America has been under attack since Barack Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009. The primary target has been the nation’s ability to generate energy for electricity and transportation, without which this nation will slide into Third World status and economic decline.

This appears to be the goal of this administration from the President to his Secretaries of Energy and Interior, to his Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. There is no other rational explanation for what they are doing.

We are days away from the latest Environmental Protection Agency assault in the form of the “MACT” rule allegedly to reduce mercury and other emissions that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says will reduce electricity generation in America by about 81 gigawatts in the years ahead. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial said “this could compromise the reliability of the electric system if as much as 8% of generating capacity is subtracted from the grid.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that eleven Governors have written the EPA to ask that it delay the final rule in November. Twenty-five state Attorneys Generals have filed suit “to lift a legal document known as a consent decree that the EPA is using as a fig leaf for its political goals.”

As but one example, in Illinois, Ameron announced the planned shutdown of its Meredosia and Hutsonville energy centers, The Meredosia center generates 369 megawatts. The Hutsonville center has a generating capacity of 151 megawatts.
The EPA, even before the Obama administration, has been using the 1970 Clean Air Act to bludgeon the nation’s ability to access the energy resources required to generate electricity, primarily coal that provides 50% of such generation, and oil that fuels our transportation capability.

In late October, James J. Mulva, the CEO of Conoco-Phillips, addressed the subject of the growing discoveries of natural gas being found throughout the nation. “More than 600,000 Americans already explore, produce, store and produce natural gas, according to consultancy IHS Global Insight.”

At least 15 states now produce shale gas and others may join them,” noting that the largest shale area, the Marcellus which covers much of the Northeast” “already supports 140,000 jobs in Pennsylvania alone.”

The Obama administration, beginning with the president’s admitted goal of shutting down as much of the coal industry as possible, has demonstrated his intention of deterring the provision of energy. When the BP Oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the administration imposed a moratorium on all drilling. The decreased production cost 360,000 barrels a day in addition to lost jobs related to oil drilling in the Gulf. Rigs that are needed to drill have since been moved to other sites around the world.

The U.S. is home to more than 150 billion barrels of conventional oil that has the capability of generating thousands of new jobs if access to it was permitted. The most immediate result has been the rise in the cost of gasoline at the pump. Two courts ordered that the moratorium be lifted.

Oil companies currently pay more than $30 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Meanwhile the Obama administration has been wasting billions in loan guarantees to essentially useless solar and wind power companies, the latest of which, Solyandra, will cost taxpayers millions when the solar panel producer went belly-up. Others will follow.

Meanwhile, the President crisscrosses the nations demanding higher taxes on companies engaged in coal, oil and natural gas. When Jimmy Carter imposed a windfall tax on oil companies many ceased to explore for new sources here, moving their efforts to other nations. Today, by withholding the necessary permits to produce energy in Alaska, the Trans Alaska Pipeline System is operating at one third of its capacity.

A proposed pipeline from Canada still awaits approval and, on November 6th, led by the Sierra Club, the largest protest against its tar sands is expected to draw thousands to Washington, D.C. to join hands and circle the White House to ensure the Keystone XL pipeline is kept from providing the U.S. with the oil extracted. The proposed pipeline would reduce the U.S. dependence on Middle East oil. The U.S. already has more than 50,000 safely operating oil pipelines to support our transportation and other needs.

In January 2010, Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, warned that the Obama administration “continues to embrace Washington-dominated, command-and-control energy policies focused on mandates, subsidies, and political favors—not market forces.” He criticized “subsidizing one form of energy,” wind and solar, “while restricting the exploration of another,” warning that it “will lead to several measurable outcomes, increasing energy prices across the board, fewer jobs, and a weaker footing in the global economy..”

Nearly two years later, that warning has come true with a vengeance.

Oil, coal, or natural gas, it doesn’t matter to an administration and a president determined to restrict the amount of energy Americans need for their present and future needs. The result, in part, has been a stalled energy sector and a contributing factor in an economy with an estimated 20 million unemployed or under-employed.

The losses in income taxes and the taxes paid by this industry sector, in addition to the hideous borrowing and spending by the Obama administration is doing enormous harm to America and yet Barack Obama wants a second term in office.

Little wonder that Americans fear for the future of the nation.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America

Meanwhile real subsidies are driving real businesses, energy and jobs out of America.

Every American manufacturing company gets tax deductions that help it create jobs and strengthen our economy – whether it produces newspapers, furniture, cars or fuel. Eliminating those deductions would increase unemployment and further slow our nation’s desperately needed economic recovery.

Yet that is precisely what President Obama wants to do when oil companies want to use the deductions. It is one of many ways the Obama administration is undermining the oil industry and 9.2 million Americans whose jobs it supports. It is part of the administration’s strategy for replacing fossil fuels with heavily subsidized “alternatives” that taxpayers cannot afford, and consumers will not purchase on their own.

Newspapers that benefit from the same genre of tax deductions as oil companies nevertheless sometimes join attacking the oil industry, and the jobs and benefits it creates. This is rank hypocrisy.

“If Republicans are truly determined to slash the budget and end government waste,” the New York Times editorialized, “they will start [by] ending the web of tax breaks enjoyed by the rolling-in-dough oil industry and terminating the ethanol subsidy. Together these cuts would save up to $100 billion over 10 years.”

The Times is right about ending ethanol subsidies. But it and other “progressives” are wrong on every other argument they present to justify their job-killing, economy-crippling energy agenda.

1) Oil industry tax deductions cover costs incurred in exploration, drilling, production, transportation and refining. They aren’t subsidies or special tax breaks. They are essentially the same deductions claimed by all manufacturers, in conducting their business under our complex tax code. They ensure that businesses recover their costs and get taxed only on net income, in the process of making essential products.

Refineries and petrochemical manufacturers play an especially vital role in the oil industry – transforming crude oil and natural gas into fuels and raw materials used to make fabrics, plastics, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, fertilizers, carpets, paints, roofing, siding, and myriad other products that improve and safeguard our lives. Solar panels and resins for fiberglass wind turbine blades are also petroleum-based.

The NY Times itself enjoys similar tax breaks, and hasn’t offered to give one of them up, to help end government waste. Nor have other newspapers, some of which have even sought to benefit under the “failing newspaper act,” which would let them operate as “educational nonprofits,” and pay no taxes. Others have sought exemptions from antitrust laws, so that they can set online subscription prices.

In truth, in this internet and online media age, we could live without newspapers. But as an American Express advertising executive might say, Oil: You can’t leave home without it. Nor can you have modern civilization or improved health and living standards without it.

2) Most petroleum companies aren’t “Big Oil.” They’re small independents. And the entire industry operates under government policies and regulations that keep many of America’s best oil and gas prospects off limits and make leasing, exploration and drilling needlessly expensive and time-consuming. Between 1981 and 2008, the largest consolidated oil companies (“Big Oil”) alone paid $1.95 trillion in severance, property, excise, sales and corporate income taxes, the Tax Foundation reports.

Eliminate the tax deductions amid the current regulatory and political climate, and fewer wells will be drilled, fewer deposits will be profitable enough to develop, fields will be abandoned prematurely, royalty revenues will decline, refineries will close or move overseas, workers will lose their jobs, their income tax payments will morph into welfare checks, and we will import still more oil and refined products.

