Category — Obama energy policy

The Clinton Administration said back in 1999: “Biomass will be for the next century what petroleum was for this century.” [1] But with expensive experience with money and performance, we now know that U.S. EPA’s E-15 ethanol plan is bad for our pocketbooks, environment and energy policy.

The Obama Administration’s anti-hydrocarbon ideology and “renewable” energy mythology continues to subsidize crony capitalists and the politicians they help keep in office – on the backs of American taxpayers, ratepayers and motorists. The latest chapter in the sorry ethanol saga is a perfect example.

Bowing to pressure from ADM, Cargill, Growth Energy and other Big Ethanol lobbyists, Lisa Jackson’s Environmental Protection Agency has decided to allow ethanol manufacturers to register as suppliers of E15 gasoline. E15 contains 15% ethanol, rather than currently mandated 10% blends.

The next lobbying effort will focus on getting E15 registered as a fuel in individual states and persuading oil companies to offer it at service stations. But according to the Associated Press and Washington Post, Team Obama already plans to provide taxpayer-financed grants, loans and loan guarantees to “help station owners install 10,000 blender pumps over the next five years” and promote the use of biofuels.

Pummeled by Obama policies that have helped send regular gasoline prices skyrocketing from $1.85 a gallon when he took office to $4.00 today – many motorists will welcome any perceived “bargain gas.” E15 will likely reduce their obvious pump pain by several cents a gallon, thus persuading people to fill up their cars, trucks and maybe even boats, lawnmowers and other equipment with the new blends.

That would be a huge mistake. [Read more →]

“The authority of the President … to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads … [including] the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy.”

In preparing a list for MasterResource of federal energy policy reforms to free Alaska, and thus bolster America’s economy, I came across an Executive Order (E.O.) signed by the President last month with little or no fanfare. His new authority empowers him, in certain circumstances, to assume control over the energy industry—along with the rest of the economy.

Such executive branch power puts Congress and the courts in an inferior position. It also creates a new anti-production risk in addition to current federal policy regarding lease sales; ocean policy; ANWR; OCS; and arbitrary and capricious application of the Endangered Species, Clean Water and Clean Air acts.

‘National Defense Resources Preparedness’

How many of our readers knew that on March 16, 2012, one month ago, the President signed an Executive Order (E.O.)– giving himself access to dictatorial powers — under the guise of ‘national defense’ under authority of Defense Production Act of 1950. These powers will potentially control the means of production–including energy production.

We are suspicious of White House motives because if this E.O. were necessary and its objectives noble, we would have been treated to a transparent, presidential announcement and/or press conference. Pardon us for being suspicious as well of main stream media complicity, due to a deafening silence coming from the Fourth Estate. [Read more →]

“Entitlement debt is destroying our great nation. These kinds of taxpayer- and ratepayer-funded giveaways, imposed in the name of being ‘green,’ are simply not sustainable – especially if we want our children and grandchildren to live free and prosper.”

President Obama’s mantra du jour for his 2012 campaign speeches is “all-inclusive” energy. But any business touting this version of “all-inclusive” would be prosecuted for false advertising.

When the President says “all-inclusive,” he means politically correct (PC) “green” energy (wind, solar and bio-fuels), and nothing that actually provides reliable, affordable power – especially not hydrocarbons. Another PC buzzword – “sustainable” – is right out of the United Nation’s Agenda 21 Protocol and the President’s goal of “fundamentally transforming” America.

Increasing pain at the pump and the plug underscores the reality that Mr. Obama’s energy policies are anything but “all-inclusive,” and PC power is anything but sustainable – though they certainly are transforming our country. In fact, if the Keystone XL pipeline’s oil were used to generate electricity, it would provide more energy than all existing U.S. wind and solar installations combined. [Read more →]

“As long as I’m President, we’re going to keep on encouraging oil development and infrastructure, and we’re going to do it in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people. We don’t have to choose between one or the other, we can do both.”

Will Obama’s audacious oil play prove to be a Dukakis-in-a-tank moment, as his political opposition believes? Whether it is or not, the climate-alarmist Left is steamed. Why? Because the President’s paean to petroleum sets back the idea that big bad oil is on the way out. Game-set-match for the robust continuing carbon-based energy age.

We have come full circle from George W. Bush’s anti-oil moment in his 2006 State of the Union speech when he opined:

We have a serious problem. America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

Joe Romm, a perennially angry guy over at Climate Progress, is getting convoluted over the fracturing opposition to dense energy. His latest broadside, “Obama’s Worst Speech Ever: “We’ve Added Enough New Oil And Gas Pipeline To Encircle The Earth”, is reserved for his beloved President:

Obama will … be remembered for a ‘failed presidency‘ simply for failing to seriously fight for a climate bill. And this [Cushing] speech certainly guts any possible claim for a climate legacy.

Remember Albert Gore?

