Free Republic

Democrats in Washington state, like their counterparts in the other Washington, don’t always think the law applies to them. They can create elaborate procedures to trip up Republicans in, say, election law. But those requirements are quite optional where they are concerned.Part of this is they see themselves as the good guys, fighting for right – no matter how many jobs are lost, how much damage is done to the economy or how little the measure does to help the environment. If they have to bend a few rules to make it happen – hey, it was the right thing...

WASHINGTON – The Senate rejected an amendment Thursday that sought to block a key panel from raising revenue through drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a move that could make it easier for future oil and gas drilling to take place there. Sen. Maria Cantwell, Wash., the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, offered an budget amendment that would have removed instructions to the panel to raise an additional $1 billion through federal leasing. It failed 48 to 52 on a largely party-line vote, with only Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Manchin, W.Va., breaking ranks....

Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Nate highlighted the exposure to life and property all along the Gulf Coast. Of the critical national assets that took a hit, the crux of the U.S. refining industry suffered dramatically. As a result of Harvey alone, twenty refineries in the 300 miles between Corpus Christi and Beaumont were forced to shut down or dramatically reduce rates. The spot price of ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) promptly increased by 10%, while that for gasoline and jet fuel increased by 25%. All three prices remain about 10% higher than before the hurricanes, in part due to regulatory constraints...

India is set to emerge as a key market for American crude exports in coming months, as refineries are ramping up "test" purchases of US grades to diversify their imports. US exports recently set a weekly record with nearly 2 million barrels of crude a day sent overseas. But shipments to India+ have been rare, with just a few deliveries since the US lifted its ban on crude exports in late 2015. Indian refineries are starting to increase purchases as the country seeks to secure more supply from outside the Middle East. Refiners are testing both US sweet and sour...

Let's be clear: The Energy Department's proposed rulemaking before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to subsidize power plants with on-site fuel is the antithesis of economic conservatism. The anti-competitive DOE proposal is a recipe to stick consumers with billions in added costs without addressing priority electric reliability and resiliency concerns. The proposal calls for draconian, emergency subsidies to address a crisis that grid reliability experts say doesn't exist. The alarmist proposal is neither technically nor procedurally sound. Knowledgeable, principled conservatives are speaking out. Travis Kavulla, the Republican vice chairman for the utility regulator of Montana, called the DOE's proposal a...

Senate Democrats are planning an amendment to stop the GOP from using the budget process to more easily allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and a handful of others told reporters Tuesday that they’re working on how exactly to fight the ANWR provision in the budget, and to bring on Republicans to oppose it as well. “We’re going to work together with our colleagues to determine just the right moment in this budgetary process to make this amendment,” Markey said outside the Capitol. “But we are going to do so, and we...

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump—like his opponent Hillary Clinton—spoke glowingly about infrastructure spending, alluding to Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and Dwight Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System as examples of how spending on roads, bridges and airports helped unite the country. For 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers has given America’s infrastructure an overall grade of D+, estimating it would cost more than $4 trillion to upgrade properly. But President Trump’s $1 trillion dollar, 10-year infrastructure plan has so far moved along at a halting pace. This tortoise-like process may offer an opportunity to think more strategically about...

WASHINGTON, DC, Oct 13 – “The ‘climate changers’ came out in full force when the EPA announced earlier this week that it was ending the Obama-era war on coal by scrapping Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan. But, America has the world’s largest reserves of coal—an asset that should not be dismissed out of hand for a variety of reasons, according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC].Weber says that extreme restrictions on the use of coal to generate electricity “acted like a national energy tax. They minimized the positive impact of our lowest cost and...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Federal regulators have approved two major natural gas pipelines that would start in West Virginia and supply the eastern seaboard. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted certificates to both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline on Friday evening. The pipelines would transport gas from the Utica and Marcellus shale deposits. One of the commissioners dissented, calling the public interest of the projects into question. Additional necessary permits are pending at the state level in both West Virginia and Virginia. The $5.1 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline would span 600 miles from Harrison County and across...

The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) could lead to global peak oil demand as soon as 2023, which will result in oil prices crashing to $10, Chris Watling, CEO & chief market strategist at Longview Economics, told CNBC on Friday. Watling said he didn’t see oil crashing “in the next few weeks or months, or maybe even quarters, but I think the long-term outlook for oil—because of what’s happening in terms of electric vehicles” with 70 percent of oil used for transportation, is oil plummeting to $10 somewhere around 2023-2025. “We used to talk about peak oil in terms of...