3) A primary reason oil and gasoline prices are so high, unemployment is stuck at 9% and our economic growth is anemic is that government has made most of our western states, Alaskan and Outer Continental Shelf energy prospects off limits. It raises unfounded concerns about hydraulic fracturing, and drags its feet on permits for lands that supposedly are “available” for leasing and drilling. In short, it chokes off supplies.

Meanwhile, politicians stoke demand – with legislation like the NAT GAS Act. That bill would obligate US taxpayers to pony up some $14 billion annually in subsidies (aka, tax credits and rebates), to encourage motorists to buy natural gas-fueled cars and trucks, and service stations to install natural gas fueling stations.

Eliminate oil company tax deductions: “save” $4 billion. Subsidize car and truck purchases: spend $14 billion. It’s unsustainable. It’s insane.

4) Real subsidies take money taken from society’s productive sectors, and transfer it to legislators and bureaucrats, who give it to companies that “deserve” funding, because they provide politically favored products or could not remain in business without perpetual infusions of Other People’s Money. You support our reelection, our “catastrophic manmade global warming” thesis and our commitment to a renewable energy future, and you’ll continue receiving taxpayer cash – until the OPM runs out.

Evergreen Solar received $486 million in federal and state subsidies – but still closed its doors and fired 850 workers, when the subsidy well ran dry. The same thing happened to five of six solar companies in Germany. The jobs went to China and Malaysia, which have lower costs and fewer regulations.

5) Even with subsidies, wind and solar still can’t compete, unless they are also exempted from endangered species and other environmental laws. If you shoot an eagle, or birds die in an uncovered oil company waste pit, fines and possibly prison terms are meted out. But wind farms slaughter bald and golden eagles, falcons, hawks, curlews, bats and other threatened, endangered and just plain majestic sky dwellers with no consequences. They even get fast-tracked through the environmental review process by the same Interior Department and EPA that routinely delay or deny oil and gas applications.

6) Then there’s ethanol. Producing 13.2 billion gallons of it in 2010 required one-quarter of all the corn grown in the United States – monopolizing 23 million acres (Grade A cropland the size of Indiana) and consuming 1.2 trillion gallons of water, along with prodigious amounts of petroleum in the form of fertilizer and tractor, truck and distillery fuel … for $6 billion a year in subsidies. While corn growers get rich, higher corn prices mean pork and chicken producers pay more for feed, meat producers are driven out of business, manufacturers pay more for corn syrup, consumers pay more for food, and jobs disappear.

America could produce far more gasoline from a mere 2,000 acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (1/20 of Washington, DC), if anti-oil zealots would end their opposition to drilling in the frozen tundra.

And still ethanol enjoys fuel pump mandates, $6 billion in annual subsidies, and tariffs against foreign competition – so that consumers can “choose” a fuel that gets a third fewer miles per gallon than gasoline.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department is doing a theirs-not-to-reason-why Light Brigade charge into the jaws of biofuel R&D – and extolling the virtues of camellia-based jet fuel that costs $67 a gallon, versus $5 per gallon for aviation gas that could also come from ANWR, the OCS and other off-limits US lands.

The bottom line is simple. The worst thing we can do is what President Obama is intent on doing: use the mythical revenues he expects from eliminating oil company “subsidies and tax breaks” to increase federal wind, solar and ethanol subsidies by another 50% (to $18 billion a year) – so as to “foster the clean energy economy of the future and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels that contribute to climate change.”

As should be abundantly clear by now, these energy sources are not so clean or eco-friendly. They can’t exist without perpetual subsidies. They are simply not sustainable.

To provide reliable, affordable, ecological, sustainable energy … put people back to work … rejuvenate our economy … and generate trillions in new government revenue – we need to do three things.

Open America’s public lands for responsible hydrocarbon development. Take the boot off the neck of American businesses. And get rid of all the subsidies, bailouts, targeted tax breaks, selective tariffs, mandates to purchase ethanol and other products, and other corporate welfare gimmicks that make tax lawyers and lobbyists more important than researchers, trained workers and top-flight CEOs.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

 

WesternFront America

A vital part of the solution to our economic and employment crisis is right under our feet

A frequent refrain during budget and debt ceiling debates is that we need revenue enhancement: higher tax rates, reduced deductions, eliminated credits. But doing this, especially amid today’s massively expanding regulations, will kill more jobs and further reduce government revenues.

There is a better way. Huge revenue sources are literally under our noses, or more precisely our feet.

America is blessed with vast oil, gas, coal, uranium, rare earth and other natural resource riches – to compliment our ultimate resource: the creative, competitive, innovative spirit of our people.

Finding and developing these resources would generate millions of jobs and billions, even trillions, in new government revenue and societal wealth. It would prevent default and downgraded credit ratings, reduce the need to cut government programs, shrink unemployment and welfare payments, avoid having to send hundreds of billions of dollars overseas each year for foreign energy and minerals, and reduce the need to borrow $120 billion out of every $300 billion the United States is now spending every month.

Many of these untapped resources are on federal public lands in our western states, Alaska and Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Many more are on private land and onshore and offshore state-owned lands.

Leasing, exploration, extraction, transportation and processing unleash economic activities and revenues on extraordinary scales: business activity, investment and profits, along with lease bonus and rental payments, permit fees, royalties and severance taxes for each unit produced, direct and secondary jobs, taxes on corporate profits and workers’ income, property taxes on equipment and facilities.

These activities also generate billions of dollars in purchases of equipment, food, supplies, raw materials, hotel lodging, special services and myriad other items. All this means still more employment, newly enabled consumer spending, more local, county, state and federal revenue, and other economic benefits.

Newly developed horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) techniques have enabled companies to unlock previously unavailable natural gas riches in conventional and shale gas deposits. That increased production, in turn, has reduced industry’s cost for energy and raw material feed stocks.

The American Chemical Council says this is reopening idled plants and creating jobs. In 2010 it helped increase chemical and plastics exports by 17% and 10% respectively, turning a $100 million industry balance of trade deficit into a $3.7 billion surplus. Other industries could soon see similar benefits.

America’s OCS generates over $19 billion annually in bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenue, IHS Global Insight has calculated. Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field alone has generated hundreds of billions in government revenues since 1978, and the state of Alaska has collected a whopping $157 billion (in 2010) dollars from statewide oil and gas development since 1959. Millions of jobs were created and sustained.

In the Lower 48 States, Marcellus Shale deposits stretch across 95,000 square miles of New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, western Maryland and eastern Ohio. In Pennsylvania, say the state Labor and Revenue Departments, Marcellus fracking activities created 72,000 jobs (with an average $73,000 salary) between October 2009 and March 2011. Workers and royalty recipients paid $214 million in personal income taxes attributable to Marcellus development, while Marcellus drillers paid $1 billion in state taxes 2006-2010 (and another $238 million just during first quarter 2011).

The shale gas success story is being repeated in West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas and other states: thousands of jobs created, billions in royalties and taxes collected. New York should take note.

