January, according to the official Census Bureau data, the United States imported $1,959,400,000 in products from Russia.  That same month, the United States exported only $396,800,000 in products to Russia.

The Editor says...
Why does the Census Bureau have anything to do with oil imports?

Ukraine and the Great Energy Reset.  [Scroll down]  Asking American producers to increase "output immediately" would also be a mere symbolic gesture.  It takes time to expand production significantly.  Scott Sheffield, CEO of Pioneer, America's biggest independent shale-energy company, warned a few days ago that turning on a dime can't happen following the years of hammering shale companies have taken from investors and politicians.  Of course, if the government were to anchor that request in a substantive and dramatic shift in policies and legislation, not merely rhetorical political theater, then it would have an immediate impact in dampening price escalations.  Today's energy prices reflect traders' beliefs about the future.

Putin snickers:  Guess who owns a big chunk of Venezuela's oil?  Under pressure from a veto-proof majority in Congress, Joe Biden loudly announced a cutoff of energy purchases from Russia, amounting to about 7% of U.S. energy imports.  "Russian oil will no longer be accepted at U.S. ports — and the American people will deal another powerful blow against Putin's war machine," he tweeted.  [Tweet]  Russia had been sending about 600,000 barrels of oil a day to the states in a big export surge, following Biden's bans on federal leases for drilling, halt to the Keystone XL pipeline, and other measures intended to bankrupt Big Oil in the name of "going green."

Gas and Oil:  Anywhere But Here.  The Biden administration's energy policies could not possibly be less coherent.  The administration, from its first day in office, moved aggressively to suppress fossil fuel production in the U.S.  The inevitable result has been a sharp rise in the prices of oil and gas.  Having caused the problem, the administration has now set out to remedy it by buying gas and oil wherever it can be found — from Russia, notwithstanding the Ukraine invasion; from Saudi Arabia; and most recently from Venezuela.

US Will Ban Russian Oil & Gas Imports, End Trade Relations with Moscow and Belarus.  The United States is effectively reimplimenting Cold War era restrictions on Russian oil and gas imports, as well as ending trade relations with the Eurasian country.  "A bipartisan group of lawmakers said on Monday [3/7/2022] that they would move forward with legislation that would ban imports of Russian energy into the United States and suspend normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus in response to the invasion of Ukraine," the New York Times reported.  "The legislation is aimed at inflicting further financial pain on Russia and Belarus, which has been aiding the conflict, by cutting off Russia's oil exports into the United States and giving President Biden the ability to increase tariffs on products from both countries," the report added.

Shell to stop buying Russian oil and gas, apologizes for recent purchase.  Oil giant Shell apologized on Tuesday [3/8/2022] for its purchase of Russian crude oil last week and announced it will withdraw from involvement in all Russian hydrocarbons due to the country's invasion of Ukraine.  "We are acutely aware that our decision last week to purchase a cargo of Russian crude oil to be refined into products like petrol and diesel — despite being made with security of supplies at the forefront of our thinking — was not the right one and we are sorry," Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said in a statement.  The company said it will also shut its service stations, aviation fuels and lubricants operations in Russia.

This Invasion Is Brought to You by ... Western Environmentalists.  The Democrats came into power in 2021.  The average closing price of oil in 2020 was $39.68 a barrel; the closing price of oil in 2019 was $56.99 a barrel.  As of this writing it is $138.00 a barrel.  The extremely high price of energy — a direct result of the environmentalist policies of the Democratic Party and the liberal and Left parties in Europe — is one of the two primary reasons for the ever-increasing rate of inflation.  (The other reason is the result of another Democrat policy:  the printing of trillions of dollars.)  Serious inflation leads to very bad things.  The Nazis did not come to power because of their antisemitism or even because of the Versailles Treaty as much as they did because of the terrible inflation under the Weimar Republic.

Biden Needs a 'Pivot' to the World.  Liberal democracy has its flaws, but as the grim spectacles of the Chinese and Russian systems remind us, it has some advantages too.  Mr. Putin can impose his will on Ukraine only by atrocities that will drive home the evils of authoritarian rule to billions of people all over the planet.  Beyond this, the Biden administration is struggling to absorb other, less comfortable truths about American power.  One is that energy policy is too important to be left to climate activists.  The Biden administration, and the whole world economy, badly needs stepped-up oil and gas production to break Mr. Putin's energy weapon, but Biden policy has systematically sabotaged America's capacity to achieve it.  Whether by hampering U.S. domestic production, seeking to restrict financing to energy companies or alienating the Gulf states through its Iran and Yemen policies and its shunning and shaming of leaders like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Team Biden has weakened crucial underpinnings of American power at a time of great need.

The Democrats' Energy Gallows.  Under uniquely bipartisan pressure, Biden is considering whether or not to cease U.S. purchase of Russian oil — estimated at 22 million gallons a day.  Political affiliation aside, his failure to do so in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine could be the final straw in the minds of the U.S. citizenry across the spectrum.  Ideologically and morally speaking, it is hard to see how the continued purchase of Russian oil won't break the back of the Democrat mule.  But it's another Biden no-win scenario.  If he shuts Putin down, prepare for even higher gas prices than what is being paid now under this administration's hapless energy policies.

White House Rejects Idea of Boosting Domestic Oil Production to Lower Gas Prices.  The White House on Sunday [3/6/2022] rejected the argument that increasing domestic oil production would help lower gas prices, as the cost of oil moves toward record highs.  Crude oil prices rose as high as $130.50 a barrel on Sunday evening.  White House press secretary Jen Psaki released a set of talking points on social media, arguing against a focus on boosting oil production in the United States.  "It's a reminder that real energy security comes from reducing our dependence on fossil fuels," Psaki wrote, noting that Russia's continued invasion of Ukraine was causing a spike in oil prices.

Just 7% of America's imported oil is Russian, so why is Biden choosing 'terrorists over Texans'?  As Russia invades Ukraine, shelling civilians and reportedly committing war crime-level brutality, President Biden has put harsh sanctions to Kremlin-tied businesses, banks and oligarchs, but not the oil and gas industry.  Both Republicans and Democrats, even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have called for the U.S. to quit doing business with Russia's oil and gas industry.  But the White House, forced to grapple with inflation at levels not seen in 40 years, cited the potential rise in costs at the pump and has so far resisted bipartisan pressure to ban Russian fuel imports.  But on Monday [3/7/2022] it was reported that the Biden administration is considering moving forward with such a ban, with or without the backing of other European leaders.

Stop Letting Environmental Groups Funded By Russia Dictate America's Energy Policy.  After spending millions to elect Biden, the environmental left got its wish:  Biden canceled America's Keystone XL pipeline, blocking the safe transport of oil from one of our closest allies and killing thousands of jobs.  At the same time, Biden removed President Trump's sanctions on the Russian NordStream2 pipeline, giving Putin the green light to move forward.  Biden canceled oil and gas leasing on 2.46 billion acres of federal on and off-shore lands, effectively crushing American energy supplies.  He unleashed his federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and more to hamper energy exploration, production, and transportation with new regulations. [...] Further adding to this madness is the fact that very few of Biden's punitive moves against American energy would actually help the environment.  Numerous studies have shown that pipelines have no material impact on greenhouse gas emissions since crude oil would still be extracted, and shipping it by rail or tanker instead of pipeline results in up to 42 percent higher emissions and more leaks.

Biden Plans to Get Oil From These Countries, But There's One Missing.  The price of oil has blown past $125 per barrel this morning [3/7/2022] as the Biden administration's climate change agenda continues to hamper progress on lowering costs.  Over the weekend, a number of State Department diplomats were deployed to Venezuela in hopes of pulling off sanctions on the Maduro regime in order for the U.S. to tap back into the country's oil supply. [...] Last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said importing oil from Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terror, was being considered. [...] But as far as ramping up production in the United States, the administration has no plans to do so while insisting Americans must move forward with an energy "transition."

Is It Intentional or Simply Ignorance?  Among a number of things going wrong in America right now, worst of all is our totally unnecessary, self-inflicted end to energy independence.  This one is particularly frustrating because it is so unnecessary and arbitrary.  Based purely on liberal arrogance and adolescent egotism — not on well considered business factors or with the country's long-term well-being in mind — "President" Biden canceled the Keystone Pipeline as soon as he occupied the Oval Office.  This was simply a ploy to curry favor with the Green voting bloc and do something to counter President Trump.  It was the act of a shallow emotional simpleton and his behind-the-scenes puppet masters trying to look good in the eyes of the Squad and the liberal media.  It's not as if the cancelation of Keystone in and of itself ruined our energy sector.  Biden also stopped any fossil fuel exploration in ANWR, voided existing oil exploration and development leases on federal lands, and sharply curtailed the ability of existing oil and natural gas fracking companies to conduct their operations.  This has markedly reduced our supply, but far more important, it sent a message to the world oil market that any possibility of substantial new American oil was stopped dead in its tracks.

