Tag Archive for: natural gas

Is John Kerry a Moron?

/in , , , , , , /by
genghis_john-thumb

John Kerry testifying before Congress on Vietnam War.

I can recall John Kerry, Obama’s Secretary of State, from the days he testified to a congressional committee and slandered his fellow soldiers as the spokesman for Veterans Against the Vietnam War in 1971. I was appalled then and my opinion of the man has not changed since those days. I opposed the war, too, but I did not blame it on the men who were conscripted to fight it, nor did I believe the charges he leveled against some of them.

These days Kerry is engaged in securing an agreement with the Iranians, if not to stop their program to make their own nuclear weapons than to slow it to a later date. Never mind that the Iranian government is listed by our own government as a leading sponsor of terrorism worldwide or that they have signed such agreements in the past and then tossed out the inspectors.

Kerry is convinced that the Obama administration can get an agreement that is, in his own words, “not legally binding”, nor is it a treaty that the U.S. Senate would have to vote for or against. In point of fact, President Obama can make the deal—sign the agreement—just as Presidents have done for over two hundred years. It can then be abrogated by whoever the next President will be.

Why Obama and Kerry are doing this defies my understanding. It gives the Iranians more time to reach nuclear capability. It is opposed by every nation in the Middle East. It puts every nation within reach of Iran’s missiles at risk and it virtually guarantees the destruction of Israel, a goal of Iran’s Islamic Revolution from the day it was born. Kerry is negotiating with people who took our diplomats hostage in 1979 and have played a role in the deaths of many Americans since then.

Is John Kerry a moron? I think so.

I asked myself this question in regard to another area of U.S. policy which the Secretary of State is also championing even if millions around the world have concluded otherwise.

On March 2nd, Kerry addressed the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C, telling them what he has been saying in many forums. Let us understand that “climate change” is the name being used to replace “global warming”, because the Earth has been in a cooling cycle for the past 18 years or so. And let us understand that “climate change” has been happening for 4.5 billion years.

Kerry said, “So when science tells us that our climate is changing and human beings are largely causing that change, by what right do people stand up and just say, ‘Well, I dispute that’ or ‘I deny that elementary truth’?”

The problem with this is that human beings are not causing the planet’s climate change. Forces far greater than humans are involved, not the least of which is the Sun.

As for science, its most fundamental methodology is to constantly challenge the various ‘truths’ put forward as theories until they can be proved to be true by being independently reproduced. Nothing about the “global warming” theories has been true. All of the computer models on which it was based have been proven inaccurate. In some cases, they were deliberately rigged.

On television meteorologists remind us that every day, indeed, from morning to night, the temperatures of the area about which they are reporting are in a constant state of change. They show us satellite photography and mapping that demonstrates how dynamic the weather is on any spot on Earth. The climate, however, is measured in decades and centuries. Every one of the doomsday predictions of the global warming “scientists” and propagandists have been wrong.

The enemies of the use of energy to enhance and improve the lives of the residents of Earth began to claim in the 1970s and 80s that carbon dioxide (CO2) was threatening the climate.

At best, CO2 is a very minor element of the Earth’s atmosphere, about 0.04%, which gets it rated as “a trace gas.” As such, it plays no role with regard to the climate.

Kerry asserted that climate change is “one of the biggest threats facing our planet today” and should be ranked with terrorism, epidemics, poverty and nuclear proliferation…” Oh, wait! Isn’t this the same Secretary of State negotiating with Iran to allow it to become a nuclear power?

And what “solution” does he offer to reduce the “threat” of climate change? Kerry urged that the U.S. transition away from “dirty sources of energy” such as coal, oil and natural gas.

Writing in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley noted that “In 2015, about 87% of the energy that the world consumed came from fossil fuels, a figure that—remarkably—was unchanged from 10 years before. This roughly divides into three categories of fuel and three categories of use: oil used mainly for transport, gas used mainly for heating, and coal used mainly for electricity.”