Taken together, America’s oil industry sustains 9.2 million direct and secondary jobs (5.3% of all US employment), generates $533 billion in total annual payrolls, contributes $1.1 trillion to US gross domestic product (7.5%), invested $2 trillion in capital improvements since 2000, and accounted for $190 billion in 2010 oil production. The largest integrated oil companies alone paid $1.95 trillion in corporate income, severance, property, excise and sales taxes, between 1981 and 2008, says the Tax Foundation.

We have it in our power to put many of our 20 million unemployed and involuntary part-timers back to work, generate trillions in revenue, and slash our chronic indebtedness. We just need to take action.

* End the leasing moratorium and “green flu” backlog on drilling permits in formerly accessible areas of the Gulf of Mexico. By the end of 2012 America could create 230,000 jobs in Gulf Coast and dozens of manufacturing states, produce 150,000,000 barrels of oil (worth $15 billion), reduce oil imports by a like amount, and generate $12 billion in tax and royalty payments, says IHS Global Insight.

(Right now, we are losing over $1 billion annually in Gulf royalty payments, because Gulf oil and gas production is down 220,000 barrels a day, thanks to DOI, EPA and White House foot dragging.)

* End leasing and drilling bans in the East Coast, West Coast, Western Gulf and Alaskan OCS, Rocky Mountains and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. America could produce up to 40 billion barrels of oil (worth $4 trillion at $100 a barrel) … create 114,000 to 160,000 jobs … and generate $547 billion to $1.7 trillion in new government revenues over the next few decades, according to ICF International.

* Open up some of the nearly 500 million acres of public lands that are now closed to mineral exploration (nearly 70% of all public lands). We could repeat these petroleum-related gains, and end our near-total dependence on China for rare earth metals that are essential for smart phones, smart bombs, night vision goggles, hybrid and electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels and a host of other modern technologies.

Unfortunately, Congress and the EPA, Interior Department and White House are doing just the opposite.

EPA denied Shell Oil permits to drill in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea, after Shell had spent $5 billion acquiring and exploring leases. EPA also blocked construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to Port Arthur, Texas. During construction, the project would generate 130,000 US jobs, plus $600 million in state and local tax revenues – plus $5 billion in property tax and other government revenues during the pipeline’s life. EPA’s excuse? The projects would contribute to global warming.

EPA is also imposing thousands of pages of new rules on coal-fired power plants that provide 48-98% of the electricity in 26 states, including our most important manufacturing centers. Experts say the actions will raise electricity rates 20-60 percent, shutter up to 60,000 megawatts of electricity generation, kill 3.5 million jobs in six Midwestern states, and cost those six states $42-82 billion in lost annual GDP.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar continues to stall OCS leasing and drilling, and keep Western States oil, natural gas, oil shale, shale gas, coal, uranium and metals deposits off limits.

Meanwhile, our state and federal governments are spending over $10 billion annually, subsidizing wind and solar energy, and bankrolling radical environmental activism on energy, climate and public land issues.

Americans deserve a complete and honest accounting of how much revenue and how many jobs have been lost to environmental excesses. We have a right, and a duty, to develop our resources, rather than depleting other countries’ energy and minerals – and saddling our children with more joblessness and debt. It’s a perfect time for bipartisanship, at least among Republicans and moderate Democrats.

Committee hearings and briefings could discuss and evaluate industry, government and independent analyses of our vast energy, mineral, job and revenue opportunities. They would go a long way toward revealing the enormity of our self-inflicted wounds – and charting a responsible path forward.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

 

WesternFront America

A problem with which American administrations have grappled since the days of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency has been Arabs and the Middle East. The Marine anthem mentions “the shores of Tripoli” because, in 1801, Jefferson sent them to there to put down the Barbary pirates.

One of the best books on this subject is “Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present” by Michael B. Oren who, with exquisite irony, is currently serving as the Israeli ambassador to the United States, the nation of his birth.

Regarding the Middle East, if you have had the feeling that the Obama administration has been spectacularly inept as it takes its turn at bat, you’re right. Barely six months into his first year, on June 4, 2009, the newly-minted President gave a speech in Cairo.

“I’ve come to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Obama’s impressions, aspirations, or re-write of history, past and present, clashes with the reality of current and past events. He has, in fact, adopted virtually all of his much maligned predecessor’s policies in the Middle East and took a bow for authorizing the long awaited assassination of Osama bin Laden.

As this is being written, the White House is debating the levels of military withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases the public is alternatively told that the leaders of those two nations either want the U.S. to leave or to stay. Where the truth falls no one seems to know.

It is very instructive to read what is being published in the newspapers that serve readers in the Middle East. Suffice to say that neither the President, nor his policies, is well regarded. One can read daily translations of articles from their press, as well as Asia and Europe at an interesting site, .http://watchingamerica.com/News.

I would argue that no amount of “hands on” involvement with the events unfolding from the Maghreb nations of northern Africa to those that form the heart of the Middle East will significantly alter the outcome of events occurring there.

In addition to the uprisings to throw off the shackles of despotism from Tunisia to Libya to Egypt to Syria, Bahrain to Yemen, the common denominator for these and other Arab nations is their well-deserved sense of having been the victims of various regimes. They are all likely to be united in their fear of the rise of Iran, a Persian nation, and one that will soon achieve nuclear parity with Pakistan, India and, yes, Israel.

The world has lived with “the bomb” since the end of World War Two in August 1945. Nuclear weapons have not been used since, but Iran is the wild card. It will not yield to international sanctions. Its cabal of ayatollahs will not be overthrown from within. It must either suffer a massive attack on its nuclear and military facilities or it will fill the skies over Israel and other nations with mushroom clouds.

The leaders of Western nations seem unaware that, immediately upon the death of Mohammed in 632 A.D., Islam split into two factions, Sunnis and Shiites, who have been in conflict with one another ever since.

The history of Islam consists of waging war on everyone else as well either for the purpose of conversion, looting, or the collection of taxes laid on non-Muslims. This history has been broken by rare, short periods of tolerance, but Muslims, convinced that their Koran is the absolute word of Allah, have been indifferent to the values of the West and the advances of modernization that have usually been imposed on them through colonialism.

Islam has been around nearly 1,400 years and gives no evidence of reforming itself away from the Arab culture in which it took seed and away from the brutal punishments that pass for justice. It was and is a savage “religion” bent on global domination.

Even when Muslims find hospitality in non-Muslim nations like those of Europe they immediately set upon an effort to impose Sharia law, usually through intimidation, on the indigenous population. In the Middle East, hands and heads are still cut off, rape victims are stoned, and a charge of blasphemy or apostasy can get you killed.

As this is being written, Christians and the few Jews still residing in the Middle East and the Maghreb are fleeing for their lives as their churches are being burnt to the ground and their lives are at risk.

One would think that, after U.S. involvement—invasions—of Afghanistan and Iraq, we would have figured out that Islamic nations are impervious to any concept of Western style democracy. Islam’s claims to be a religion are framed within a political system run by theocrats.