Biden looks to Venezuela for a bailout.  Joe Biden is in a bind.  Like everything else, he's blown it.  Energy prices have gone through the roof, with gasoline prices at the pump pushing $6.00 a gallon in San Diego alone.  They're expected to get higher, and each tic upward takes Joe down another notch in the polls.  Biden has throttled U.S. capacity to produce its own energy by ending domestic drilling leases on federal lands.  He's also scuppered the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.  In place of that domestic and Canadian energy, we now buy Russian oil, some 600,000 barrels a day — which just happens to finance Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine.

Food Prices [Have Gone] Up 20% Over the Past Year.  If your grocery bills continue to frustrate you, you're not alone.  The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released its report on worldwide food prices for February, and prices hit a record high last month.  The February FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) reached a new high of 140.7 points, which reflects an increase of 3.9% over January and a whopping 20.7% over this time last year.

Until Joe Biden Lets U.S. Oil Freely Flow, He's Complicit In Putin's War.  As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, the United States and western allies have imposed a new round of economic sanctions.  But these won't achieve the desired effect as long as there is a carve-out for Russia's energy sector.  Last week, the United States imposed sanctions on four large Russian banks and restricted certain Russian state-owned enterprises from raising money in international markets.  On Monday, the U.S., the European Union, and the United Kingdom took an extraordinary step to sanction Russia's central bank, the Bank of Russia, preventing it from moving assets it held abroad to stabilize Russia's economy, or "using other government and private banks to manage central bank operations."  Additionally, the U.S. Department of Treasury prohibited Americans from doing business with Russia's central bank, finance ministry, and Russia's sovereign wealth fund.  No country's central bank had ever been sanctioned like this before.

The West's Green Energy Delusions Empowered Putin.  How has Vladimir Putin — a man ruling a country with an economy smaller than that of Texas, with an average life expectancy 10 years lower than that of France — managed to launch an unprovoked full-scale assault on Ukraine?  There is a deep psychological, political and almost civilizational answer to that question:  He wants Ukraine to be part of Russia more than the West wants it to be free.  He is willing to risk tremendous loss of life and treasure to get it.  There are serious limits to how much the U.S. and Europe are willing to do militarily.  And Putin knows it. [...] Putin knows that Europe produces 3.6 million barrels of oil a day but uses 15 million barrels of oil a day.  Putin knows that Europe produces 230 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year but uses 560 billion cubic meters.  He knows that Europe uses 950 million tons of coal a year but produces half that.

GOP Leaders Call on Biden to Lift His Restrictions on U.S. Oil and Gas.  The Russian invasion into Ukraine is expected to have a devastating effect on the economy worldwide, especially on the energy market, where energy prices are reportedly already soaring with oil costing $100 a barrel for the first time since 2014.  "Joe Biden's reckless energy policies have already driven up the price of oil and gas over the last year," said Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) "Even he and his administration are admitting that they don't want to impose oil and gas sanctions on Russia because they are afraid it's going to add to the inflation they've already created."  Cotton had a better idea.  "How about we impose those sanctions, but we lift all those restrictions on the production of American oil and gas so we can start drilling on federal lands again and putting out new leases," the senator proposed.  "Reopen the Keystone Pipeline which would bring more oil to America every day from Canada than we import every day from Russia," he added.

Energy security, the unstable Middle East, and the wisdom of electing Donald Trump.  Back in the 1970s, the economy of the wWestern world was held up for ransom by a few relatively unstable Middle Eastern nations.  This, because they, by an act of nature, owned much of the energy upon which the modern world depends.  Since that time, we have seen several different approaches to preventing that 'ransom' situation from happening again — approaches that included President Jimmy Carter's wishful thinking that a non-petroleum-based synthetic energy source could be economically developed and manufactured, to President Barack Obama's equally 'wishful' thinking that the hateful and unstable Middle Eastern countries could be bought off and won over by simple kowtowing to them while sending them billions of dollars of American cash.  None of that worked.

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.

Mexico oil exports plunge 50.2 percent in November.  Mexico's oil exports fell 50.2 percent from a year earlier in November, a month in which the country's trade deficit totaled $1.57 billion, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, or INEGI, said.  Total exports amounted to $31.02 billion last month, down 4.1 percent from November 2014, the INEGI said in a statement Thursday [12/31/2015].  Oil exports plunged 50.2 percent to $1.57 billion, while non-petroleum exports rose 0.9 percent to $29.46 billion.

Obama Renames a Mountain while Russia Plays for Keeps in the Arctic.  Earlier in August, Russia resubmitted a claim to a huge undersea expanse of the Arctic to the U.N. Russia fields 41 icebreakers, compared to two fielded by the United States, and is building 10 search-and-rescue stations with accompanying communications infrastructure along its northern coast.  There is a lot of oil and gas under that ice, and Russia is playing for keeps.

Time to Lift the Oil Export Ban.  Today, there is only one major product the U.S. bans from export.  Surprisingly, it is a product in which the U.S. is nearly self-sufficient.  Forty years ago, it may have made sense to ban the export of oil, but the U.S. is now producing an excess of certain grades of oil.  That oil would find eager buyers overseas, spurring growth in our economy.

Saudi Arabia may go broke before the US oil industry buckles.  It is too late for OPEC to stop the shale revolution.  The cartel faces the prospect of surging US output whenever oil prices rise.

Death To Canadian Oil!.  International sanctions have, since 2011, cut Iran's oil exports in half and severely damaged its economy.  Iran, it is estimated, currently has more than 50 million barrels of oil in storage on 28 tankers at sea — part of a months[-]long build up.  It is widely reported that, due to aging infrastructure and saturated storage, it will take Iran months to bring its production back up to pre-sanction levels.  The millions of barrels of oil parked offshore are indicative of their eagerness to increase exports.

Top 10 reasons to vote Democrat.  [#9]  Vote Democrat because you believe oil company's profits of 4 percent on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15 percent isn't.

Oil prices tumble after Greece vote, China stock market turmoil.  Oil prices suffered their biggest selloff in five months on Monday, falling as much as 8 percent as Greece's rejection of debt bailout terms and China's stock market woes set off a deepening spiral of losses.  Adding to the pressure on oil, Iran and global powers were trying to meet a July 7 deadline on a nuclear deal, which could bring more supply to the market if sanctions on Tehran are eased.  The self-imposed deadline could be extended again, officials at the negotiations said.

Q&A: Chevron CEO Talks Oil Prices And Energy Independence.  It's clear that when oil and gas fell (to $40 a barrel earlier this year), that wasn't a sustainable world price based on global supplies.  Only a few producers can make money at that price, so when the price fell to that level, marginal producers dropped out, supplies fell, and the price has risen back up to a more sustainable level.  With lower prices, some oil drilling is not economic.  The world market produces 93 million barrels a day.  All producers are taking action, and with natural declines investment slows (and) supply and demand come into better balance.

Oil Leaps on Slower U.S. Inventory Build, Iran.  Oil prices jumped over 5 percent on Monday [4/6/2015] as traders reassessed how quickly Iran might increase exports after a preliminary nuclear deal and anticipated that a months-long rise in U.S. crude inventories may be slowing.

Study: End crude oil export ban or say goodbye to U.S. shale revolution.  The explosive growth in the production of U.S. shale oil in recent years has been credited for giving the economy a much-needed boost.  But a just-released study from Bentek Energy asserts that unless the nation's crude oil export ban is lifted, the shale energy revolution will come to an abrupt end.  "We have seen so much growth in the economy due to the oil revolution that we've had in the U.S. and that growth won't be able to continue if another demand force isn't made available," said Jenna Delaney, analyst for Bentek Energy, an energy marketing and analysis company based in Denver.

World price of oil — where is OPEC now?  The world price of crude oil, which has been around 100 dollars a barrel for the past 6 years, has suddenly collapsed and is now tending below 50 dollars.  Many are trying to understand this rapid decrease and have proposed various explanations.  Of course, the ready explanation is simply in terms of supply and demand; but this just begs the question.  The supply of oil has increased sharply in recent months — mainly because of the prolific production of shale oil in the United States, thanks to the technologies of fracking and horizontal drilling.  In fact, the US is now the world's largest producer of crude oil and US imports of oil have dropped to the lowest level in 10 years.  At the same time, the demand for oil has not increased greatly — because of depressed economic conditions and more efficient use in cars and trucks throughout the world.

Oil Jumps as Saudi King's Death Spurs Speculation Over Policy.  Oil rose after the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.  Futures rallied as much as 3.1 percent in New York and 2.6 percent in London after the Saudi royal court announced the death in a statement.  Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz will succeed Abdullah on the throne.  The kingdom, the world's largest crude exporter, led OPEC's decision to maintain its oil-production quota at a meeting in November, exacerbating a global glut that's driven prices lower.

Endless Gifts From Uncle Obama.  [Scroll down]  No one knows why oil dropped so far so fast.  The supply situation — lots of new shale oil coming on stream, for months if not years.  The demand situation has not changed at all.  Saudi Arabia and OPEC declined to cut production to support a price near $100 a barrel.  But they never said they would support the price of oil.  And in any event, world oil consumption is so immense that even if the Saudis cut production by a million barrels a day, the cut would mean roughly 1 percent of demand.  So, then why did oil — facing small increases in supply and at most a slowing in demand — suddenly fall by about 55 percent?

The Ironies of Oil.  Obama once ridiculed cheap energy, which is now saving him from himself.