Al Gore as presidential candidate had his ‘Cushing moment’ back in 2000. He said:

I have made it clear in this campaign that I am not calling for any tax increase on gasoline, on oil, on natural gas, or anything else. I am calling for tax cuts to stimulate the production of new sources of domestic energy and new technologies to improve efficiency. [Read more →]

President Obama’s February 23 speech at the University of Miami supplemented his energy views in the State of the Union address and his 2013 Fiscal Year budget submitted to Congress. Playing defense in the face of high gasoline prices and an oil and gas boom not of his making, Obama’s pitch was long on misdirection and spin and short of true market-base reform.

Make no mistake: the President’s energy universe centers around curtailing the use of fossil fuels, in particular coal, due to fears that carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from combustion will cause catastrophic global warming.  This motivation will guide future energy policies until the Obama era is over.

The United States has the most abundant fossil fuel reserves in the world, the greatest agriculture system, and the most innovative population, all of which should ensure prosperity for centuries.  The question is: can market incentives unleash what Julian Simon called the ultimate resource to turn potential and opportunity into reality?

U.S. Resource Base

President Obama decried high gasoline prices and said his opponents will shout the 30-year old solution—”drill, drill, drill”—that has not worked. “Anyone who tells you we can drill our way out of this problem doesn’t know what they are talking about,’ he said. “The U. S. consumes more than a fifth of the world’s oil. But we only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves.”

President Obama could not be more wrong. [Read more →]

Small business owners who depend upon the economy in the Gulf of Mexico are still victimized by the ripple effects of the moratorium Team Obama put into place after the BP oil well explosion in April 2010, documents Greater New Orleans, Inc. after surveying approximately 100 Louisiana-based companies directly involved in the offshore oil and gas industry, led by marine services and ship owners/operators.

The Impact of Decreased Drilling Permit Approvals on Gulf of Mexico Businesses found that 41% of businesses are not making a profit. Other statistics of decline:

* 76% have lost cash reserves

* 27% of businesses have lost more than half of their cash reserves

* 50% of businesses have laid off employees as a result of the moratoria

* 39% of businesses have retained workers but reduced salaries and/or hours

* 46% of businesses have moved all or some of their operations away from the Gulf of Mexico

82% of business owners have lost personal savings as a result of the permit slowdown

* 13% of business owners have lost all of their personal savings as a result of the slowdown

Even if the current administration’s anti-energy policies are reversed, this study demonstrates that there is an opportunity cost in terms of lost business that will never be recovered. As the Pelican Institute has previously reported, over 10 oil rigs have already left the Gulf and more could leave soon in the absence of a reasonable regulatory environment that allows for robust energy production on the part of those companies with a proven safety record.

Additional information was given in yesterday’s press release: [Read more →]

[Editor note: Mr. Mooney's Collateral Damage: Lost Rigs from Obama Obstructionism appeared last month at MasterResource. His reports originally appear at the Pelican Post, Louisiana news and commentary from the Pelican Institute for Public Policy.]

Up to 20 oil rigs could leave the Gulf of Mexico, in addition to the 11 that have already left, since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010, a new report from FBR Capital Markets has concluded.

Unless the permitting process is accelerated, FBR analysts anticipate that anywhere from eight to 20 rigs could depart the deep waters within the Gulf. The moratorium was imposed in response to the explosion of British Petroleum’s (BP) Macondo oil well on April 20 of last year. The accident resulted in the death of 11 workers and caused an estimated five million barrels of crude oil to spill into the Gulf.

De Facto Moratorium

Although federal officials announced they were lifting the restrictions last October, a “de-facto moratorium” remains in effect that stifles energy production and undermines large and small businesses in the Gulf region, industry officials have argued.

“I don’t think the people in Washington D.C. who implement these policies have an understanding of how much this has impacted our economy, especially in Louisiana,” Renee Baker, the state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), has observed. “We can’t just look at the large businesses to understand what’s happening, there are small businesses that do a lot of services for the rigs and they have been set back.”

Although the Department of Interior (DOI) has been issuing permits with “relatively few political barriers,” according to the report, there are “limited bureaucratic resources” available to meet existing demands.

But Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), does see a political agenda at work: [Read more →]

On the day following the elections, President Obama urged policymakers not to forget about climate change. While he ideally would like to get help from the Congress in enacting legislation aimed at curtailing greenhouse gas emissions, he seems willing to let EPA do the heavy lifting in the absence of Congressional action. He is also looking to the states that the United States citizenry does not want to have done collectively.

In his post-election press conference last Wednesday, November 3, 2010, the president gave some clues about what his future aspirations are for a climate/energy policy. It was most obvious in his response to a question put to him by the Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler, and indicates that his Dream Green Team playbook is still alive and well.

Question:

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier that it was clear that Congress was rejecting the idea of a cap-and-trade program, and that you wouldn’t be able to move forward with that. Looking ahead, do you feel the same way about EPA regulating carbon emissions? Would you be open to them doing essentially the same thing through an administrative action, or is that off the table, as well?

Response:

With respect to the EPA, I think the smartest thing for us to do is to see if we can get Democrats and Republicans in a room who are serious about energy independence and are serious about keeping our air clean and our water clean and dealing with the issue of greenhouse gases—and seeing are there ways that we can make progress in the short term and invest in technologies in the long term that start giving us the tools to reduce greenhouse gases and solve this problem.