Elections have managed to put Hamas in charge in Gaza and Hezbollah in charge of Lebanon. The ayatollahs grabbed power in Iran and turned that nation into a prison. The mobs in the streets of Syria are trying to overthrow the Assad dynasty, warring against an Alawaite minority tribe ruling as Baathists. Yemen is a basketcase and Somalia is even worse.

The ignorance of these facts has cost Americans billions, if not trillions, with our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has led President Obama to intercede in Libya for no good reason. It is a desert under which oil exists. Beyond that, it hardly matters which dictator is in charge. Gadhafi’s dabbling in terrorism cost him more than it was worth.

So long as Obama is President, the U.S. will pursue unrealistic and often stunningly stupid policies and actions as regards Islam and Muslim nations.

By way of one small example, in April Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security, appointed Arif Alikhan, a devout Muslim, as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development. Alikhan was born in Damascus, Syria. I am sure you feel safer now knowing that.

Are there nice Muslims? Sure. Are there “moderate” Muslims? Possibly, but they are outnumbered by the millions who are not. Oil money and various illegal enterprises support terrorism. Even Americans contribute because the Obama administration will not permit exploration or drilling for an estimated 150 billion barrels of our own domestic oil.

And you still wonder why President Obama actually bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia? Or that George W. Bush ignored the fact that all but one of the nineteen 9/11 terrorists were Saudis? No President wants a repeat of the 1973 Saudi oil boycott.

Nothing good can come out of the current turmoil affecting most Arab Muslim nations. The U.S. would be wise to maintain its military power, but the fact is our Navy is being reduced, our Air Force is flying aging aircraft, and the combat divisions of our Army and Marines are worn out from repeated tours in the Middle East.

Obama is as clueless as Woodrow Wilson who thought he could bring “peace in our time” and only managed to help set in motion the run-up to World War Two. He has put America at risk in so many ways I am losing count.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America

By Paul Driessen

President Obama’s views on oil, natural gas and energy prices require just 44 words from his speeches.

“We have less than 2% of the world’s oil reserves. We’re running out of places to drill. We’re running out of oil. We need to end our $4 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to oil companies. We need to invest in clean, renewable energy.”

As Congressman Joe Wilson would say, That’s a lie! Or at least a deliberate distortion of facts.

Oil “reserves” are what can actually be produced at today’s prices, with existing technologies, and under current laws and regulations. America has vast oil, gas and coal resources – several centuries of potential hydrocarbon energy. We certainly have the technology to extract it, especially at $100 a barrel. What we don’t have are laws and regulations that allow us to do so.

If the President were honest, he would say: “We’re running out of oil that Democrats, my Administration and our radical environmentalist allies will let this country produce. We’re running out of places we’ll let companies drill. We have 2% of world oil reserves, because we’ve made most of our resources off limits.”

If he were honest, he would also say: “We will demonize, penalize, hyper-regulate, tax and kill hydrocarbons. But we will mandate and subsidize wind, solar and ethanol, ignore their environmental and human costs, and extol the measly, expensive, unreliable energy they produce.

“We oppose subsidies for oil and coal companies (even in the form of tax deductions for actual expenses), because they promote drilling – and their CEOs and workers rarely vote for us. We support huge subsidies for wind, solar and ethanol, because those guys keep us in power and force a transition to renewable power.

“We know oil, gas and coal generate royalty and tax revenues, and provide 85% of the energy that powers America and supports jobs, commuting, factories, transportation, tourism, hospitals, ambulances, churches and living standards. But we don’t care about revenues, except when they come from higher taxes on corporations – or rich families that make over $250,000 … $150,000 … $65,000 a year. We detest free enterprise, and want government to control more of your energy, economy and lives.

“And we love the way supply and demand laws drive prices up. DC area gasoline is now $4.25 a gallon. That’s about half of what Energy Secretary Chu and I would like it to be, just like in Europe. And we know restricting energy supplies even further will send all prices skyrocketing even higher.”

As crazy as they sound, these ideologies are even more frightening and demented in practice.

Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is projected to drop 240,000 barrels a day this year. That’s $9 billion more America will have to pay this year to import replacement oil … $1.3 billion we won’t collect in federal royalty payments … thousands of jobs that won’t be “created or saved” … and billions in corporate, personal income and sales taxes we won’t collect.

The US Geological Survey says upwards of 90 billion barrels remain to be discovered in the Arctic. ANWR alone could hold 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil, producible from areas totaling 1/20th of Washington, DC. But it’s all locked up, off limits to We the People who own it.

Meanwhile, the huge Prudhoe Bay field is slowly running dry. So the Alaska Pipeline is operating at a fraction of its capacity, which increases corrosion and blockages in the pipe, magnifies the risk of ruptures and spills, and threatens the future of Alaskan oil. Shell Oil spent $3.5 billion acquiring and exploring leases in the Chukchi Sea – but Interior and EPA refuse to issue drilling permits, because diesel emissions from the rig could cause global warming or affect the health of Natives 20-50 miles away! It all adds up to less oil, less royalty revenue, fewer jobs and more imported oil. Just as Obama & Co. intend.

Made in America technology and innovation have unlocked centuries of new natural gas in US shale formations (and similar deposits all over the world). This game-changing development has reduced gas prices … completely unhinged Obama, Democrat and other environmental ideologues … and devastated their “we’re running out” mantra. So they’ve rallied the troops, to produce a bogus “documentary” film (“Gasland”), a sloppy Cornell University “study,” and reams of new EPA regulations, to stymie shale gas. A thorough analysis by science writer Matt Ridley provides much needed facts and perspectives. (The same horizontal drilling and “fracking” technologies are also unlocking eco-nightmarish new oil riches.)

Coal generates half of all US electricity, and 70-98% in twelve states – sustaining jobs by keeping AC, heating and machinery operating costs at about half of what is typical in states that get little or no electricity from coal. But EPA has issued 946 pages of new air quality rules and launched a massive propaganda campaign against mercury emissions – even though those power plants account for barely 0.5% of all mercury in the air Americans breathe. President Obama has said he wants to “bankrupt” the industry.

All told, over a billion acres of onshore and offshore energy prospects are locked up – costing us centuries of fuel, millions of jobs, and hundreds of billions in bonus, royalty and tax revenues. Of course, there are “no quick fixes” for our energy problems, as President Obama loves to remind us. But if we’d begun drilling in some of these places 10-20 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this fix today.

As to subsidies, even the alleged billions for oil companies are a pittance compared to subsidies for wind, solar and ethanol. Subsidies per unit of energy actually produced are even more shocking. According to the Energy Information Administration, gas-fired electricity generation received a mere 25 cents per megawatt-hour in subsidies in 2007; coal got 44 cents. By comparison, wind turbines got 23.4 dollars and photovoltaic solar received 24.3 dollars per mWh.

Moreover, oil and gas is 24/7 – with 95% reliability. The industry supports 9.2 million jobs, directly and in companies that depend on reliable, affordable oil, gas, gasoline, fertilizer, plastics, pharmaceuticals and electricity. It generates federal revenue, paying billions in taxes and royalties. The same holds true for coal.

By contrast, wind and solar produce electricity just two to eight hours a day – with backup generators making up the monumental shortfall. That means we must duplicate every megawatt of wind and solar with a MW of (mostly gas-fired) backup power – which requires even more land and raw materials to support the government-mandated transition to “eco-friendly” renewable energy systems.