Did the Saudis and the US Really Collude to Smash Oil Prices?  The oil price drop that has dominated the headlines in recent weeks has been framed almost exclusively in terms of oil market economics, with most media outlets blaming Saudi Arabia, through its OPEC Trojan horse, for driving down the price, thus causing serious damage to the world's major oil exporters — most notably Russia.  While the market explanation is partially true, it is simplistic, and fails to address key geopolitical pressure points in the Middle East.

Taking Stock of the Oily Plunge.  Every major paper has carried a sober to slightly disbelievingly gleeful depiction, kitted out with solemn graphs and charts, of the precipitous plummet of oil prices since June of 2014.  The Wall Street Journal spoke of the concern of OPEC if the price should settle further below $60/barrel.  The NYT speaks to the agita experienced in Venezuela, until recently the benefactor of Cuba and other non-friends.  Nigeria and especially Russia are hurting, as in the past decades, these have been one-commodity countries.

The Personal And Economic Benefits Of Cheaper Oil.  A barrel of oil has tumbled to $83, or 22% below its June high — unambiguously good news writ large for consumers, motorists and the U.S. economy overall, and a teachable moment if there ever was one.  The U.S. imports about 3.5 billion barrels of oil a year.  So a $20 reduction in price is equal to a $70 billion tax cut.

US Is Facing International Pressure To End Its Ban On Crude Oil Exports.  Washington is facing growing international pressure to ease its long standing ban on crude oil exports, with South Korea and Mexico joining the European Union in pressing the case for U.S. oil shipments overseas.  South Korean President Park Geun-hye told a visiting U.S. delegation of lawmakers on the House of Representatives energy committee on Aug. 11 that tapping into the gusher of ultra-light, sweet crude emerging from places like Texas and North Dakota was a priority, the lawmakers said.

Flash Point: New Oil-by-Rail Rules.  The U.S. Department of Transportation proposed new regulations this month aiming to reduce the risks of shipping oil by rail.  The new rules would require the upgrading of existing rail cars (called DOT-111 cars) used to transport oil; impose speed limits on "high-hazard flammable trains" and oil-bearing trains; establish new braking practices; and mandate route-based risk-assessments.  Tank cars used to transport oil would also have to be manufactured to much tougher standards than the existing DOT-111 fleet.  No one is against safety, of course, but the new regulations pose several challenges.  First, they are going to be costly.

50 Things Barack Obama Has Done Wrong:  [#8]  After BP had a huge oil spill in the Gulf, Obama not only bungled the clean-up process, he slowed oil production from other companies that had done nothing wrong which led to higher oil prices.  [#9]  Obama has helped drive up the cost of gas by blocking the Keystone Pipeline.

Venezuela blames U.S for global oil price slump.  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday [10/16/2014] blamed Washington for the slump in global oil prices.  Washington is "flooding" the market with cheaper shale oil to bring down prices and ultimately impact Russia and other oil-producing nations, Maduro said at a televised Cabinet meeting.

Fracking Foes Cringe as Unions Back Drilling Boom.  After early complaints that out-of-state firms got the most jobs, some local construction trade workers and union members in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia say they're now benefiting in a big way from the Marcellus and Utica Shale oil and gas boom.

Has Putin Ended the Green Movement in Europe?  Wind farms do not have the capacity of keeping the central heating thermostat at a sensible level, leaving Putin's new Cold War seeming literal as well as metaphorical.  The EU in 2013 prepared an "Association Agreement" with the Ukraine with a view to granting them membership to the EU.  Putin's response to this cozying up was the de facto annexation of the Crimea.  The first energy casualty is the South Stream project, a gas pipe line under construction connecting Russian gas to the EU.

Feds give initial approval for Oregon facility to export natural gas.  Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for weeks have been pressing the Obama administration to expedite permits for natural gas exports, claiming it would send a powerful message to European allies, and Russia, which last week annexed the Crimean Peninsula.  Even if immediate changes might not do much to help Ukraine and other Eastern European nations in the short term, advocates argue they would send a message that Russia's energy grip on the region will eventually weaken.

Environmental groups tell Obama natural gas exports undermine climate goals.  Environmental groups fired a shot Tuesday [3/18/2014] in the growing discussion about natural gas exports as they urged President Obama to block new export terminals on climate change grounds.  The flashpoint is a $3.8 billion Dominion Resources-proposed export facility in Cove Point, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay, which the groups are rallying to prevent as a burgeoning effort to prohibit exports of fossil fuels. [...] Republicans, with some Democrats, are pushing the Obama administration to expedite export approvals as a means to reduce Russia's grip on energy supplies in Central and Eastern Europe, a position it uses to wield political influence.

How the Greens Help Putin in Crimea Incursion.  The Russian economy is highly dependent on oil and gas exports, and reducing Russian oil and gas exports would be the most direct way to cause pain to the Russian leadership.  However, Europe is heavily dependent on Russian gas and oil, particularly gas.  Six European Union countries — Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria — are 100 percent dependent on Russian gas.  Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Slovenia and Greece depend on the Russians for more than 50 percent of their gas.  The countries in the EU did not need to be in this position, because the EU has plenty of gas reserves that could be economically tapped using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.  Because of the environmental lobby, though, the EU has allowed itself to become dependent on foreign energy sources — particularly Russian.

Unleash American Energy.  House Republicans have a worthy suggestion to protect Ukraine and increase the West's leverage there:  Deregulate American energy production and encourage oil and gas exports.  The Department of Energy has been reluctant and slow to approve permits for shipping natural gas overseas, for instance, which the market demands from the U.S. for the first time.  Crude-oil exports remain illegal.  Energy production on federally owned lands has been dropping.

US energy security threatened by prairie chicken and sage grouse.  The Obama administration seems hell-bent on sabotaging domestic energy production, one way or another.

Rand Paul: U.S. Anti-Energy Policies Empower Russian Aggression.  The Obama administration's anti-energy policies empower Russia aggression and take away America's ability to respond, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) explained in a Time magazine editorial.  Paul said America has all the means to deter and punish Russian military aggression without the use of American military force but the Obama administration has taken important economic weapons off the table with its anti-energy policies.

Fracking is turning the US into a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia.  The expansion in volumes of oil and gas produced by hydraulic fracturing is taking experts and politicians by surprise, with profound consequences for US geopolitics, and even Europe's reliance on Russian gas.

Job Destroyer.  Does the president have a clue about what creates jobs and what kills jobs?  Based on the evidence from his five years as president, the answer is no, he doesn't. [...] His environmental policies are relentless job killers.  The crackdown on the coal industry has come at the cost of tens of thousands of jobs.  Approval of the Keystone pipeline would lead to thousands of new jobs, but Obama has balked.  So too would the opening of federal lands to natural gas production, just as it has on private lands.

The Editor says...
The writer of the article immediately above seems to presume that Mr. Obama's destruction of the economy is merely the result of his hapless incompetence — ignoring the very real possibility that Obama's actions and their results are intentional and malicious.  Mr. Obama probably knows very well "what creates jobs and what kills jobs," and is doing the opposite, because his goal is to increase and perpetuate dependence on Big Brother.

Rail cars used to ship oil are 'unacceptable public risk,' NTSB official says.  Rail tank cars being used to ship crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken region are an "unacceptable public risk," and even cars voluntarily upgraded by the industry may not be sufficient, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday [2/26/2014].

Moving Crude by Railcar Stalls on the Track.  Companies that thought they had found a relatively easy way to move crude from the booming oil fields of North Dakota to the West Coast are encountering obstacles.  Half a dozen companies are trying to build rail terminals on the coast of Washington state to receive trainloads of crude from the Bakken field in North Dakota.

Podesta: Climate game changer.  Environmental groups believe John Podesta will be a force for change on climate issues at the White House. [...] Three key areas Podesta and the climate team will work on are Environmental Protection Agency rules on existing power plants, developing a comprehensive methane strategy and developing new fuel economy standards for heavy-duty vehicles.  While Podesta's full portfolio won't be known until he arrives next year, an administration official said he'll probably spend time working with the Department of the Interior on its regulatory policies.  That's likely to include administration decisions about how to lease out federal lands and which energy development and mining projects to permit.

Fracking boom frees the US from old oil alliances.  [Scroll down]  Saudi Arabia has increased production to match, keeping prices stable, but new fields being developed in neighbouring Iraq and the rise in importance of gas have also made its role less vital.  And now all that Iranian oil may sooner rather than later end up back on the market.  Some suggest Saudi Arabia might cut its production, hiking world prices, as a retaliatory action.  But even were it to do so — and it has given no indication of it — it might itself be the worst victim.  Saudi has some slack to reduce its own income from oil and keep its budget in the black, but not so much.

The Coming Oil Wars.  Accidental wars only happen in the movies.  What's happening now in the East China Sea is a calculated Chinese provocation that could lead to war. [...] War for oil isn't new.  When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, its principal grievance was the American decision to cut off most of its oil supply.