This animated cartoon follows the adventures of "Colonel Cosmic," a Martian, as he learns that Oil and Competition are the two things that make America great. It is a sci-fi-influenced economic tract on the strengths of Earth-style free enterprise economics, compared to a stagnating Mars under the fist of a certain Mr. Ogg, who centrally controls the Martian economy. In the film, a Martian undercover agent flies from Mars to Earth to learn about the oil industry, and finds that the lack of government regimentation and control is what makes our system flourish. Destination Earth was produced by the same...

Richards Murphy writes that Boko Haram is the brainchild of some powerful interests targeting the untapped natural resources in Northern NigeriaThe curse of natural resources is apparently real or more accurately, cursed interests in resource exploration are real. This evil often goes about masked as something less sinister. Take for instance the insanity that is todayÂ’s Afghanistan, which began in a fashion not too different from what Boko Haram is acting out in Nigeria today. Somewhere in the convoluted mix of transitions and mishmash of Mujahedeen, Taliban and al-Qaeda was UNOCAL, an oil multinational and its effort to construct pipelines...

Attorneys for the Trump administration said a federal judge has no authority to second-guess a presidential permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline as they seek to stop a lawsuit that would block the project. Justice Department attorneys are due in U.S. District Court in Montana on Wednesday to defend the administration’s March approval of the 1,179-mile pipeline — a lightning rod in the debate over what to do about climate change. The TransCanada proposal would transport Canadian crude oil through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing system of lines to carry oil...

JANE LEW— Fountain Quail Energy Services is bringing more than 160 new jobs to Lewis County as part of a new field office the oilfield services company is opening in the Jane Lew Industrial Park, according to Del. Patrick Martin, R-Lewis. “This is great news for our region and state,” Martin said. “When I learned that Fountain Quail was looking to open an office, the Jane Lew Industrial Park location seemed like an ideal fit, and I reached out to company officials to encourage them to consider it. While they looked at sites in other states, in the end Fountain...

“Never Trump” establishment Republican Peter Wehner urged his fellow establishment elitists on Monday to confront the grassroots populists, “the Breitbart people,” and the “Bannonites” who have all the momentum on their side. Appearing on Morning Joe, which is the ideal show to use to address his fellow elites in the 3.8 percent, Wehner said his fellow low-energy establishment Republicans need to “have the energy” to “fight” the “populists and the Bannonites and the Breibart people” because “all the energy is on their side.” Looking as constipated as his fellow elitist establishment Republican Bill Kristol, Wehner urged establishment Republicans to articulate...

Leading Australian Politicians and economists are piling in against renewable political favouritism, comparing renewables to the Bernie Madoff and Enron scandals. Tony Abbott has doubled down on his scepticism of climate change science, reigniting a decade-old debate in a major speech in London after the Turnbull government moved yesterday to rule out proceeding with a clean ­energy target proposed by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel. The former prime minister has labelled the likely backdown on a CET [clean energy target"] “belated” gesture and warned that the Coalition is courting a “political death wish” if it fails to put cost of living...

The Trump administration this week is expected to formally repeal the Clean Power Plan, taking direct aim at former President Barack Obama’s climate change legacy and delivering a major win for the coal industry. A draft proposal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s looming decision, leaked late last week and posted online, says the plan — which would have limited carbon emissions from power plants and, in the process, drastically reduced the amount of coal-generated electricity in the U.S. — goes beyond the bounds of federal law and unnecessarily hikes energy prices for consumers. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, as Oklahoma’s attorney...

Energy Secretary Rick Perry has a vision for developing fully mobile, hot tub-sized nuclear power plants that could become the latest piece in the Energy Department's innovation and grid resiliency push. Perry brought up the idea while addressing a National Clean Energy Week conference late last month. He used it as an example of what the Trump administration means when it talks about energy "innovation" as part of its energy dominance agenda. Perry called them "small modular reactors." But the version of the technology he described would function more like a nuclear battery than a conventional, water-cooled nuclear power plant....

President Trump is to take his first step towards scrapping President Obama’s “stupid” and “job killing” Clean Power Plan, an aghast New York Times reports. The Trump administration will repeal the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s effort to fight climate change, and will ask the public to recommend ways it could be replaced, according to an internal Environmental Protection Agency document. The draft proposal represents the administration’s first substantive step toward rolling back the plan, which was designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, after months of presidential tweets and condemnations of Mr....

After nearly a century of building vehicles powered by fossil fuels, General Motors — one of the world’s largest automakers — announced Monday that the end of GM producing internal combustion engines is fast approaching. The acceleration to an all-electric future will begin almost immediately, with GM releasing two new electric models next year and an additional 18 by 2023. At a media event at GM’s technical campus in Warren, Mich., on Monday, Mark Reuss, the company’s chief of global product development, said the transition will take time, but the course has been set. “General Motors believes in an all-electric...