More appalling, instead of generating tax or royalty revenues, wind and solar require perpetual subsidies. Solar panel maker Solyndra got a $535 “stimulus” loan in 2009; the day after the 2010 elections, it announced it was laying off 190 people. In April 2011 alone, the Department of Energy poured $9 billion in loan guarantees into wind and solar projects that will blanket large swaths of crop and habitat land.

Ethanol receives subsidies of $5.72 per million Btu (190 times what oil and gas companies get), so that we can burn food to make the fuels government won’t let us drill for. In 2010, American farmers turned 36% of their corn crop into ethanol, which provides 30% less energy than gasoline – meaning cars get less mileage per tank for more bucks per gallon. Making one gallon of this substandard fuel also requires some 1,700 gallons of water and large quantities of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides. Worse, energy economist Indur Goklany calculates, biofuel policies may be causing 200,000 deaths a year in poor countries, by raising food prices, increasing malnutrition and making people more vulnerable to disease.

Overall, since assuming power in Washington, the Obama Administration has channeled over $60 billion into the “green jobs” sector. And the renewable energy subsidy train rolls on, with tanker cars of red ink bankrolled by US taxpayers and consumers – to provide less than 1% of the energy we use.

If Congress still refuses to hold inquiries and end these tax-subsidized scams, perhaps the most we can hope for is that a few courageous and publicly spirited governors and AGs will step into the breach.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

 

WesternFront America

by Doug Edelman

Democrats in congress love to beat up on the oil companies: those “evil mega-corporations that make obscene profits and gouge us poor consumers.” But while that populist meme might gain them a few polling points with the assistance of a complicit press, any objective analyst of the facts will have to call BS on the entire premise.

Just where would we be, if the government succeeded in seriously putting the hurt on the world’s few companies capable of taking crude oil and delivering useful products to market?

Forget, for a moment, the energy resources coming from petroleum like gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, home heating oil and the like. We are dependent upon petroleum for plastics, for medicines, for pesticides, for synthetic fibers necessary to clothe us. For asphalt necessary for roads and roofing. Look at what these demonized companies provide to us, on a slim margin of profit, as we’ll see.

The pain at the pump felt by Americans as gas prices hover around $4.00 a gallon is palpable. And as Rahm Emmanuel famously quipped, the left will “never let a good crisis go to waste”!

Politically, the left sees a golden opportunity: They can attack an “enemy of the common man”. They can (they think) raise tax revenues. They can further cripple the petroleum industry – providing impetus toward their “green economy”. They can attack corporate capitalism. So, of course, they go after the oil companies with great zeal.

But even Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu (a hard core leftist) recognizes that the attacks on the oil companies are both unfounded, and ill advised. Acknowledging that punitively terminating tax provisions (which are available to multiple industries and for good reason!) for the oil companies will not reduce (and might increase) gas prices at the pump, and will NOT increase revenues to the government, she spoke out on May 11, 2011 against the attempts to score political points by setting up the straw-man boogie-man of the “Evil Oil Companies” as an enemy to be taken down.

What REALLY is the cause of these high gas prices? Who’s REALLY to blame?

Well, let’s take a look at the factors influencing our pump price today.

First and foremost is the cost these companies must pay for crude! Raw Material Costs. Presently above $100 a barrel, these costs are bolstered by the weakness of the US Dollar – a function of the poor fiscal policy coming out of Obama’s Washington. A weak dollar means a dollar doesn’t go as far in purchasing commodities on the world market. We can only expect to see commodity prices (of EVERYTHING, not just oil!!!) to continue to climb unless drastic action is taken to stabilize the value of our money!

In addition, we are dependent on foreign (and not always friendly) sources of our oil. Leftist policies have hamstrung our domestic production. When the Department of Energy was created (ostensibly to REDUCE our dependence on foreign oil) our imports represented around 30% of our total petroleum consumption. Presently about 2/3 of all our oil is foreign sourced! (Good job, federal bureaucracy!)

All that oil we’re obtaining from foreign sources must be transported halfway around the globe (on very environmentally friendly tanker ships!). Those Shipping and Delivery Costs contribute to our gas price. Don’t forget, those ships run on DIESEL!! How many gallons do you think a tanker burns to bring a million barrels of oil across the ocean? (And what happens to the shipping costs as the price of Diesel rises?) Then, once offloaded in port, the oil must be transported via pipelines (which charge fees) to the refineries.

Our Refinery Costs are also factored into our gasoline pump prices. We haven’t built a new refinery since the Carter Administration… but we’ve lost a few in that time. Our refining capacity is not increasing to meet demand. Meantime our “helpful” federal government has mandated boutique fuel blends – different formulations engineered for different geographical regions. The refineries must make one blend for Missouri, and another for Illinois! These blends cannot be sold across the regional boundaries, so if there’s a shortage in Illinois for their blend, they can’t sell Missouri’s blend, even if there’s a surplus of that variety! So what happens? The price in IL must go up relative to the price in MO, as a function of its scarcity. And when IL residents note the difference, they cry GOUGING against IL gas retailers, who are innocent of any wrongdoing!

Speaking of the gasoline retailer, their average Retailer Profits are about 10 cents per gallon… unless you pay by credit card! Then the credit card company, which takes a fee based on the SALE PRICE will eat about 6 or 7 cents per gallon, leaving the station operator a mere 3 cents per gallon. This is why gas stations are now mini-markets. They need to sell higher margin items to stay alive! The gas is often a “loss leader” used simply to get motorists to stop and shop their convenience store!

Oil Company Profits must necessarily be figured into the cost equation… but let’s do so with perspective. Oil companies earn approximately 2 cents for every gallon sold! States place Taxes on Gasoline ranging from 30-something to 60-something cents per gallon, with the national average being 48 cents. So for every penny the oil companies earn, the states make almost a quarter. WHO’S reaping the windfall profits? The states invest nothing in exploration, extraction, transportation, formulation, refining, or delivery of gasoline, yet they make nearly a quarter for every penny the oil companies earn in profit!

But we’re not yet done with taxes! Once the states get their share, the feds also get a chunk. About 18 cents per gallon goes to the Federal Government. So about $.66 of every gallon you pump is simply paid to the state and federal government in taxes. Lay that against the lowly 2 cents profit per gallon that the oil companies get! If the profits of the oil companies are obscene, what about the Federal and State Governments appropriating 33 cents (and delivering NOTHING) for every cent the oil companies make in profit while delivering vital products to market?

But they sell billions of gallons! They earn BILLIONS in profit!

Ok… and so? That profit goes to their shareholders. When they make money, 9.2 million stockholders benefit!! Do you have a 401K or IRA or a pension? I’ll just bet you’re one of those evil oil profiteers!

And what of those billions? Oil companies operate on margins that would shut down most other industries. What business could survive with an effective tax rate of 48% and a profit margin under 7%?