Interior chief Sally Jewell says Obama will go around Congress on national monuments.  Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell vowed that President Obama would use executive authority to create more national monuments to protect lands if Congress doesn't pass legislation to do so.  "If Congress doesn't step up to act," Jewell said during a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, "then the president will take action." [...] Congress hasn't approved a new national monument or park since 2010, with Republicans charging that the White House is keeping too much federal land off limits to oil and gas development.

Interior Secretary: Obama Will Use Executive Powers to Conserve Lands.  President Barack Obama will use his executive powers to protect more mountains, rivers and forests from development if Congress does not act to preserve such wild spaces, the U.S. Interior Secretary said on Thursday [10/31/2013].

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama couldn't care less about wide open spaces, camping and hiking in the wilderness, or expanding national parks.  His goal is to choke off the supply of domestic oil and cripple the U.S. economy.

Obama orders government to prepare for impact of global warming.  President Obama issued an executive order Friday [11/1/2013] directing a government-wide effort to boost preparation in states and local communities for the impact of global warming.  The action orders federal agencies to work with states to build "resilience" against major storms and other weather extremes.  For example, the president's order directs that infrastructure projects like bridges and flood control take into consideration climate conditions of the future, which might require building structures larger or stronger — and likely at a higher price tag.

The Editor says...
By now it should be obvious:  Obama's goal is to make everything more expensive.  Electricity, gasoline, medical insurance, and, as we see here, everything else.  In order to justify preparations for the "impact of global warming," Mr. Obama would have to prove that there is (or will be) any global warming, and prove that one or two degrees of warming would be hazardous.  Neither he nor anyone else will never accomplish such a goal.  As usual, Mr. Obama is meddling in everybody's business for no reason except to impede capitalism.

Using 'Sue and Settle' to Thwart Oil and Gas Drillers.  Last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an environmental advocacy group agreed to a legal settlement that will place nine species — including the Panama City crayfish, moccasinshell mussel and boreal toad — on the fast track for placement on the endangered species list.  It is only the latest of many such listings.  The Center for Biological Diversity has petitioned Fish and Wildlife to designate some 250 species as endangered since 2008.  Many of CBD's petitions — and lawsuits — are still in the pipeline.  About 97% of the species that are designated as endangered never move off the list.

Rich, Arrogant, and Stupid.  [Scroll down]  We have put off-limits huge supplies of oil and natural gas — a trillion barrels by some estimates — everywhere from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico.  The only development going on is on private lands in states that, unlike California, do not put up punitive regulatory barriers to exploration and exploitation.  Obama has intensified this bizarre behavior.  He has blocked the Keystone pipeline, and his federal Bureau of Land Management has just reduced by two-thirds the 1.3 million acres George Bush set aside for development in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

American energy booming despite Obama's policies.  Oil, natural gas and coal production in this country are at record levels.  But this is despite Obama's policies, not, as he implied, because of them.  Oil, natural gas and coal production are zooming upwards on private land, but plummeting on government lands.

Calling it Treason.  We could have walked away from the Middle East already and left them to their own savagery, but the president insists that we remain inextricably tied to their historical need to kill each other so that we can overpay for oil, both monetarily and with American lives.  Thus, as technology enables us to break free of dependence upon Middle East oil, our president bends over backwards to ensure that never happens.

Obama administration cuts back oil shale development.  Controversy is heating up over an administration plan to drastically reduce the amount of federal lands available for oil shale development in the American West.  The Bush administration had set aside 1.3 million acres for oil shale and tar sands development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.  The new Bureau of Land Management plan cuts that amount by two-thirds, down to 700,000 acres, a decision that has prompted industry outrage.

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.

President Obama steals credit for energy success he opposed.  President Obama may be the first chief executive to take credit for the results of things he has opposed throughout his time in the Oval Office.  The latest example came last week, when the Department of the Interior announced it had approved 21 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for energy resource exploration and development.

Production Obstruction.  Delays in federal permitting for oil and gas exploration on public land is likely reducing national energy production and depriving the federal government of revenue, according to a federal report released Friday [3/22/2013].  The report is the latest addition to a mounting body of evidence undercutting the administration's claims that it has fostered increased oil and gas production, critics say.  Production on lands the federal government controls has plummeted during Barack Obama's presidency.

Obama's War On Drilling: Oil Surplus, Not Scarcity, Is The New Regulatory Excuse.  Regardless of abundance and necessity, the Obama administration continues to justify new regulations that restrict access to America's oil and gas reserves.

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.

China Deal Benefits Obama Donors.  The government watchdog group Judicial Watch is suing the Treasury Department for records pertaining to the department's decision to grant a Chinese government-backed company access to oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, a move that will benefit Obama donors.  The Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) reached a "definitive agreement" with Nexen, Inc., a Canadian energy company, announced on July 23, 2012, to buy all of the company's outstanding public shares.

US clears big Chinese oil deal.  United States officials have signed off on Chinese oil giant CNOOC's $15.1 billion purchase of the Canadian oil company Nexen, a deal that triggered U.S. review because Nexen has oil-and-gas assets in the Gulf of Mexico.  Nexen announced Tuesday [2/12/2013] that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has approved the transaction, and that the deal "now has all of the requisite approvals to proceed to close."  CFIUS is a Treasury Department-led interagency panel that reviews foreign purchases of U.S. assets if the transactions could affect national security.

Obama's path toward energy poverty.  [I]nstead of promoting the most reliable and least expensive energy technologies, such as coal-fired electricity generation, Mr. Obama encourages the least reliable and most expensive sources.  It was certainly an understatement to say, as he did in the address, "The path toward sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult."  He should have added, "and virtually useless," because the sustainable energy sources he has most in mind are wind and solar power.  The president presents the transition to these technologies as an economic benefit.  He asserted, "We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries — we must claim its promise.  That is how we will maintain our economic vitality."  No, that is how you ruin a country's economy.

Energy cash influx leads to a state surplus in Texas.  An inbound crush of revenue, private sector productivity, job creation, economic growth — this is everything we are giving up while the Obama administration has tried to forcefully mold the energy economy of their greenest political fancies by delaying on drilling leases for federal lands and waters, flexing their regulatory muscles and waging a war on coal, "investing" our money in their pet projects, and bandying around with potential new regulations to crack down further on hydraulic fracturing.

Robber Barony: Obama Energy Policy By Another Name.  It is time for more Americans to learn about the real energy boom that the Obama Administration is trying to keep under wraps in major and countless minor ways.

The North American Gusher.  Since becoming president, Mr. Obama has treated hydrocarbon production like an infectious disease to be eradicated.  His administration had to commission a study to learn, as announced last week, that allowing American companies to export liquefied natural gas would be beneficial to the U.S. economy.  Still, the Department of Energy says it can't make "final determinations" on export applications until it hears from those who object.

Harsher energy regulations seen in Obama's second term.  Energy producers braced for tighter regulation in President Barack Obama's second term, with coal companies expecting more emissions restrictions and drillers anticipating less access to federal land even as his platform promotes energy independence.

U.S. To 'Become Largest Global Oil Producer' By 2020, 'Net Oil Exporter' By 2030 — If We Let It.  In a striking blow for the environmental left, the International Energy Agency has released a report detailing how the United States is on track to outpace Saudi Arabia in oil production.  This surely puts the Obama administration in a bind concerning its green energy monomania that has dominated their energy policy for the past four years.  This finding shows that the United States can be energy independent, and we have the resources to do so.  However, the boot of government is trying to centralize and control those resources to expand their dependency agenda.

Our Incoherent Energy Policies.  The price of gasoline hit $4.80/gallon in California just a few weeks ago.  And yet near four years into this Administration, we are still without a coherent policy to access our vast reservoirs of oil and gas offshore, on federal lands and Alaska.

With Election Over, the News Flows Freely.  We heard throughout the campaign of President Obama's "all of the above" energy policy.  That was then.  This is now.  About 48 hours after he was assured of reelection, the president's Interior Department issued a plan to close to oil shale development 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West to oil.  These acres were targeted for oil shale exploration and development by the prior administration.  Instead, only some 677,000 acres would be open for oil shale exploration, and an additional 130,000 for tar sands production.  The reason for excluding so much acreage from development includes a desire to protect sage grouse habitats and land with "wilderness characteristics."

The Editor says...
Personally, I couldn't care less about the sage grouse, and something tells me that when gasoline is $5.00 a gallon and constantly climbing, nobody else will care, either.

Democrats Better Start Soul Searching.  We can't know quite what a second Obama term will bring, but if his first term is an indication, there's little reason to expect his party will be crowing. [...] On Friday [11/9/2012], citing ecological concerns, the administration closed off 1.6 million acres of federal land in western states from planned oil shale extraction.  An American energy boom lies in wait underground and Obama is determined to keep it there.

The U.S. will be the world's leading energy producer, if we allow it.  As readers of these pages know, the key to this U.S. energy boom has been technological innovation and risk-taking funded by private capital.  Specifically, the private oil and gas industry pioneered the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) to tap unconventional deposits such as shale that once were technologically out of reach.  It also wouldn't have happened if the industry wasn't able to drill on private land, free from federal regulation.  This is a real energy revolution, even if it's far from the renewable energy dreamland of so many government subsidies and mandates.