Fossil fuels have made the difference between modern life and burning cow dung to cook dinner. A billion people on Earth still do not have electricity.

Less obvious, but significantly more threatening is the White House effort to get the U.S. signed up for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its International Climate Justice tribunal. This is a follow-up to the 1977 Kyoto Protocol that was unanimously rejected by the U.S. Senate. Why? Because such treaties threaten the sovereignty of the U.S. and, just as importantly, because the entire United Nation’s climate program is a huge fraud.

This is what John Kerry wants the U.S. to agree to, just like the Iran deal, and just to be sure the U.S. Senate, as mandated by the U.S. Constitution, doesn’t have a say in it, he and the President are calling these deals anything other than a treaty.

Is John Kerry a moron? Maybe not as dumb as he seems to be, but surely cynical and devious.

Unfortunately, he is the Secretary of State.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

RELATED ARTICLE: California Dem Warns of Global Warming-Induced Prostitution

Israel’s Offshore Gas Discoveries are in Jeopardy

/in , , , , /by

On February 3rd, there was a  Conference  in Tel Aviv co-sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Infrastructure, Energy and Water and Maala – a group concerned with Socially Responsible Business. Globes Israeli Business and Reuters covered it, “Energy minister: Foreign companies aren’t coming to Israel.”

 Silvan Shalom, Israeli Minister of Infrastructure,  the Israel Manager of  Houston –based Noble Energy, Inc. co-developer with Israel’s Delek Group and a representative of Australian  energy company Woodside, Pty.  appeared among other presenters. They were all  bemoaning the arbitrary, some would say capricious draft ruling of Dr. David Gilo, Director General of Israel’s Antitrust Authority (IAA) , basically stopping development of the offshore Leviathan  gas field and  forcing the possible sale of the existing Tamar gas field in Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).  Gilo,as we have discussed  in prior posts, has confounded Israel’s energy independence and possible export opportunities with his draft consent order based on misguided consumerist  populism.  His understanding of the economics of pricing of gas as a commodity in the international markets is simplistic at best and simply panders to  misguided domestic  populist concerns over maintaining low energy prices.  His proposals to enhance competition  in the domestic  market come amidst the looming March Knesset elections.  Many  suspect that his actions were in support of the Labor-Hanuat coalition objective of unseating Prime Minister Netanyahu.  Not surprising as Israel’s founding generation, save for  Menachem Begin, were Socialist  Marxists. They created the country’s dual economy with Histadrut – the labor union dominated institution – owning  key sectors in the country’s economy that have  only been partially privatized. The exception being Israel’s much vaunted high tech sector.

Gilo’s  misguided logic is reflected in the comments of the Israeli National Infrastructure-Maala conference presenters. It was bolstered by an announcement that the Noble Energy –Delek Group partners  were on the verge of concluding a deal with Egypt to provide much needed gas from the Aphrodite field in the adjacent Republic of Cyprus EEZ.  Neither Noble or Delek accept the separate marketing proposals and sales of  both Tamar and smaller fields, originally part of an IAA deal agreed to by Gilo.

Note these comments from the Globes article:

“We don’t see foreign gas companies coming to Israel,” Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water Silvan Shalom admitted. “The foreign companies have interests in countries like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, and bringing them to Israel is no easy task. Israel is small country, with a small gas market. In a utopian and theoretical world, companies would come, but that’s not how it is in the real world.”

“Unfortunately, our business in Israel was unsuccessful, but our connections with Noble Energy have become stronger,” Woodside VP Corporate Affairs Roger Martin said at a conference organized by the Ministry of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water and the Maala organization.

Woodside, which planned to acquire 25% of the rights in the Leviathan natural gas reservoir for $2.7 billion, backed out at the last minute, and left Israel. “We’re working together with Noble Energy in Africa, and we signed an additional agreement with them in October for oil and gas exploration off the Cameroon coast,” Martin said.