According to ABC News (hardly a friend of the oil companies, and certainly not a conservative news outlet) the big oil companies had the following revenues/profits:

Source: http://abcn.ws/jgMnP4

Company Revenues Profit Percent Profit

Exxon Mobil 284.7B 19.3B 6.8%

Chevron 163.5B 10.5B 6.4%

Connoco 139.5B 4.9B 2.8%

Valero Energy 70.0B 2.0B 2.8%

Marathon Oil 49.4B 1.5B 3.0%

The total profit for these 5 big oil companies was 38.2 Billion in 2010. (How fast does Government spend 38.2 billion?) Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?

With approximately 250 million people in the USA, it takes $4 per person to make a billion dollars. So all 5 companies in total earned about $152.80 from each of us in 2010! Now think about what you SPENT on gasoline in 2010! Now realize that over $5000 was collected from each of us in gas TAXES by the states and the feds in that same time period. WHO are you mad at now?

Oh, and the Feds want to raise taxes on the oil companies. Where do you think that money will come from?

So WHO should be demonized when you feel that pain at the pump?

Copyright © 2011 by Doug Edelman

Doug Edelman is a conservative political analyst and commentator, and was a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice. His work has appeared on ChronWatch, Western Front American, Small Government Times, Western Journalism, News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House and more. Mr. Edelman is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business.  He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://starboard.blogtownhall.com/.

 

WesternFront America

You consume a quarter of the world’s oil production. It’s time you started producing it, too.

By Thompson Ayodele

Rising global demand for oil, coupled with continuing turmoil in the Middle East, is again causing US energy prices to spike. Regular gasoline has topped $4 a gallon in many states, and experts predict it could hit $5 per gallon this summer. Thousands of former oil patch workers remain unemployed, while the Obama Administration and Congress refuse to issue leases or drilling permits and, instead, make more and more oil and gas prospects off limits to exploration.

Meanwhile, the world is feted to the usual hand-wringing over how the United States can possibly feed its oil addiction in the years ahead, to keep its vehicle fleet moving and its struggling economy making progress. Cover more land with inefficient, unreliable wind turbines and solar panels? Convert more food crops into biofuels? Mine and burn more coal? Build more nuclear plants in the wake of Fukushima?

At best, these “solutions” are decades in the future. Thus, the debate quickly comes back to America’s own domestic oil production. To drill or not to drill?

Here some global perspective may help Americans find a way out of a blisteringly politicized discussion that generates, literally, more noise than movement.

As a Nigerian who is proud of his country’s contributions to the world’s oil supply – we are the single largest producer of oil in Africa, and one of the top five exporters to your nation – I wonder how it is that you Americans never seem to ask yourselves one fundamental question: What if all countries restricted access to their oil and gas reserves the way you do? Where would the world – let alone the United States – get its energy?

Among all the countries of the world, America alone refuses to tap oil and gas deposits that could fuel its vehicles and economy for many decades. Perhaps America’s unwillingness to tap its oil reserves would be defensible if you were equally conservative with your consumption. But you’re not.

You consume roughly a quarter of the world’s oil. Meanwhile, you severely restrict or outright forbid access to vast oil bounties along the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, in Alaska’s tundra and Arctic seas, throughout the Rocky Mountain West, and increasingly in eastern states where the Petroleum Age was launched in 1859.

If countries in the Middle East, South America or Africa adopted a similar attitude, America (and the world) would be left gasping for energy.

The arguments against tapping US oil reserves are familiar. Among the most popular is the refrain that there are barely enough “proven reserves” of oil beneath the US to last more than a few years. But that statistic is based on a set of criteria from the Society of Petroleum Engineers that is itself defined by the restrictions on exploration.

These “proved reserves” only count oil that is “commercially recoverable” under “current economic conditions, operating methods and government regulations” (emphasis added). In other words, “commercially recoverable” defines how much oil your government allows you to develop, not how much is actually there. Open more of your excellent oil prospects, and three years almost magically becomes three decades, or more. Ditto for your natural gas, shale gas and shale oil reserves.

Indeed, saying you shouldn’t drill, because each well would produce “at most a few days” of oil, makes as much sense as saying you shouldn’t conserve gasoline or improve energy efficiency, because each effort would save “at most a few minutes” of oil.

Another popular anti-drilling argument is that the environmental risks and impacts are unacceptable. Yes, careless mistakes caused a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico one year ago. But that was the first significant spill since the Santa Barbara blowout in 1969, 41 years earlier – and each reduction in US domestic production increases the likelihood of another tanker running aground and spilling its cargo of imported oil.

Just as important, foreclosing access to America’s numerous oil and gas deposits for such reasons presumes it is OK for the rest of the world to assume risks of blowouts and other ecological damage for America’s sake – but it is not OK for the United States to assume any risks to meet its own energy needs. It presumes the United States’ environmental values, and its citizens’ sensitivities about them, are somehow more vital than those in other nations.

Meanwhile, tapping America’s reserves would mean significant economic growth, increased energy security and lower US (and global) energy prices. Developing the oil and natural gas reserves now kept off-limits by Congress, courts, activists and government agencies could mean another $1.7 trillion in government revenue, according to an American Petroleum Institute study. It would also mean millions of high-paying jobs in states that could certainly use an influx of employment right now.

In Nigeria, oil and gas exploration now accounts for 40% of our GDP, as well as 98% of export earnings and 83% of federal-government revenue. We are a developing nation, but we manage to access our reserves in a safe, environmentally sound way, despite many challenges, including deliberate sabotage. Were America to embrace full-scale production, it would force producers everywhere – including Nigeria – to be more competitive, thereby making energy cheaper for consumers worldwide.

In March, the Obama administration awarded its first permit for a new deep-water drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico (with beefed-up safety regulations) since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. This is a step in the right direction. However, dozens of Gulf permits still await consideration, and the snail-like pace of approval there and throughout the USA only exacerbates America’s (and the world’s) energy anxiety.

President Obama has earned global good will for his efforts to make America a better international partner. Those efforts should not exclude his country’s obligation to pay its fair share of America’s and the world’s travel, heating and manufacturing bill.

Thompson Ayodele

Thompson Ayodele is executive director of Initiative for Public Policy Analysis (IPPA), an independent public policy think tank in Lagos, Nigeria, promoting the institutions of free society. He is the author of numerous articles and policy papers, including Public or Private Solution to Pension Problems; Palm Oil and Economic Development in Nigeria and Ghana; Drug Use in Nigeria; and Lessons from the Poor: The Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit, edited by Alvaro Llosa.

 

WesternFront America

By Alan Caruba

One of the great afflictions of the environmentalists—Greens—everywhere is a profound lack of understanding of the role that energy plays in whether a nation prospers or just limps along, barely keeping the lights on.

A classic case is the communist paradise of North Korea that is almost completely dark at night while just across the 38th parallel, South Korea is ablaze with light, energy, and a thriving economy.

Dedicated Greens don’t really like any kind of energy whether it is nuclear, provided by burning coal, from natural gas, oil or from hydropower. They think that wind power is trouble-free and cost effective when it is neither. They feel the same way about solar power. Both are deemed acceptable because they don’t “emit” anything. This viewpoint is not merely naïve, it is profoundly stupid.