Barack H. Obama is doing everything he can to prevent this:
U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia's by 2020.  U.S. oil output is poised to surpass Saudi Arabia's in the next decade, making the world's biggest fuel consumer almost self-reliant and putting it on track to become a net exporter, the International Energy Agency said.  Growing supplies of crude extracted through new technology including hydraulic fracturing of underground rock formations will transform the U.S. into the largest producer for about five years starting about 2020, the Paris-based adviser to 28 nations said today [11/12/2012] in its annual World Energy Outlook.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2024 by Andrew K. Dart

Biden Admin Contracts 1,000,000 Barrels From Emergency Gasoline Stockpile To 'Lower Prices' Ahead Of July 4th.  The Biden administration is selling off a million barrels of gasoline from an emergency reserve in a deliberate effort to cut prices ahead of the upcoming holiday weekend.  The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it has awarded contracts to five energy companies to purchase the barrels the administration is releasing from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve (NGSR), which is part of the federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) system.  The NGSR releases are intended to "help lower gas prices ahead of the Fourth of July holiday," according to DOE.  "The Biden-Harris Administration continues to take strategic action to lower prices for American consumers in every aspect of their lives — especially as summer driving season ramps up," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said of the contracts.  "By releasing this reserve ahead of July 4th, we are ensuring sufficient supply flows to the Northeast at a time hardworking Americans need it the most."

The Editor says...
The federal government is not an oil company.  The emergency stockpile is for emergencies, which does not include political emergencies.

The Left Knows Leftism Doesn't Work.  [T]he left is not running on its record of the last three-and-a-half years but instead studiously ignoring it, at least temporarily through November.  Suddenly, we aren't hearing so much about cancelling pipelines and freezing federal oil leases, or so much demonization of the "greedy" oil companies.  Instead, Biden is further draining the strategic petroleum reserve and begging OPEC in general and the no-longer-demonized Saudi Arabia in particular to pump oil as fast as possible.

Release from gasoline reserve raises doubts Biden will replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  The Biden Administration announced Tuesday that it would release 42 million gallons of gasoline from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve.  The release, the Department of Energy explained, is "strategically timed and structured to maximize its impact on gas prices."  This will, according to the DOE, help lower prices at the pump during the summer months when prices tend to go up along with demand.  The Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve was created in 2012 following Superstorm Sandy, which damaged two refineries and shut down 40 terminals in New York Harbor.  Some New York gas stations went as long as 30 days without a supply of gasoline as a result of the supply disruption.  The Obama administration established the gas reserve to prevent such a shock from happening again.  The 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which became law in March, included language requiring the DOE to sell off the inventory from the reserve and shut it down once it was drained.

Joe Biden's Signature Achievement Is His List Of Broken Promises.  President Joe Biden's Energy Department canceled its plan to purchase millions of barrels of oil to refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).  The cancellation means the Biden administration is unlikely to fulfill its promise of fully replenishing the SPR by the end of the year, and the SPR will remain at a historically low level after the administration depleted it in 2022.  The depletion of the SPR was caused by the Biden administration's own failed energy policy.  Shortly after he came into office, President Biden issued a series of anti-fossil fuel energy policies, including canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline project and halting leasing on federal lands for oil and gas production.  Biden's energy policies strangled American energy production and supply and caused energy prices to soar.  According to the Heritage Foundation, "from January 2021 to January 2022, crude oil prices increased 45 percent, blowing past records set in 2008.  Gasoline and diesel prices are the highest on record since the Energy Information Administration started keeping track in 1993."

With Strategic Petroleum Reserve at Historic Lows, Biden Cancels Replenishment Order.  After drastically depleting the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to buy votes during the midterm election, President Joe Biden's Department of Energy has announced it will not purchase up to 3 million barrels of oil from a site in Louisiana in August and September, as originally intended.  "Keeping the taxpayer's interest at the forefront, we will not award for the Bayou Choctaw SPR site in August and September and will continue to solicit available capacity as market conditions allow," a department spokesperson said according to S&P Global.  "As always, we monitor market dynamics to remain nimble and innovative in our successful replenishment approach to protect this critical national security asset."  Reportedly, the current oil prices are scaring away the DOE from purchasing, as current oil barrel prices are around $85 — above the $79 a barrel it's aiming for.

Biden Squandered America's Emergency Oil Reserves.  Now He Won't Refill Them.  Joe Biden canceled plans to begin refilling our Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which he depleted to drive down gas prices ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.What is the SPR? It's our emergency oil reserve, meant for use during emergencies like war and natural disasters.  Last month, the Biden regime's Department of Energy said it planned to purchase three million barrels of oil to begin refilling the SPR.  But yesterday, it abruptly canceled the purchase due to the rising price of oil.  When President Trump left office, the SPR had 638 million barrels of oil.  Since taking over, Biden has drained 43 percent of the reserves, currently at 363 million barrels — a 40-year low.  In the months leading up to the 2022 midterm elections, gas prices spiked above $5 per gallon (national average).  In response, Biden sold off 180 million barrels from our SPR to drive them down.

After Draining Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Lowest Level in 40 Years, Biden Cancels Plan to Refill it.  The Biden Regime canceled its plan to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve because oil is "way too expensive."  This comes as gas prices are once again skyrocketing.  Recall that Biden drained the SPR to its lowest level in 40 years.  Biden sold the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) to Europe, India and China.

The Editor says...
Obviously Joe Biden, or whoever controls Joe Biden, is either intentionally destroying the U.S. economy, or he is an anject fool who can't foresee the consequences of his actions.

Biden Admin Again Cancels Plans To Refill Oil Reserve.  The Biden administration on Tuesday again canceled plans to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after selling off nearly half of the U.S. oil reserve in 2022.  The Department of Energy said that in "keeping the taxpayer's interest at the forefront" it would not go through with a planned purchase of roughly three million barrels of oil for a reserve site in Louisiana.  "We will not award the current solicitations for the Bayou Choctaw SPR site and will solicit available capacity as market conditions allow.  We will continue to monitor market dynamics," the department said, according to Bloomberg.  The refill cancellation came as American oil price benchmark West Texas Intermediate on Tuesday rose above $85 a barrel, about $6 more than the administration's target price for purchasing oil to refill the reserves.  "Domestic crude prices are likely to remain too high for the remainder of the year for DOE to resume its refilling program," Bob McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group, told Bloomberg.

Funding Bill Would Dismantle Strategic Reserve, Sell Off Stockpiles.  A funding bill is currently being discussed in Congress that could have catastrophic consequences for the Northeast in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency.  Buried on Page 441 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act is a proposal to sell off the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve, which contains 1 million barrels of gasoline.  The goal of the bill is to appropriate funds for several federal agencies, including the Department of Energy.  It stipulates that, once the NGSR is shut down, the department can't create a new reserve unless funding for it is "explicitly requested in advance in an annual budget."

US to Sell Off Entire Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve.  The sale of the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve is among the provisions intended to raise funds in one of six bills setting out appropriations for some federal departments this year after Congress narrowly avoided another shutdown last week.  Under a bill providing funding for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the fiscal year, a million barrels of the government's strategic reserve of petroleum would be sold off — the same amount as in the NGSR, which is located in New York Harbor, Boston, Massachusetts and South Portland, Maine.  "Upon the complete of such sale, the Secretary [of Energy] shall carry out the closure of the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve," the bill states, and "may not establish any new regional petroleum product reserve unless funding of the proposed regional petroleum product reserve is explicitly requested in advance in an annual budget."

Energy Department claims strategic oil reserve refill prices good for taxpayers, industry disagrees.  The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced Wednesday another request to buy 3 million barrels of oil that will help replenish the nation's energy stockpiles, which have been drained under President Joe Biden to their lowest level since the 1980s.  The agency has been doing these monthly buys.  In the announcements, the DOE highlighting that, since it's buying the oil at less than it was sold in the past couple of years, it's a good deal for taxpayers.  Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told Just The News that it's not such a good deal when you look at the historic average price of what the oil was originally purchased at, which was less than half what the DOE is buying it for now.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves inventory only has a 20-day supply.  Seems that no one remembers the Oil Embargo of 1973, just 50 years ago!  In 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an oil embargo against the United States, triggering a crude oil crisis that sent the U.S. economy into a recession.  To mitigate from any future shortages of oil, President Gerald Ford signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, which established the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).  The SPR is centrally located along the Gulf Coast where the oil can be distributed to nearly half of all U.S. oil refineries using interstate pipelines or barges.  Interestingly, California, the 4th largest economy in the world, has no access to the SPR as there are no pipelines over the Sierra Mountains to reach the "California Energy Island".

AAF Commentary on US Drained Petroleum Reserve.  "The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created to be used in emergency scenarios, not for the Biden administration to tap into when they hit a bad news cycle on their record-breaking inflation," said AAF Executive Director Paul Teller.  "The Biden administration's decision to drain the reserve has consequences we are seeing now.  The job of our government is to protect US resources for times of uncertainty, but the Biden administration has put the United States in a critical position.  We must harness America's natural resources and replenish our oil reserve with domestic oil production.  Now is the time to unleash American energy and make us not only independent, but a resource to other western nations, so no one needs to crawl to Iran, hat in hand."

