Free Republic

The fight against hydraulic fracturing has recently ratcheted up. On November 5, one town in Ohio and three in Colorado, passed ballot measures designed to ban or temporarily halt hydraulic fracturing—the brief (3-5 day) phase, often referred to as “fracking”—that is essential to the advanced oil-and-gas extraction processes that have given America the lead in global energy production. A fourth Colorado town awaits a recount. Initial election results showed the moratorium in Broomfield, Co—failed by 13 votes. However, on November 13, after all the overseas, military, provisional and other outstanding ballots were counted, it had passed by 17 votes. A...

Sarah Palin is back! Not only did she get another Fox News contract, she was the star of Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Conference this past weekend for her slashing attacks not only on President Obama and Democrats but on Republican sellouts (and 2016 hopefuls) like Jeb Bush. Watching Palin gleefully take on Bush, who made a dumb comment about needing immigration reform because immigrants are “more fertile” than native-born Americans, I realized that Palin’s star really is rising again, at a time of heightened racial insecurity on the white far-right. They need a hero, and here she is again....

A $21 price difference between crude oil in Midland and Cushing, Okla., is an all-time high, as oil production in the Permian Basin far outpaces the pipeline infrastructure to move it. The spot price for West Texas Intermediate crude was about $87 per barrel this week in Cushing – the delivery point at which the U.S. benchmark oil is priced – versus $65 per barrel in Midland. The two only differed by $3 in October, according to a Wells Fargo report. “If I produce a barrel of oil in the Permian, my ability to move it to market is restricted,”...

Federal officials on Friday approved a plan that sets aside 445 square miles of public land for thedevelopment of large-scale solar power plants, cementing a new government approach to renewable energy development in the West after years of delays and false starts. At a news conference in Las Vegas, Interior Secretary Ken Salazarcalled the new plan a "roadmap ... that will lead to faster, smarter utility-scale solar development on public lands." The plan replaces the department's previous first-come, first-served system of approving solar projects, which let developers choose where they wanted to build utility-scale solar sites and allowed for land...

Mitt Romney revealed a new energy policy today that will hinge on states, and not the federal government, being able to control energy development on federal land, a shift that the campaign says will result in North American energy independence by the year 2020. It includes more offshore drilling options, evoking memories of the slogan introduced four years ago at the Republican National Convention in 2008: “Drill, baby, drill.” “If I’m the president of the United States in a few months here, I will set a national goal of America and North America, North American energy independence by 2020,” Romney...

PRESS RELEASE OIL AND GAS SEEPAGE FROM OCEAN FLOOR  REDUCED BY OIL PRODUCTION November 18, 1999 (Santa Barbara, Calif.) Next time you step on a glob of tar on a beach in Santa Barbara County, you can thank the oil companies that it isn't a bigger glob. The same is true around the world, on other beaches where off-shore oil drilling occurs, say scientists, although Santa Barbara's oil seeps are thought to be among the leakiest. Natural seepage of hydrocarbons from the ocean floor in the northern Santa Barbara Channel has been significantly reduced by oil production, according to...

A U.S. district judge ordered the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Friday to re-assess its plan to allow drilling on some 50,000 acres on the Roan Plateau, which the energy industry says contains one of the largest natural gas fields in the continental United States. Judge Marcia Krieger said BLM had failed to thoroughly assess all the environmental impact to the ecologically sensitive plateau in western Colorado before approving energy development on the mountain. "Like many areas of Colorado, the area has been blessed with an abundance of two major resources, the uses of which are often in...

April 22, 2012 Environmentally Sound Energy Independence Sarah Palin On this holiest of days for EcoLiberals, how about if Americans celebrate Earth Day with responsible energy development that leads to greater independence and conservation? There’s no better way for President Obama and his administration to celebrate Earth Day than to embrace a real, environmentally sound commitment to energy independence instead of relying on foreign countries that lack environmental safeguards. One aspect of the “all-of-the-above” approach I have been discussing for years involves, of course, the necessity to “drill, baby, drill.” It’s no secret that throughout America, including the very wealthy...

Marking the similarities between President Barack Obama's time in office and former president Jimmy Carter's is nothing new. But as of Monday, Obama has hit one more Carter benchmark - both saw gas prices double in their first term of office. [See Where Gas Prices are Spiking the Most] In fact, while just barely, Obama has seen an even higher gas price increase than Carter dealt with under his administration. Under the Carter administration, gas prices increased by 103.77 percent. Gas prices since Obama took office have risen by 103.79 percent. No other presidents in recent years have struggled as...