Before we go further, let’s examine the basic facts of U.S. power, give or take a percentage point or two, coal provides over 50% of electrical power. Nuclear provides around 20%, natural gas is just over 20%, hydroelectric is close to 7%, and so-called “renewables” like wind and solar are credited with about 3%. Petroleum generated electricity is 1% and “other sources”, whatever they may be, come in at around 0.3%.

These are figures from 2009 and, suffice to say, are subject to change, but not much.

Friends of the Earth, an international Green organization, (FOE) is no friend to humanity. Hardcore Greens think Earth’s problems would be solved if human beings were not part of its ecology.

Following the Japan earthquake, FOE sent an email to its members and fellow travelers saying, “We must learn from this disaster. Tell your members of Congress that nuclear power should not be part of our energy future.” Ironically, FOE is very unhappy with President Obama and his administration which has been very inclined toward nuclear energy.

The Sierra Club, another ultra-Green organization, put out a newsletter reminding its members that it is “unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy” and has been “for more than three decades.” The same newsletter warned that “politicians who owe their primary allegiance to the fossil-fuel industry (coal, natural gas, and oil) are quick to promote domestic drilling and deregulation, as if that would make the gauge on the gas pump start to run backward.” In point of fact, it would. U.S. domestic oil is always cheaper than imported oil.

The Sierra Club just conjured up a petition “to tell the Obama administration to protect the Arctic Refuge” because “We cannot allow these oil companies to destroy the pristine wilderness of the Arctic Refuge.” Every time you hear the words “pristine wilderness” think of a place no human would ever want to live, let alone visit. And no one is really addressing the economic devastation the Obama administration has visited on the Gulf States because of its refusal to allow oil drilling to resume.

FOE recently was fulminating against the use of coal to light up the homes, businesses and streets of South Africa and was equally unhappy about the effort to install a pipeline from Canada to the U.S. to transmit oil derived from its tar sands. A lot of our “imported” oil comes from Canada. That’s because it has been government policy for decades to make it difficult, if not impossible, to drill, extract, and refine oil here in America.

The March 21-27 edition of Bloomberg Business Week has an article by Brendan Greeley that is a good analysis titled “Facing Up to Nuclear Risk.” When nuclear plants have been built as many safety factors as possible have been built into them, but it is impossible to calculate the impact of an earthquake. The U.S. has its own tectonic fault lines, all well known, but the fact remains nuclear plants have been built near or on them.

“David Okrent, who advised the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on reactor safety for 20 years, points out that reactors are designed for only a set of defined events. ‘The early nuclear reactors weren’t designed for tornadoes,’ he says, ‘until one came along in Arkansas, and then we thought, ‘we gotta design for tornadoes.’ It’s not easy to be all-knowing.”

Were it not for Green propaganda, the U.S. would not be wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on idiotic wind and solar farms that are utterly dependent on government subsidies and mandates that require utilities to use the pitifully small amounts of electricity they produce.

The same can be said of the equally idiotic regulatory mandates for ethanol that drive up the cost of every gallon of gas pumped while, at the same time, reducing the mileage and damaging to your car’s engine. Even Al Gore thinks ethanol is a bad idea.

Ironically, more people have died from wind turbines than nuclear plants. In 2008, there were 41 recorded deaths. The carnage on birds and bats is rarely mentioned by the media. Despite all the blather about Three Mile Island not one person has died from radiation since nuclear plants were first introduced.

It is surely worth noting that coal-burning plants in a nation that is the Saudi Arabia of coal do not have meltdowns causing radiation that can make large areas uninhabitable. That “smoke” you see coming from the smokestacks of such plants is steam. Water vapor. Clouds are made of water vapor.

If we were really serious about safety and the provision of more electrical power, the U.S. would be building a hell of a lot more coal-burning plants right now and into the future.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America

Develop American energy – or say good-bye to jobs, revenue and modern living standards.

As Britain suffered through its coldest December in a century, families were forced to choose between keeping homes warm and feeding their children nourishing meals – thanks to climate policies that have forced extensive reliance on wind power and deliberately driven energy prices skyward.

Barely two months later, the UK’s power grid CEO informed the country that its days of reliable electricity are numbered. Families, schools, offices, shops, hospitals and factories will just have to “get used to” consuming electricity “when it’s available,” not necessarily when they want it or need it. A new “smart grid” will be used to allocate decreasing electricity supplies, on a rolling basis or according to bureaucratic determinations as to which consumers most need available power – mostly from wind turbines that provided a pitiful 0.04% of Britain’s electricity during its coldest days last December.

Meanwhile, the EU’s Energy Commissioner warned that German electricity prices are already at “the upper edge” of what society can accept and businesses can tolerate. Taxes, levies and regulations imposed in the name of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and global warming are forcing companies to relocate to other countries and causing “a gradual process of de-industrialization” across Germany.

Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for a full and independent investigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, its practices and suspect science. The IPCC no longer has integrity or credibility, he said, and some of its researchers “have shown themselves to be fraudsters.”

To all of which, the autocratic European Commission essentially said “Drop dead.” The EU, it decreed, will spend $375 billion (€270 billion) annually to slash CO2 emissions by at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, and 80% by 2050.

Welcome to the Third World, Europeans, where costly electricity is available only from time to time, at unexpected hours, depending on bureaucratic whims and how much power wind turbines and other “environment-friendly” generators can muster.

Is the USA next in line? The United States is reaping imaginary bounties from its $814-billion “stimulus” spending orgy. It hemorrhaged $223 billion in red ink during February alone – on its way to a projected 2011 deficit of $1.5 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office reports.

Over 13.7 million Americans remain unemployed; another 8.3 million are involuntarily employed only part-time; black unemployment stands at 15.3 percent; and gasoline prices have hit $4 per gallon, foretelling more rough waters ahead for the still fragile US economy.

America depends on abundant, reliable, affordable energy – 85% of it hydrocarbons. Coal generates half of all US electricity, and up to 90% in its manufacturing heartland – versus 1% from wind and solar. Newfound natural gas supplies promise a sea change in US energy supplies and electricity generation. However, oil still powers transportation, shipping and petrochemicals – and in 2010 the United States exported $337 billion to import 61% of this precious liquid fuel.

Thankfully, the Obama Administration, environmentalists and (mostly Democratic) politicians take this situation very seriously, and are doing something about it … according to their parallel universe.

Democrats are willing to trim up to $5 billion from the $3.8 trillion 2011 federal budget (0.15%), while Republicans insist that $57 billion (1.5%) should be “slashed.” As to reducing the deficit by increasing revenues, most of that discussion still centers on raising taxes on whatever “rich” people are still out there. On the energy front, things are truly disconnected from reality.

Unlocking America’s still abundant hydrocarbon resources and unleashing our innovative, hard-driving free enterprise system would generate hundreds of billions of dollars in leasing, royalty and tax revenues for federal, state and local governments. It would put millions back to work … help stanch the flow of red ink … keep tens of billions of crude oil spending and investment in America … and create enormous new wealth, instead of redistributing a dwindling pool of old wealth.

We must drill safely, use fuel more efficiently in vehicles and power plants, and get more from every underground reservoir. And we could do so, if government would allow it.