If you're tempted to think the government cares about you...  Does anybody really believe that Biden cared whether the taxpayers have to pay $60 or $100 per barrel to refill the strategic petroleum reserve that he tapped to buy votes?  After all, it was his energy policies that jacked up the cost of gas and diesel, not the Russians or the supply chain disruption.

Our Establishment's Alternate Realities.  One common denominator that explains why previously successful societies implode is their descent into fantasies.  A collective denial prevents even discussion of existential threats and their solutions. [...] Consider natural gas and oil.  The Biden administration waged war on both by canceling pipelines, drilling on federal lands, and entire oil fields.  When the price soared and the 2022 midterms neared, Biden suddenly begged formerly shunned illiberal regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela to pump all the hated oil they could to lower the price.  A desperate Biden drained much of the strategic petroleum reserve — he has yet to refill it — simply to lower the price of gasoline and thus win voters back to the Democratic Party.  When the midterms passed, Biden resumed his attack on once bad, then good, and now bad again fossil fuels — at least until the 2024 election.

U.S. Energy Secretary Consulted Top Chinese Energy Official Before Draining Strategic Oil Reserve.  he Biden Administration's Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, held several talks with her Chinese counterpart prior to the widely-panned decision to drain the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) back in 2021.  As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the meetings were documented in Department of Energy (DOE) calendars obtained by Fox News.  Granholm met with Zhang Jianhua, chairman of the China National Energy Administration, on November 19th and November 21st, 2021, meetings which were never publicly revealed.  Just two days after their second meeting, on November 23rd, Joe Biden announced the decision to start draining the SPR in order to combat rising gas prices in the United States.  "Secretary Granholm's multiple closed-door meetings with a CCP-connected energy official raise serious questions about the level of Chinese influence on the Biden administration's energy agenda," said Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust.

Energy Sec Had Secret Conversation With CCP Official Before SPR Release.  There have been a lot of questions raised about how Joe Biden and his administration have dealt with China, particularly in light of the Biden family foreign business dealings scandal.  As my colleague Andrew Malcolm has said, "He's been remarkably passive given the increasing power and aggressiveness of Beijing's Communist leaders."  We've seen how weak Biden has been in response to all kinds of troubling actions from China, including spying on the U.S. — from the spy balloon to the most recent hacking of the U.S. Ambassador's email account, as well as the accessing of accounts of other U.S. government officials.  Now there's more troubling news about something that happened in 2021 — but we're just finding out now.

Biden Screwed Us Forever On Another Thing.  The SPR is probably never going to be refilled, according to one expert, and maybe not even for the reason that first popped into your mind.  Let me set the stage for today's big reveal.  The SPR was created under President Gerald Ford in 1975 following the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo, which turned out to be just the first of that decade's two major oil shocks.  Set in massive salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas, the SPR was supposed to hold enough crude oil — 714 million barrels — to help us weather any future embargo.  While it was never large enough to do that for any significant time, the SPR's very existence strengthened our geopolitical position versus some very nasty oil producers in places like Iran and Russia.  It took until about 2010 — 35 years! — to fill those reservoirs all the way up.  It took Dementia Joe just two years to cut our reserves in half, down to levels not seen since 1983.

CPI notes: Biden's draining off the SPR like a giant with a straw.  It's also another reason inflation as read by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is being held at bay.  His pulling that oil out and selling it off is keeping the wraps on oil prices globally, which, in turn, strips that volatility out of the equation for those core prices.  But there IS a bottom to that barrel, and POTATUS has done nothing about refilling what is supposed to be our "emergency" supply, not his personal oily piggy bank.  [Tweet] [...] Bidenomics doesn't feel all that terrific and when the hard numbers are put in front of people, i.e. "This cost X in 2021 and now costs +% for Y in 2023," it just confirms what they know as the tale of the register tape at the grocery store — and the gas station.  That it is nowhere near where we once were.

Joe Biden and the 'Impossible' Task of Refilling America's Oil Reserves.  President Joe Biden in December began working to replenish the 180 million barrels he sold last year from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  Nearly six months later, he still has zero barrels to show for it.  Biden's Energy Department on Monday announced its intention to purchase up to three million reserve barrels as a "continuation" of the president's "replenishment strategy."  So far, however, that "strategy" has seen the Democrat fail to purchase a single barrel of reserve oil.  The administration first tried to purchase three million reserve barrels in December, when Biden kicked off his "plan to replenish the SPR."  One month later, Biden's Energy Department revealed it had rejected all offers it received to purchase the oil because those offers "were either too expensive or didn't meet the required specifications."  Republicans have hammered Biden for his management of the reserves, which sit at their lowest levels in four decades after the Democrat last year sold 180 million reserve barrels in an attempt to lower gas prices ahead of a difficult midterm election.

Biden Is Draining the Strategic Oil Reserve.  Republicans Are Demanding an Investigation..  Two Republicans on Monday asked a congressional watchdog to assess the Biden administration's management of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and audit its modernization program, saying sales from the SPR have undermined U.S. energy security.  Senator John Barrasso, ranking member of the Senate energy committee, and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, head of the House energy committee, asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate the Department of Energy's (DOE) management of the reserve after the administration oversaw sales of about 250 million barrels from the facility last year.  The sales have pushed levels of the reserve to the lowest since 1983.  "DOE's mismanagement of the SPR has undermined America's energy security, leaving the nation more vulnerable to energy supply disruptions, and increasing the ability for OPEC and Russia to use energy as a geopolitical weapon," the lawmakers wrote to Gene Dodaro, the head of the GAO.

Joe Biden's Love-Hate Relationship with Oil.  On the last Friday of January, the Republican House of Representatives passed a bill aimed at curtailing the president's ability to exploit the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for partisan ends.  If enacted, the bill would require that, except in a "severe energy supply disruption," any drawdown of the reserve would need to be accompanied by a plan to open up new federal lands for oil and gas leases "by the same percentage as the percentage of petroleum ... that is to be drawn down."  President Biden has already made clear that he would veto the bill if it made it to his desk, which it won't, because the Democrats control the Senate.  Why do Republicans think a bill like this is necessary?  Because over the last two years, Biden has repeatedly timed selloffs from the oil reserve for political reasons, especially in the run-up to last November's elections, when his party was trying extra hard to make sure that oil and gasoline were cheap.  By now, the reserve has shrunk to 380 million barrels, its lowest level since 1984.

Biden's Crude Oil Supply Raid Has Plunged America Into Crisis.  Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana got it right: Over the past two years, President Joe Biden stalled domestic energy production, begged Saudi Arabia to send more oil to America and drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — all in his effort to lower gas prices in advance of the 2022 election.  It's at the point where the national oil reserve created in 1975 to be available in the event of a national emergency is becoming its own emergency.  Under the Biden administration, the midterm election and spiking gasoline prices created a political crisis for Democrats, one that the president solved by draining 42% of what was in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when he took office.

House passes "Keep Biden's hands out of the SPR cookie jar" bill.  Well, true to their word, House Republicans proposed and passed a bill to keep Joe Biden from raiding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  [Tweet]  The bill Steve Scalise and the others put together was actually pretty clever.  It doesn't forbid Biden outright from raiding his favorite piggybank.  It just ties his withdrawals up in certain conditions.  A vote on the bill also had the added benefit of putting members of Congress on record as far as support for American energy independence went. [...] Needless to say, Biden was already threatening a veto even before a single "aye" was heard on the floor.

White House Won't Rule Out Tapping Strategic Oil Reserve Again.  Speaking to reporters at the White House Friday afternoon, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to rule out tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve yet again as gas prices continue to increase.  She also failed to explain when the Biden administration plans to refill the reserve.  [Tweet]  In order to mitigate the political problem of high gas prices ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, President Joe Biden depleted the SPR to historically low and dangerous levels not seen since the 1970s.  High prices were self-inflicted through Biden's war on oil and gas in order to satisfy the demands of inefficient, alternative energy activists.  [Another tweet]  Meanwhile, House Republicans are working to stop Biden's abuse of the SPR.  [More tweets]

The Manic Methods of Mad Democrats.  The list of 2022 pre-election gambits is endless.  Biden offered amnesties for both student-loan debt payments and federal marijuana convictions.  But perhaps the most flagrant Biden pre-midterm contortion was his sudden interest in flooding markets with oil and gas, hitherto reduced in supply within the United States due to his own green handlers.  Biden requested the Saudis to postpone OPEC cutbacks until after the election.  Prior to the midterms, he begged illiberal regimes like Venezuela, Iran, and Russia to pump more oil as well.  They were not keen to help him out, so, in the weeks leading up to the midterms, Biden began draining millions of barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve to reduce gasoline prices, even as he lied that his own policies were bringing down oil and natural gas prices.  Then shortly after the midterms, Biden announced he would cease drawing down the reserve that was banked at low prices under Trump and instead would buy a few million barrels at sky-high prices.  Since the election's conclusion, he has been silent about concerns for the voter's gasoline and natural gas price woes.  Why the change?