“Our pride in making our contribution to the community was met with cynicism. They tell us cynically, ‘This is very American’,”  [Nobel Energy Israel Manager]  Zomer said angrily. “What do you want from me? What’s very American? I don’t understand this. Since when is doing good considered American? Why should companies in Israel apologize for their success? Of course Noble Energy hoped to make a profit in Israel, but it also meant to do good for Israel.”

Gidon Tomer [CEO Delek Drilling  Partnership] noted , “That state could expect NIS 250 billion  ($65 Billion) in revenues from the first stage of developing Leviathan. He added, “This revenue doesn’t take into account the immediate saving from the consumption of cheap gas. You have to look at the enterprises saved by natural gas. These enterprises are boosting their competitiveness. It’s a reduction in the cost of living.”

Alexander Varshavsky of the National Gas Authority  asserted that Israel could expect to lose NIS 3 billion ($780 million)  annually starting in 2018 from the delay in developing Leviathan. “Beyond that, it’s a blow to Israel’s credibility,” he argued.

On the matter of Gilo’s express goal of enhancing competition and energy pricing, Globes noted comments of   a conference participant who said, ‘If you want to talk about responsibility, Israel’s responsibility is to bring gas to factories. There are factories in the outlying areas that closed down because of their energy costs. At enterprises like Phoenicia Flat Glass Industries and Shaniv Paper Industry Ltd. (TASE: SHAN), it was a do or die question. Today, they’re hooked up to natural gas and saving money. That’s the most important thing.”

Should PM Netnayahu win the March 17th election perhaps a priority will be to pass legislation amending the mandate of the IAA remodeling it in on 100 year precedent of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.  Otherwise , director General Gilo of the IAA, will thwart Israel’s economic future and energy independence.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image of the Tamar deep oil platform is courtesy of Oil in Israel.

Obama Disses Alaska

/in , , , , , , /by

Fifty million Americans who live in the northeast will experience what is predicted to be a historic blizzard from Monday evening through Tuesday. Cities and towns will virtually or literally close down. People will be told to stay indoors for their safety and to facilitate the crews that will labor to clear the roads of snow.

In other words, welcome to Alaska, a place that is plenty cold most of the year and which is no stranger to snow and ice.

Alaska, however, has something that the whole world considers very valuable; oil and natural gas. Lots of it. In 1980 a U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the Coastal Plain could contain up to 17 billion barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

In 1987, the U.S Department of Interior confirmed the earlier estimate, saying that “in place resources” ranged from 4.8 billion to 29.4 billion barrels of oil. Recoverable oil estimates ranged from 600 million barrels at the low end to 9.2 billion barrels at the high end.

A nation with an $18 trillion debt might be expected to want to take advantage of this source of revenue, but no, not if that debt was driven up by the idiotic policies of President Barack Obama and not if it could be reduced by the same energy industry that has tapped similar oil and natural gas reserves in the lower 48 states by drilling on private, not public lands.

Instead, on Sunday President Obama referred to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as “an incredible place—pristine, undisturbed. It supports caribou and polar bears” and other species and, guess what, tapping its vast oil and natural gas reserves would not interfere in any way with those species despite the whopping lie that “it’s very fragile.”

At Obama’s direction, the Interior Department announced it was proposing to preserve as wilderness nearly 13 million acres of land in ANWR’s 19.8 million-acre area. That would include 1.5 million acres of coastal plains that Wall Street Journal reported to be “believed to have rich oil and natural gas reserves.”

Not a whole lot of people choose ANWR as a place to vacation. It is a harsh, though often beautiful, area that only the most experienced visitor might want to spend some time. I would want to make every environmentalist who thinks any drilling would harm the area have to take up residence in its “pristine” wilderness to confirm that idiotic notion.

AA - Alaska and Caribou

Alaska caribou near oil drilling site.