Just consider the incredible revolution that the genius of American capitalists has presented the world: hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to tap previously inaccessible oil and gas deposits. This technology has turned “depletion” and “sustainability” claims upside down. It has already doubled US natural gas reserves and given North America over a century of recoverable gas, at current consumption rates.

It is also unlocking oil wealth in the vast Bakken shale formation of Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan. Oil production there has already soared from 3,000 barrels a day five years ago to over 225,000 today. The US Energy Information Administration says it could reach 350,000 barrels a day by 2035; industry sources say it could top a million barrels by 2020. Related oilfield employment has soared from 5,000 to over 18,000 in the same five-year period, and could eventually reach 100,000 jobs. At $100 a barrel, even 350,000 barrels a day could mean $1.6 billion in annual royalties, from Bakken oil alone.

The new Made in America technology is already changing energy, economic and political landscapes in Europe, and will soon do so across the globe. It is a technologically possible and economically affordable solution that generates bountiful jobs and revenues – as opposed to pixie dust solutions that require perpetual subsidies and address speculative problems. Offshore and ANWR drilling could do likewise.

Unfortunately, the White House, Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department, and too many in Congress, courts and state legislatures are determined to restrict and obstruct this hydrocarbon revolution. They want to select business winners and losers, force America to convert to expensive, subsidized, unreliable, land-intensive wind, solar and ethanol power – and tell people how much energy they can have, and when.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is using groundless claims about possible groundwater contamination to delay fracking operations. Because Congress rejected cap-tax-and-trade, she has rewritten the Clean Air Act to label plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide a “pollutant” and restrict CO2 emissions from power plants, refineries and other facilities. That will further increase energy costs for families and businesses, forcing more companies to lay more people off or close their doors – even as China and India build new coal-fired power plants every week, spurring plant growth by sending global CO2 levels higher and higher.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has shut down leasing and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, put tens of thousands out of work, ignored court orders to end his moratorium, and issued decrees that make millions of additional onshore and offshore acres off limits to drilling. He has blocked exploration in ANWR because its oil riches won’t make us energy independent (as though even massive wind, solar, ethanol and electric car programs would do so).

President Obama wants oil, gas, coal and electricity prices to “skyrocket,” to make “green” energy appear more attractive. Energy Secretary Steven Chu wants to “boost the price of gasoline to levels in Europe” – over $8 per gallon! Most of all, these anti-hydrocarbon politicians want a self-sustaining political-environmentalist-industrial-public sector union complex based on government subsidies to favored industries and companies, in exchange for campaign contributions that will keep them in power.

This palpable, intolerable insanity must end. It’s time to tell Congress (and the European Commission) we need real energy for real jobs, real revenues and a revitalized economy. And we need it now.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

 

WesternFront America

Just a few days ago we wrote an article in which we proclaimed that America does not need oil from sources found anywhere but here on our own property. The article was dismissed by most, but those who seriously consider the possibility that our very own government, under the direction of our current president, Barry Soetoro – aka — Barack Obama, is intentionally forcing American citizens, against our will, to “make do with less,” in order to pre-condition Americans for the socialist government to come, DID take it seriously and some have spoken out – and — in so doing have given even more credence to our suggestion that we DO have all the oil we need right here on our own shores or beneath that portion of the oceans owned by the citizens of the US under international law.

Those writers, too, have drawn even more attention to the machinations of the Obama Regime’s intensive planning for a socialist take over of the US government.

I know it sounds like a screenplay for a fictional dramatic motion picture. Problem is … it is true!
The article I wrote, “Another Recession Keyed By High Oil Prices?” can be found HERE.

Here is a quote from the article: “Look. America is awash in oil. We’ve got more oil than the Arabs! But – our government won’t let us get to it — and use it — and flip the bird to the Middle Eastern Oil Princes.” We continue: “So what the deuce is going on? I mean, why the heck are we Americans sitting on our hands and not DEMANDING that our government “cut the cr*p” and allow the oil companies to dig, and drill, for all this oil? WHY is the US continuing to ship our treasure and our blood to the Middle East — and to our unfriendly southern neighbors — for oil?

We are on the cusp of back-to-back recessions with the second dip looming today. The cost to Americans for oil is threatening to push us over that brink and into a recession that will, most likely, become a depression even worse than the one our parents and grandparents experienced in the 1930’s.”

I ask the same question today that I did then: “Why are we allowing a small group of people to dictate our lives and our economy, indeed, our future as a viable nation?It is past time to fight back, America. Demand that the US Congress defund the Environmental Protection Agency right off the bat. Get rid of it.” (I would add the Department of Energy to “get rid of” list.)

In the previous article we pointed out the following: “Just as important is the necessity to elect a President with the cajones to override the environmentalist and open up America to drilling and digging for our own vast reserves of oil sloshing beneath our feet and just offshore and under the tundra.” You can find the entire article HERE.

Now comes Ron Arnold with an article entitled: “Obama’s ‘starve America first’ energy policy creates a backlash”

Mr. Arnold says: “With shaky foreign energy supplies threatening to deepen the worst recession since World War II, why doesn’t America protect its capacity to do work by drilling for more oil and gas here at home? Simple truth from Politics 101: Big Green’s extreme anti-energy ideology permeates the Obama administration.” He goes on to say: “Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the D.C.-based Institute for Energy Research, told me, ‘The Obama administration is deliberately embargoing our own domestic energy from us, from Americans. He and his agency heads all believe in the politics of scarcity — force society to live with less. The most anti-energy interior secretary in history is Obama’s Ken Salazar — who is also presently in contempt of court for withholding deepwater Gulf of Mexico oil drilling permits.”

So what about our claim that America has more domestic oil than Saudi Arabia? In his article Mr. Arnold says: “Never mind that the Congressional Research Service has released a study, U.S. Fossil Fuel Resources, that shows America’s combined recoverable natural gas, oil, and coal endowment is the largest on Earth, far larger than that of Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th), and Canada (6th) combined.

None of that matters to the Obama administration, which has blocked dozens of energy developments on federal lands and now forbids recovery of 83 percent of our oil resources.”
We recommend that you read Mr. Arnold’s article in its entirety. You will find it HERE.

You DO see the pattern here – don’t you? As wild and outrageous as it sounds, we have to believe the Obama Regime is deliberately forcing the price of oil products, including the price of gasoline, up to realize his socialist dream of having all Americans learn to live with less and precondition the entire country to accept socialism with open arms.

America – there is no reason we have to import a single drop of oil. There is no reason we have to pay $4.00 a gallon for gasoline. We are floating on a sea of oil – far more oil than those who are gouging the living daylights out of us now.

We must show Mr. Obama the door in November of 2012 and we need, immediately, to beginning sinking wells and sucking that energy from the ground, the sea, and the rocks. The “Big Green cultists” can go off somewhere and sulk in their SUV’s and McMansions. Most sentient human beings have learned that THEIR environmentalist religion is based on a lie and we want no more of it.

America needs energy. And that energy comes from oil. Now we know we have enough oil for a couple of thousand years right here, on our own shores! We have to vote Obama out if we want to get a single drop of that oil. Hey, that’s an easy choice.

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom at: http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/

E-Mail: longstreet1862@gmail.com

 

WesternFront America