Biden DOE rejects bids to restock oil reserve.  Roughly one month ago, the White House answered one question we've been hammering them about for more than a year.  Joe Biden drained nearly 200 million barrels of oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a failed effort to keep gas prices low ahead of the midterm elections.  Was he ever planning on replacing that oil?  And how much would it cost if he does?  At the time, Biden was saying that he would place the first order for three million barrels of oil for the SPR in February.  That doesn't happen overnight, so they opened up the process to take bids from the oil companies.  As you would expect, the oil and gas industry responded, sending in their bids quickly.  Those bids were turned over to the Department of Energy (which oversees the SPR), but the process remained under the watchful eye of the White House.  This weekend we received our answer.  Nobody's bid was accepted.  The DOE rejected all of them.  Where we go from here remains a mystery.

What will it cost us to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after Biden drained it?  We're finally getting an answer to a question that we've been posing here for more than a year.  Does Joe Biden ever plan on replenishing that nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, now that he's drained it down to levels not seen since Jimmy Carter was in office?  Thankfully, the answer appears to be yes, though it's going to take time, not to mention a tremendous amount of money.  In February, Biden will order a delivery of three million barrels of oil to be pumped back into the reserve.  That may sound like a lot, but keep in mind that Biden released almost 200 million barrels from the SPR over the past year.  Replenishing it by three million barrels at a time is going to take many years.  And that assumes that there will be enough oil available.

Biden Admin Quietly Raises The Price It's Willing To Pay To Refill Oil Reserves.  The Energy Department announced Friday that it would begin buying oil to refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) at prices below $96 per barrel, even though the White House previously stated that the department would begin buying back oil at a price of $67 to $72 per barrel.  The Energy Department declared that it would start to repurchase crude oil at a lower price than the $96 per barrel average price that barrels were previously sold for to secure a "good deal" for the taxpayer, according to an official press release.  However, the White House said in October that the department would buy oil back once the average price of oil reached $67 to $72 a barrel, touting the plan as a "win for taxpayers."

Joe Biden must stop politicizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  In case you hadn't noticed, the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now down to 389 million barrels, the lowest levels seen since the early years of Ronald Reagan's presidency.  Even with the election now behind us, the current plan is to keep releasing more oil from the SPR until crude oil prices drop below $70 per barrel.  This is obviously a situation that can't continue indefinitely and the SPR needs to be refilled.  Has anyone in Washington learned anything from this experience?  The president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, Mike Sommers, recently went on Fox News with a message for the White House and any future presidents who might be tempted to follow Joe Biden's example.  He bitingly referred to the SPR as now being the "strategic political reserve," and called on the government to stop politicizing what is supposed to be a vital national asset that is meant to supply a buffer during an actual emergency, not a political tool that presidents use to scare up a few more votes.

As White House drains oil reserve to near-40-year lows, Biden asks for $500m to modernize system.  The Biden administration is asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to shore up and modernize parts of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve system, a request that comes after the White House has spent months aggressively draining the levels of fuel from the system itself.  The request, a rider attached to the White House's $38 billion Ukrainian funding package, would "provide the Department of Energy, Energy Security and Infrastructure Modernization Fund account $500 million for modernization activities of the four Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites," the White House said in the letter.  The funds "would allow the SPR to both maintain operational readiness levels and also alleviate anticipated shortfalls due to supply chain issues, the COVID-19 pandemic, and related schedule delays," the request said.  The funding petition comes after months of the Biden administration withdrawing heavily from the SPR in order to address sky-high fuel prices around the country.

Saudi Issues a Warning to Biden About the Dangers of Draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  Saudi Arabia is warning that President Joe Biden's politically motivated draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve could cause serious problems for the United States in the near future.  [Tweet]  Last week President Biden announced yet another 11 million barrel release from the SPR, falsely claiming the move will lower gas prices for American families at the pump.  The SPR is now at its lowest level since 1984 with just 17 days worth of supply left.  The White House has been vague about when the Biden administration plans to refill the reserve after Democrats rejected a 2020 proposal from President Donald Trump to fill the SPR at $20 per barrel.  [Tweet]

Biden Is Destroying Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  [Scroll down] The Reserve's depletion is a major concern because there is no assurance that it will be refilled despite the Biden administration's pledge to refill it when crude prices drop to or below the $67-72 per barrel price range.  Biden is prepared to authorize significant additional sales in the coming months if conditions require.  With the projections for a bad winter in the northeast, can the Biden administration resist the urge to sell even more SPR oil?  Even if the Administration does commence refill, the process will take years.  The highest fill rate the SPR has achieved is 292,000 barrels per day (BPD) in 1981.  At that rate (assuming it can be achieved) it will take over three years to refill the Reserve to capacity — and that assumes perfect execution and no supply or logistical glitches.  Moreover, it is questionable if that rate can be achieved because, in the early years, the SPR was filling empty storage caverns.  Now, they'll be topping off caverns, a process that is logistically more difficult.

Biden Is 'Buying Votes' Ahead of Midterm Elections With Policy Decisions: Rep. Lauren Boebert.  [Scroll down] In 2021, when green energy policies caused gasoline prices to soar, Biden directed the Department of Energy to release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which amounts to about two and a half days' worth of the nation's consumption.  When gas prices continued to climb, Biden dipped into the reserves several more times.  By July 29, the SPR had reached its lowest level since 1985.  As of Oct. 14, the SPR had about 405 million barrels, down from 638 million barrels in January 2021 when Biden took office.  Congress created the SPR in 1975 to protect the United States from volatility in oil markets and to ensure an inventory of energy supplies in emergencies, such as war or natural disasters.  The United States just reached the end of peak hurricane season, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently threatened NATO forces with nuclear weapons.  Boebert said Biden and Democrat lawmakers are skirting legislative procedure to buy the votes they haven't earned over the past two years.

Biden is depleting the nation's strategic oil supply to save his own skin.  After attempting a political quid pro quo with Saudi leaders (apparently this isn't an impeachable offense anymore), President Joe Biden has gone back to saving his political skin the old-fashioned way — by using his domestic powers and resources to ease voters' short-term anger.  Biden recently went to Saudi Arabia and debased himself, begging the kingdom to produce more oil as a political favor to help his party — but only through Election Day, because there's a plane to save!  Months later, his ask has been brutally rejected, with the OPEC oil cartel instead actually cutting production.  The Saudis, of course, deny that this was retaliatory, but what did Biden expect?  He campaigned for president on a promise to turn Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler into an international "pariah."

Biden Team Doing All It Can to Buy Election with Latest Move.  Gas prices have been going up again, even as the Biden team tells us ridiculous stories of how much they're saving us on gas.  White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed on Tuesday that they were saving us $420 million a day.  At this point, they're just making up numbers and pulling them out of the air.  That takes some kind of gall to claim since we're still paying far more for gas than when Joe Biden came in.  They think we have 15-second memories and don't remember?  But if that were true, why is Joe Biden still ripping off our Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

Biden taken aback by multiple reporters suggesting oil reserve release is meant to help Democrats.  President Biden appeared taken aback Wednesday at multiple reporters suggesting that his tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was politically motivated with the midterms three weeks away.  Biden announced the release of 15 million more barrels of oil from the emergency reserve, saying it would lower gas prices and bolster domestic oil production.  As he concluded his remarks at the White House, a reporter shouted out at him, leading him to sarcastically ask her to "speak louder."  "What is your response to Republicans who say you are only doing this SPR release to help Democrats in the midterms?" the reporter asked.  "Where have they been the last four months?  That's my response," Biden said, scoffing.

Biden Visibly Irritated By Reporters Asking if Releasing Oil From Reserves Ahead of Midterms is Politically Motivated.  Biden's handlers trotted him out for few minutes Wednesday afternoon to deliver remarks on his plans to lower energy costs.  Joe Biden on Wednesday announced the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  Of course this is a political ploy ahead of the midterm elections to help Democrats.  Biden is artificially reducing the price of gas while he drains the SPR.  "What is your response to Republicans who say you are only doing this SPR release to help Democrats in the midterms?" a reporter asked Biden.  A visibly irritated Biden responded, "Where have they been the last four months?  That's my response!"  Joe Biden doesn't even know where he has been the last four months.

Biden [is] reportedly about to imperil national security by draining Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gasoline prices before midterms.  I don't understand why Republican candidates for office are not challenging their opponents on whether or not they support President Biden's harming national security by draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for temporary price declines at the gasoline pump as the nation votes.  Biden's policies brought about high oil prices, starting with his cancelation of the Keystone Pipeline and limits on oil leasing on Day One of his term.  Now, as international tensions soar, and formerly reliable oil suppliers like Saudi Arabia mull retaliation for slights from Biden, our ability to withstand a cutoff of diminishment of oil supplies is imperiled by Biden's move to shore up his political support.  President Trump tried to add to the SPR when his policies brought low oil prices but Democrats blocked him; now Biden figuratively eats the seed corn that President Trump tried to put away for a rainy day as clouds loom.