They would find plenty of caribou, polar bears and other species hanging out amidst the oil and gas rigs, and along the pipe line. The Central Arctic Caribou Herd that migrates through the Prudhoe Bay oil field, just next to ANWR has increased from 5,000 animals in the 1970s to more than 50,000 today. There is no evidence than any of the animal species have experienced any decline.

The Coastal Plain lies between known major discovery areas and the Prudhoe Bay, Lisburne, Endicott, Milne Point and Kuparuk oil fields are currently in production In 1996, the North Slope oil fields produced about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day or approximately 25% of the U.S. domestic production. Alaska is permitted to export its oil because of its high levels of productivity.

So why has Obama’s Department of the Interior decided it wants to shut off energy exploration and extraction in a whopping 13-million acres of what is already designated as a wildlife refuge and along its coastlines on the Beaufort and Chukchi seas? The answer is consistent with Obama’s six years of policies to deny Americans the benefits of the nation’s vast energy reserves, whether it is the coal that has previously provided 50% of our electrical energy—now down by 10%–or access to reserves of oil and natural gas that would make our nation energy independent as well as a major exporter.

The good news is that only Congress has the authority to declare an area as wilderness. It has debated the issue for more than 30 years and in 12 votes in the House and 3 votes in the Senate it has passed legislation supporting development and opposing the wilderness designation.

And guess who is the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee? Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaskan Republican. She also heads up the appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the Interior Department!

This latest Obama ANWR gambit is going to go nowhere. It does, however, offer the Republican Congress an opportunity to demonstrate its pro-energy credentials.

“I cannot understand why this administration is willing to negotiate with Iran, but not Alaska,” said Sen. Murkowski when informed of Obama’s latest attack.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Obama Wants to Close Off Energy-Rich Stretch of Alaska to Development

/in , , , , /by

Pultizer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, wrote in the New York Times that global energy markets are at an inflection point. The role of the world’s “swing producer” has swung to the United States:

By leaving oil prices to the market, Saudi Arabia and the emirates also passed the responsibility as de facto swing producer to a country that hardly expected it — the United States. This approach is expected to continue with the accession of the new Saudi king, Salman, following the death on Friday of King Abdullah. And it means that changes in American production will now, along with that of Persian Gulf producers, also have a major influence on global oil prices.

Even though hydraulic fracturing had led this shale boom, conventional oil production is still important.

This makes the Obama administration’s request to close off a big portion of Alaska’s energy reserves to development especially disappointing:

President Barack Obama is proposing to designate the vast majority of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich coastal plain, drawing an angry response from top state elected officials who see it as a land grab by the federal government.

“They’ve decided that today was the day that they were going to declare war on Alaska. Well, we are ready to engage,” said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and chair of the Senate energy committee.

The designation would set aside an additional nearly 12.3 million acres as wilderness, including the coastal plain near Alaska’s northeast corner, giving it the highest degree of federal protection available to public lands. More than 7 million acres of the refuge currently are managed as wilderness.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the area has over 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

The wilderness designation will require Congressional approval—not likely with this Congress. However, the Washington Post reports that the Interior Department will take action to limit energy development there [H/t Noah Rothman]:

While Congress would have to approve any new wilderness designation, Interior will immediately begin managing the iconic area under the highest level of protection the federal government can offer.

President Obama, who has not been to ANWR and ironically filmed his announcement on the fuel-guzzling Air Force One said, we must ensure “that this amazing wonder is preserved for future generations.”

In contrast Jonah Goldberg, someone who has visited ANWR, had a different description of the area where oil development would take place:

The oil is on the coastal plain at the very top of ANWR on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. And that ain’t beautiful. Believe me. Winter on the coastal plain lasts for nine months. Total darkness reigns for 58 straight days. The temperatures drop to 70 degrees below zero without wind chill. This is the time of year when the oil companies would do almost all of their work; when nary a caribou nor any other creature would be dumb enough to venture out on to the frozen tundra for long. Regardless, ANWR’s summer is no picnic either. The coastal plain is covered in a thick brick of ice for much of the year. When it melts, it creates, well, puddles. Lots and lots of puddles – and mud. This provides the lebensraum that mosquitoes and other flying critters need to stretch their wings.