Energy Policy: The administration claims there's no "silver bullet" to lower gas prices and that they've kept rising in the face of higher domestic production, as if the law of supply and demand has suddenly been repealed. It hasn't, and increased production on private and state lands doesn't blunt the impact on prices when 94% of federal onshore lands and 97% of federal offshore lands are off-limits to oil and gas drilling. A key factor in gas prices is and always has been future supplies and potential disruptions to those supplies. Another is the fact that we are the only...

Offshore drilling has been pushed further onto Virginia's horizon. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on Tuesday announced the oil and gas leasing plan for 2012-2017, and Virginia did not make the list. The proposed program includes 15 potential lease sales, with 12 in the Gulf of Mexico and three off Alaska. Virginia's lease sale was scheduled for 2011, but the federal government delayed it until at least 2017 after the April-July 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst offshore spill in U.S. history. Gov. Bob McDonnell, who wanted to use the millions that...

“If you hear anybody on TV saying that somehow we are against drilling for oil, then you will know that they either don’t know what they are talking about or they are not telling you the truth,” Obama said, against the backdrop of oil production facilities outside Maljamar, N.M. “We are drilling all over the place,” Obama added, reading from a speech on his podium on a windy afternoon. “That’s the reason we have been able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil every year since I took office.” While Obama has repeated in recent days that there’s no “silver...

So sad. Barack plays comedian and cracks jokes about gas prices. He told an audience today that there’s “a few places” we’re not drilling… the National Mall… at your house.” HapBlog reported: Of course, like most everything Obama says, a quick Google search paints a totally different picture of the truth. Investor’s reported: Obama has chosen almost always to limit production. He canceled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended them in Montana, delayed them in Colorado and Utah, and canceled lease sales off the Virginia coast. His administration also has been slow-walking permits in the Gulf of Mexico, approving...

Countering President Obama’s claim that he’s doing everything he can to increase domestic oil production, a top House Republican Thursday released data from the Energy Department showing that fossil fuel production on federal lands has fallen since Mr. Obama took office. The information compiled by the Energy Information Administration shows that total fossil fuel production on federal lands has dropped 7 percent since 2009 and 13 percent since 2003. From 2010 to 2011, total oil production on federal lands is down 14 percent and gas production dropped 11 percent. House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings, Washington Republican, said the new...

President Obama took a shot at his opponents over their criticism of his energy policy during a speech at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland. “Now, here’s the sad thing. Lately, we have heard a lot of professional politicians, a lot of the folks who were running for a certain office, who shall go unnamed, they’ve been talking down new sources of energy. They dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power. They make jokes about biofuels. They were against raising fuel standards. I guess they like gas guzzlers. They think that’s good for our future. We’re trying to move...

It's not unusual for President Obama to criticize his Republican predecessors from time to time, but this morning, he targeted his scorn not at George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan, but ... Rutherford B. Hayes. As Politico reported: Speaking about the need to develop new sources of American energy in Largo, Md., Obama used our 19th president as a failure of forward-thinking leadership. "One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: 'It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?'" Obama said. "That's why he's not on Mt. Rushmore."

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Obama has just announced that the United States and Britain are going to release oil from their Strategic Reserves. I didn't even know that Cameron was up for reelection. I did not know that he was up for reelection. That's why Obama's doing this. This is going to have absolutely no impact whatsoever. It is a purely political move from the guy who says, "We can't drill. We can't drill fast enough, can't drill soon enough." What does that mean? If we can't drill what it means is putting more oil on the market isn't gonna matter...

When he was running for the Oval Office four years ago amid $4-a-gallon gasoline prices, then-Sen. Barack Obama dismissed the idea of expanded oil production as a way to relieve the pain at the pump. "Even if you opened up every square inch of our land and our coasts to drilling," he said. "America still has only 3% of the world's oil reserves." Which meant, he said, that the U.S. couldn't affect global oil prices....But the figure Obama uses — proved oil reserves — vastly undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually contains. In fact, far from being oil-poor, the...

Disapproval of President Obama’s handling of the economy is heading higher — alongside gasoline prices — as a record number of Americans now give the president “strongly” negative reviews on the 2012 presidential campaign’s most important issue, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Increasingly pessimistic views of Obama’s performance on the economy — and on the federal budget deficit — come despite a steadily brightening employment picture and other signs of economic improvement, and they highlight the political sensitivity of rising gas prices. The potential political con­sequences are clear, with the ­rising public disapproval reversing some of the...

Just my opinion, but there should be demonstrations the day before Earth Day(Sunday April 22, 2012) on Saturday, April 21, against the economic destruction this administration has wrought upon us, with the propagandic use of "Earth Day".