Joe Biden's Ad Hoc Use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  Notwithstanding vociferous criticism of the politicized use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by the Biden administration, such drawdowns have been employed for decades by Democratic and Republican administrations alike as an ad hoc and futile response to short-run increases in fuel prices.  Unlike the case for all previous administrations, which viewed the domestic production of fossil fuels as a positive or at least necessary objective, the major difference introduced by the Biden administration is the incoherence of its policies on conventional energy.  To wit: a combination of "net-zero" climate policies supposedly ending the use of fossil fuels and desperate attempts to avoid sharp increases in gasoline prices in the here and now.  These goals are impossible to reconcile; that is how we wind up with constraints on domestic oil production combined with supplication to the Saudis for increases in output.  But careful thinking about the purpose and efficient use of the SPR leads to a surprising conclusion: The Biden SPR drawdown policy on net is likely to improve allocational efficiency in the narrow context of emergency preparation.  In order to see this, it is useful first to ask whether there is a reasonable argument in support of an emergency oil stockpile owned and managed by the government.

The limits — and possibilities — Biden faces in ordering more SPR releases.  President Joe Biden is weighing the release of more oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to help tamp another surge in prices expected after OPEC+ announced its plans to slash oil production by roughly 2 million barrels per day.  But experts warn that further depleting the nation's emergency stockpile could be a risky move for Biden — one that could have a limited market impact and leave the United States vulnerable and resource-strapped at a time of an actual domestic supply emergency.

Biden's Secret Promise To OPEC Backfires.  In early September, United States Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, told Reuters that President Joe Biden was considering extending the release of oil from America's emergency stockpiles, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), through October, and thus beyond the date when the program had been set to end.  But then, a few hours later, an official with the Department of Energy called Reuters and contradicted Granholm, saying that the White House was not, in fact, considering more SPR releases.  Five days later, the White House said it was considering refilling the SPR, thereby proposing to do the exact opposite of what Granholm had proposed.  The confusion around the Biden administration's petroleum policy was cleared up yesterday after a senior official revealed that the White House had made a secret offer to buy up to 200 million barrels of OPEC+ oil to replenish the SPR in exchange for OPEC+ not cutting oil production.

Biden to release 10M more barrels from Strategic Petroleum Reserve in November in wake of OPEC+ cuts.  President Biden on Wednesday said he would release 10 million more barrels of oil from the U.S.' Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in November in a move to counter raising gas prices again.  His decision was announced just hours after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) said it would be cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day.  The cuts will restore the oil market for top producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia but are also expected to drive up costs at the pump globally.

The Editor says...
OPEC wouldn't have any influence on U.S. gas prices if domestic oil production in all 50 states was unrestricted.

GOP Congressman: Joe Biden Has Drained [the] Strategic Petroleum Reserve Right When Florida Needs It.  The disaster that is, has been, and will be the Biden administration continues to hurt regular Americans, this time with a huge impact being felt across large parts of the state of Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian's devastating effects.  As millions go without power — though thanks to the mobilization of human resources by Governor Ron DeSantis those numbers keep dropping quickly — one of the biggest needs is gas to power emergency vehicles, generators, and the automobiles of tens of millions of Floridians trying to relocate, support the clean up and rebuilding process, or help loved ones and neighbors.  Speaking to Fox Business Network's Kennedy, one Republican Congressman is calling out Joe Biden and his reckless use of the Strategic Reserves to lower gas prices after his climate policies gouged them in the first place.

Biden [is] dangerously draining [the] Strategic Petroleum Reserve like [a] 'campaign credit card, industry warns.  President Biden is recklessly draining the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to insulate his party from the political fallout of high oil prices before the upcoming midterm elections, claims the president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, Tim Stewart.  Stocks of crude oil in the SPR fell 6.9 million barrels in the week ending Sept. 16 to 427.2 million barrels, the lowest level since August 1984, according to Department of Energy data.  "This is the first time in history, honestly, that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been used as a campaign credit card to buy down political risk for the midterms," Stewart said Friday on the "Just the News, Not Noise" TV show.  "Let me put it in perspective if I could," he added.  "At the current rate, the U.S. is selling more oil out of its emergency reserves than the production of most medium-sized OPEC countries like Algeria or Angola.  We're selling twice as much per day than we're producing out of Alaska. [...]"

Biden's Depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Could Be Catastrophic Soon.  Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan may have tanked his approval ratings, but record inflation and soaring gas prices kept them underwater.  As fuel prices reached historic highs, Biden stubbornly refused to do anything that would increase domestic supply, opting instead to buy fuel from overseas before eventually raiding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  It was a foolish thing to do, and while gas prices have gone down, the impact of raiding the reserves is debatable.  But one thing is for sure: Biden depleted the reserves, which are now at a 37-year low, to boost his poll numbers.

While Biden Brags About Releasing Oil From Emergency Oil Stockpile, Reserve Plunges To Lowest Level Since 1985.  While President Joe Biden brags about reducing gas prices by releasing gigantic amounts of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the crucial reserve has plunged to its lowest level of oil since May 1985.  Last week, the emergency crude oil stockpile plummeted 4.6 million barrels, leaving 469.9 million barrels, down from 618 million barrels last September, Reuters reported.  The reserve can hold as much as 727 million barrels of oil.  Biden announced in March he would raid the reserve — which is spread among four sites along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana — depleting it by 1 million barrels per day over six months.  "The scale of this release is unprecedented:  the world has never had a release of oil reserves at this 1 million per day rate for this length of time," the White House bragged.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies.  Whenever anyone questions whether wind power and other renewables, such as solar, should get subsidies, the proponents of wind and solar respond by saying fossil fuels get larger subsidies than renewables.  Let's sort out the facts as best we can.

Life Without Oil:  Not as Simple as You May Think.  [Info-graphic]

Uncle Bernie Sanders Is Brainwashing Our Uneducated Youth.  People are fleeing Venezuela at the rate of one million a year.  According to Forbes, the South American country's inflation rate is a staggering 808%!  But don't blame the USA for this.  Unlike with Cuba, we are still the number one importer of Venezuelan oil and the number one exporter of goods to that benighted country.  We essentially support Venezuela, even though it has been led sequentially by rancid America-hating despots like Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

'Fractivists' caught in flood of Colorado lies.  Massive storms dumped "biblical rainfall amounts" across nearly 2,000 square miles of Colorado last month, according to the National Weather Service.  The raging floods that followed killed at least eight people, damaged or destroyed nearly 2,000 homes, and wrecked more than 200 miles of state highways and 50 state bridges.  The Denver Post ran a front page aerial photo headlined, "Front Range Flooding: Oil spilling into mix," showing a trashed stream bed with brown stains near a "damaged tank" that "leaks crude."  Opportunistic flocks of Big Green eco-vultures already embroiled in five local anti-fracking ballot measures pounced on the tragedy as a propaganda vehicle.  Their basic strategy was to pose as "mom-and-pop victims with no money to stop this spilling, but Big Bad Oil is putting zillions into the campaign."

Chevron Vindicated As Evidence Points To 'Green Fraud' By Environmentalists.  So what happened to the $19 billion judgment against Chevron over rainforest pollution in Ecuador?  Seems the leftist lawyer behind it all now finds himself in the dock on a RICO rap for a massive fraud.

Chevron takes shakedown lawyers to court in RICO trial.  [Scroll down]  While such tactics have traditionally been successful against big corporations with deep pockets, choosing to simply pay off the pests rather than spending the time and money to fight them, not so with Chevron.  The plaintiffs, led in large part by Manhattan lawyer Steven Donziger, tried to dig too deep, racking up a $19 B[illion] judgement in an Ecuador court based on what turned out to be a staggering series of apparently fraudulent ploys.  Chevron fought back and refused to cough up a dime.

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."

Obama budget would end oil industry tax breaks, hike royalites.  While the tax plans are dead on arrival on Capitol Hill — where lawmakers have rejected similar proposals many times before — they drew outrage from oil and gas industry leaders who said Obama was seeking to use the sector as a piggy bank.  The fiscal 2014 budget proposal aims to raise $2.5 billion over the next decade by raising the royalty rates for oil and gas produced on federal lands and waters, with the revenue steered toward a new Energy Security Trust for research in alternative fuels and vehicles.

Shocker: Oil companies pay the most in income taxes.  President Obama and the Democrats' calls for more revenue are almost never complete without some kind of shoutout to how we need to end loopholes for those treacherous, evil oil companies, but just a friendly reminder:  Oil companies provide for some of the most handsome portions of federal revenue already.

Big, Evil Oil Companies Pay Most in Taxes.  It's no surprise liberals love taxes.  The new Democratic Senate budget calls for $1 trillion in tax increases in order to offset $1 trillion in new spending.  But liberals who constantly demonize big oil are biting the hand that feeds and fulfills their big govenrment spending dreams.  It turns out, big oil companies like Exxon Mobile and Chevron pay [more] in taxes [than] any other company.

Who really owns Big Oil companies?  Research shows that the bulk of economic rewards reaped by the oil and gas sector are actually flowing back to everyday Americans.  Their success is boosting the financial futures of millions of working families all across the country.  Oil and gas companies have broad-based public ownership.

Hess to close last refinery in New Jersey.  This story went mostly under the radar, but it will have some implications for many people on the east coast and for the industry in general further down the line.  Without much fanfare, Hess recently announced that they were selling off their last commercial refinery, located in New Jersey.  Their stated reasons are clear enough, but there's a bit more to the story.