But back to the President. In last week’s State of the Union Address he took credit for the oil and natural gas boom, but the facts tell a different story. Under his watch, oil and natural gas development has decreased on federal lands while increased on private and state lands. In fact, his administration has put up barriers to energy development. The ANWR proposal is the latest.

The administration is expected to release a draft of its offshore lease plan. That may include allowing energy development off the Atlantic coast. Such a decision will be welcome for its economic and job growth and bipartisan support, but it will further confirm how incoherent the President’s energy policy is.

Obama administration chooses environmentalists over unions on Keystone XL and fracking

/in , , , , /by

While some environmental groups applauded the latest delay of the Keystone XL pipeline, unions whose members would be building it ripped the administration. Sean McGarvey, President of North America’s Building Trades Unions, AFL-CIO, called it “a cold, hard slap in the face for hard working Americans who are literally waiting for President Obama’s approval and the tens of thousands of jobs it will generate.”

Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) general president Terry O’Sullivan was more colorful, saying, “It’s clear the administration needs to grow a set of antlers, or perhaps take a lesson from Popeye and eat some spinach.”

The Keystone XL pipeline isn’t the only energy issue dividing anti-energy environmental groups and unions who want jobs for their members. Over the weekend, the Associated Press reported that development of shale energy using hydraulic fracturing had strong union support in Pennsylvania:

“The shale became a lifesaver and a lifeline for a lot of working families,” said Dennis Martire, the mid-Atlantic regional manager for the Laborers’ International Union, or LIUNA, which represents workers in numerous construction trades.

Martire said that as huge quantities of natural gas were extracted from the vast shale reserves over the last five years, union work on large pipeline jobs in Pennsylvania and West Virginia has increased significantly. In 2008, LIUNA members worked about 400,000 hours on such jobs; by 2012, that had risen to 5.7 million hours.

In contrast, environmental groups like the Natural Resource Defense Council who patted the administration on the back for the Keystone XL delay, strongly oppose hydraulic fracturing.

In his Keystone XL statement, McGarvey head of the building trades union asked a good question:

Why does President Obama continue to side with radicals instead of the middle class that, twice, put him office, and supports this project by a significant majority?

Out of work American union members would like to know.

[H/T Lachlan Markay at the Washington Free Beacon.]

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo of a rig drilling for natural gas at a hydraulic fracturing site in Pennsylvania is courtesy of photographer Ty Wright/Bloomberg.

Petroleum exports: good for consumers, coffers, companies by Paul Driessen

/in , , , , /by

Eliminating prohibition on exporting US oil and gas will help families, security, allies.

America’s crude petroleum export ban is an antiquated byproduct of the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Repeal is long overdue.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has sent U.S. oil, natural gas, and propane production soaring. Natural gas output is up 36% since 2005. Oil output is expected to increase another 780,000 barrels per day (BOPD) in 2014 and reach 9.6 million BOPD by 2019. The United States is now importing half of what it did in 2005.

All this activity has created millions of oil patch and downstream jobs. Royalty and tax revenues have skyrocketed, and cheaper natural gas fuels and feed stocks have fostered a manufacturing and petrochemical renaissance.

Expanding natural gas use has also reduced carbon dioxide emissions, which should encourage people who still worry about “dangerous manmade climate change.”

petroleumbyproducts

For a larger view click on the pie chart.

Increased production has also enabled companies to export more gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, lubricants, and other finished products, since refined product exports were never prohibited. Indeed, U.S. refining capacity is at record levels.

However, because they were designed to process heavier crude oils, refineries are limited in how much domestic sweet crude they can handle. Exports would provide an important outlet for excess crude supplies. That in turn would encourage additional exploration and production, protecting jobs, further revitalizing our economy, and multiplying royalty and tax revenues.