The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant that fall under their jurisdiction. And I think one of the things that’s very important for me is not to have us ignore the science, but rather to find ways that we can solve these problems that don’t hurt the economy, that encourage the development of clean energy in this country, that, in fact, may give us opportunities to create entire new industries and create jobs that—and that put us in a competitive posture around the world.

So I think it’s too early to say whether or not we can make some progress on that front. I think we can. Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end. And I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.

And I think EPA wants help from the legislature on this. I don’t think that the desire is to somehow be protective of their powers here. I think what they want to do is make sure that the issue is being dealt with.

Clearly Obama seems hopeful that Congress will step in and do the dirty work, but the threat of using the EPA to carrying the entire load is only thinly veiled.

However, going the EPA route is not going to be any easier than going the Congressional route. [Read more →]

President Obama did not include Houston on his visit to Texas last week rallying his base and raising funds for Democrats for the November elections. The President was originally expected to be here but ended up in Austin and Dallas. Was this bypass a duck-out? After all, Congressman Kevin Brady (R. Tx.) pointedly invited the president to meet face-to-face with Houston energy workers on the other Gulf Crisis—the federal offshore drilling moratorium that threatens tens of thousands of jobs here and in much of the Gulf Coast region.

Sure, Obama’s Texas visit was not about helping Republican candidates or hosting a Tea Party event. But why couldn’t the president reserve an hour to talk to workers whose livelihoods depend on Houston’s largest industry – an industry that is being victimized by the President’s everyone-is-guilty drilling policy? “I have seen enough to know that people are hurting,” said Michael Bromwich, Obama’s hand-picked moratorium advisor, recently. Surely the president needs to talk to the oil and gas workers in order to share that understanding—and to know that time is of the essence when it comes to lifting the moratorium.

Obama’s cold shouldering of the industry is no accident. It is an open secret that the White House intelligentsia (called by some the “‘green’ dream team”) does not like oil or even natural gas. They like solar, wind, and other esoteric energies that just happen to be more expensive and less reliable—and, on close inspection, environmentally suspect.

For a president interested in job creation, and at least nominally in favor of energy affordability, Obama is proving to be his own worst enemy and at odds with the average American. The polls reflect public concern with the explosive growth in government being driven by the party in power. From health care to energy, most Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. [Read more →]

“[The plan] is a sign to the industry that the Obama administration is serious about exploration.”

- Daniel Yergin, chairman, IHS-CERA, quoted in Jennifer Dlouhy, “Offshore Plan Wins Few Raves,” Houston Chronicle, April 1, 2010.

The subtitle to Ms. Dlouhy’s piece was “Environmental groups and GOP are critical, while oil patch is wary.” Pouring over the 300 comments on this article, Chronicle readers know a bait-and-switch and Trojan Horse when they see it (energy-savvy Houston, after all). Maybe some of these same readers fear what I do: a wishy-washy editorial from the Chronicle on how Obama’s drilling plan is a ‘good beginning’ and ‘reasonable compromise’.

Now to Dr. Yergin, the industry expert and author who seemed to have come a long way from Energy Future (1979)  to The Commanding Heights (1998). And to his credit, Yergin has been very good on the “peak oil” issue, bringing into play a lot more knowledge and facts than possessed by the peak-oil community (including Matthew Simmons). (Our Michael Lynch has blogged regularly on this issue at MasterResource and is still waiting for acceptance of a related bet with the slippery Joe Romm of ClimateProgress.)

Yergin and Political Correctness

Yergin, however, has always been very politically correct when it comes to the company in power (Enron) or the government in power (Obama). He is an influence- and profit-maximizer, in the final analysis, and sometimes that can interfere with the intellectual side of things.

I remember from my Enron days how CERA was making money off of its climate consulting services where alarmism and policy activism were not to be questioned. (I participated in their conference calls.) The annual CERA conference–easily the most important event of the year for the energy industry–would feature alarmists and influence peddlers (such as Eileen Claussen of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change) but nary a skeptic.

CERA, in fact, has never hosted a debate on climate science in front of an energy audience eager to know. I cannot recall a representative from a free-market think tank (Cato, CEI, IER, etc.) ever addressing the CERA throngs. This does not speak well for Yergin intellectually or as a trusted consultant. Truth bats last in public policy.

Returning to the opening quotation of this post and Obama’s drilling plan: It is possible that Dr. Yergin was quoted out of context. That can happen in interviews where a lot is said and the reporter grabs a sentence to complete the spectrum of views.

But if this is what Yergin meant, then I have another data point of the esteemed energy analyst and author being way too middling and politically correct for my taste.

 Obama’s Step Back–The Facts

The real story of Obama’s new offshore drilling has come out from the “Facts & Maps on Obama Administration’s Plan to Lock Up the OCS” released by the House Natural Resources Committee Republican Press Office. Compared to the status quo, Obama’s plan is a clear step back from a pro-resource strategy for oil and gas.

Here are the facts–and illustrative maps in that release. [Read more →]