That exploration and production must go beyond state and private lands, though. Opening more federal onshore and offshore lands to leasing and drilling is essential and would magnify these benefits many times over. These resources belong to all Americans, not only to those who oppose fossil fuel use.

In many cases, adding fracking to the equation would expand supplies even further, by making otherwise marginal plays more economic to produce, reinvigorating old oil and gas fields, prolonging oil field life, and leaving fewer energy resources behind in rock formations.

Asia needs the energy to fuel its growing economy and support its still inadequate petroleum production infrastructure. Most of Europe’s natural gas comes from Russia, which charges high prices, engages in energy blackmail, and is rattling sabers in Crimea, Moldova, and Ukraine.

Right now, many European countries prohibit fracking, and EU climate and renewable energy policies have sent business and family energy prices into the stratosphere, killing jobs and preventing families from heating their homes properly.

Expanding domestic U.S. oil and gas production and exports would aid EU workers and families, while also improving America’s gross domestic product, balance of trade, national security, job growth, and prestige. Contrary to what some have argued, American consumers would also benefit, because exports would help stabilize global supplies and prices, keep OPEC and Russian price hikers at bay, and make the United States less reliant on imports and less vulnerable to supply disruptions.

What actually hurts consumers are government and environmentalist opposition to leasing, drilling, fracking, pipelines, and hydrocarbons – and their support for expensive, land-intensive, water-hungry, lower-energy-content ethanol and biofuel “alternatives.”

It is possible that the current $9 per barrel difference between U.S. and global oil prices could shrink slightly if some oil is exported. Barclays Bank says eliminating the export ban could add $10 billion a year to overall national gasoline costs.

However, this potential increase is just 3% of an average household’s annual $2,912 gasoline outlay. That’s $87 a year or $1.68 a week – half the price of pumpinggasone Starbucks Latte Grande.

The consumer impact of America’s massive land and petroleum resource lockdowns is much higher.

Of course, realizing these benefits requires producing more, ending the export ban, and building more pipelines, natural gas liquefaction plants, and shipping facilities. That can and should be expedited.

Europe can and should produce more of its own oil and gas. It has vast petroleum potential waiting to be tapped via fracking. Opposition to producing this petroleum is no more ethical than environmentalist demands that the United States keep its own enormous untapped petroleum supplies locked up, while we deplete other countries’ assets and put their wildlife habitats at risk from production-related accidents.

Nor is it ethical or sensible for President Obama to ask Saudi Arabia to send us more oil, rather than telling his energy and environment regulators to foster more production here at home.

In short, America should produce more here at home, export both crude and refined petroleum to Europe and Asia, and support companies that want to take their fracking technology and expertise overseas.

These actions will benefit American companies, workers, families, consumers, balance of trade, environmental quality, and government revenues. We must not let anti-hydrocarbon ideologies or misinformed policy positions perpetuate this antiquated ban.

NOTE: This article first appeared in Investor’s Business Daily.

About Paul Driessen

Paul Driessen

Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which is sponsoring the All Pain No Gain petition against global-warming hype. He also is a senior policy adviser to the Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death.

ACTION ALERT: Stand Up for Florida Energy Independence!

/in , /by

Pictured: New oil rig, North of Gum Slough, Big Cypress Swamp, Florida circa 1935

Oil and natural gas have been safely produced in Florida since the 1940s, with over 4.6 billion gallons from Southwest Florida area alone. Floridians consume over 26 million gallons of gasoline and diesel per day, and the majority of the state’s electricity is generated from natural gas. Florida has a long history of responsible energy production, which can continue for decades to come, enhancing the energy security for Floridians and all Americans.

Florida Energy Citizens (FEC) states, “An oil exploration well is under consideration in the Collier County, Florida Big Cypress Swamp area. The proposed well has been approved by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s following reviews by the U.S. EPA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Parks Service, Florida Department of Transportation, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Florida Department of State Historical Resources Division, Florida Division of State Lands and the FDEP Environmental Resources Permitting Program Division, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council, and the South Florida Water Management District.”

Opponents of this particular energy development, according to FEC, are spreading a variety of falsehoods about hydraulic fracturing, even though the permit involved does not involve the technology. As the facts clearly show, however, fracking does not harm drinking water. This is something that is acknowledged by a variety of experts, including EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. As she points out, “There’s nothing inherently dangerous in fracking that sound engineering practices can’t accomplish.”

FEC notes, “Oil and natural gas has been safely produced in Big Cypress Swamp area over the past 70 years. There has not been even a single instance where fracking in this area (or anywhere around the nation) has been proven to harm groundwater. Further, the location is an agricultural field which is perfect for siting as it is away from the more sensitive everglades area and impacts are reasonable in respect to the nature, character, and location of the affected property.”

There is no reason for the Big Cypress Swamp Advisory Committee to rule against the oil exploration well permit already issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The facts show that this is merely another project in the area’s long history of safe energy production. We need this energy production to continue in order to grow our community’s economy.

FEC warns, “Floridians need to see through the misinformation about fracking and approve this permit.”

If you wish you may send an email to the Big Cypress Swamp Advisory Committee. Click here to tell the members of the Big Cypress Swamp Advisory Committee your position on energy production in Florida!

RELATED STORIES:

Progress Florida Misleads Public on Fracking

Seismic Testing Helps Florida

Republicans and Democrats Alike Want Higher Food, Fuel and Energy Prices

/in , , /by

Gallup Politics recently did an Environmental poll (see the below chart). The results shows that a majority of Republicans and super majority of Democrats favor actions that will lead to higher food, fuel and energy prices. While there are more Republicans that favor opening public lands to exploration and drilling the end results of their support for policies like increasing regulations to reduce “emissions and pollution standards for businesses” means higher costs for all consumers.

Americans polled may not understand the difference between “emissions” and “pollution”.

Emissions/greenhouse gasses, e.g. CO2, primarily occur due to water evaporation from the earth’s oceans and seas. When 50% of Republicans want government to “impose mandatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions” many consumers wonder if they understand that we cannot control water evaporation from happening. The EPA recently issued a CO2 emissions ruling that impacts all of U.S. coal fired plants and will cause many to shut down because they cannot meet the new standards. This will drive up energy costs and thereby food costs.

Government spending on solar and wind power has been a disaster with many of the companies failing to produce a cost effective product, moving their operations to China or going bankrupt. All of these companies are a further drain on our economy because they are not producing cheap and reliable power, they are producing just the opposite, which drives up energy costs and thereby food costs.

While Republicans generally favor opening public lands to oil, natural gas and oil shale exploration and production, nearly half want stronger enforcement of environmental regulations and higher emission standards for automobiles. One negates the other.

The environmentalists are licking their lips at these numbers.

The pollster’s state:

Gallup has tracked seven of the eight proposals periodically since 2001. Support for all but nuclear energy has declined since last measured in 2007, with the largest drops seen for spending government money to develop alternative sources of fuel for automobiles, strengthening enforcement of environmental regulations, and setting higher auto emissions standards.

These declines could be due to Americans’ reduced priority in the last several years for preserving the environment at the expense of economic growth, an outgrowth of the economic downturn. However, they are also likely to stem from heightened public concern about government spending and regulations specifically, particularly among Republicans.

Some do not find these numbers low enough to keep Republicans, in an election year, from stopping the power grab by the EPA. If this is a campaign issue then the consumer loses. As food, fuel and energy prices rise so will inflation. The column “Our Bubble Government” notes that inflation will burst both the dollar and debt bubbles. The higher the cost of goods and borrowing the more likely the current recession will last or deepen.

From this Gallup Environment poll some see trouble brewing on the horizon and its name is – inflation.

RELATED COLUMNS:

Global Warnings Reckless Rhetoric

Overthrowing Environmentalism

Obama’s Eco Lies