Free Republic

Forget about allegations of Russian interference in U.S. presidential elections for a moment, or even “collusion” between Russian officials and Trump campaign operatives. The real action is in the European and U.S. energy markets, according to a letter from two Texas congressmen to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that details what they call “a covert anti-fracking campaign” with “little or no paper trail.” Smith and Weber quote sources saying the Russian government has been colluding with environmental groups to circulate “disinformation” and “propaganda” aimed at undermining hydraulic fracturing. Commonly called fracking, the process makes it possible to access natural gas deposits....

House lawmakers want the Trump administration to investigate reports that a wealthy foundation used an offshore shell company to give millions of dollars to environmental activists opposed to U.S. energy development. “If you connect the dots, it is clear that Russia is funding U.S. environmental groups in an effort to suppress our domestic oil and gas industry, specifically hydraulic fracking,” Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith said Friday. Smith and Texas Republican Rep. Randy Weber asked Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to investigate whether or not environmentalists were funneling money to U.S. environmental groups through a Bermuda-based shell company. Republicans are pitching...

Net foreign assets at Saudi Arabia's central bank, a measure of its ability to support its currency, look set to fall sharply this year as oil prices slump and Riyadh expands its sovereign wealth fund to invest abroad. They shrank from a record high of $737 billion (578.36 billion pounds) in August 2014 to $529 billion at the end of 2016 as the government liquidated some assets to cover the huge budget deficit caused by the fall in oil prices. This year, an austerity drive and a partial rebound in oil prices have helped Riyadh make progress in cutting the...

Beijing (AFP) - China opened its gates to US beef imports this week, giving American cattle farmers much sought-after access to the country's massive market following a 14-year ban. Shipments of eligible US beef have been allowed to enter China since Tuesday, the General Adminstration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement. Announced last month, the lifting of the beef embargo was one of the first concrete results of trade discussions that began when Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Donald Trump at the US leader's resort in Florida in April.

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

While that’s quite remarkable, wind and solar together still supply less than 1.5% of America’s energy. Fast growth from a small number is like winning $100 in Vegas on a $10 bet. Nice, but not life-changing. To find a “radical and pervasive” change in energy markets we have to look elsewhere. Over the same decade noted above, the amount of energy added to America from shale hydrocarbons was 2,000% greater than the additional supply from solar and wind combined. That actual revolution also happened because of the maturation of new technologies. But, notably, in this case it took place without...

A federal judge has thrown out a $4.24 million jury verdict against one of the largest natural gas producers in Pennsylvania and ordered a new trial in a lawsuit alleging Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. contaminated the well water of two families. U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin Carlson on Friday set aside the verdict reached a year ago by a jury in Scranton, saying the evidence presented by the Dimock homeowners “was spare, sometimes contradictory, frequently rebutted by other scientific expert testimony, and relied in some measure upon tenuous inferences.” Carlson also said the plaintiffs presented no evidence that would...

The Trump administration has rightly decided to repeal an Obama administration rule on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” as it is commonly known, a process which injects fluids under pressure to release oil and natural gas trapped in America’s vast shale formations. According to The Hill: The Trump administration is planning to repeal former President Barack Obama’s landmark 2015 rule setting standards for hydraulic fracturing on federal land. Justice Department lawyers revealed the decision late Wednesday in a filing with the Denver-based Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, where the federal government under had been fighting against the oil and...

President Donald Trump as a candidate promised to unshackle the American energy industry by undoing most of the job killing regulations created by the Obama administration. In a court filing, Justice Department lawyers revealed that the new administration is planning to repeal the Obama hydraulic fracturing rule, that placed severe restrictions on the process of getting oil and natural gas from shale. Earlier yesterday, the administration said they would roll back some of the automobile emissions standards and curtail other Obama administration environmental rules on water and coal leasing.

The Trump administration is rolling back an Obama administration rule requiring companies that drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking. The administration said in court papers Wednesday that it is withdrawing from a lawsuit challenging the Obama-era rule and will begin a new rule-making process later this year. The Interior Department issued the rule in March 2015, the first major federal regulation of fracking, the controversial drilling technique that has sparked an ongoing boom in natural gas production but raised widespread concerns about possible groundwater contamination and...

The House of Delegates has approved a bill to permanently ban natural gas fracking in Western Maryland. The bill passed by a vote of 97-40. The 97 votes is 12 more than the minimum of 85 needed to override a veto from Governor Larry Hogan. That majority was important to the chairman of the committee hearing the bill in the Senate. The chairman of the Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, Joan Carter Conway of Baltimore City, says she won’t bring the bill to the Senate floor unless lawmakers have enough votes to override a possible veto from Governor...

SANTA FE — Opposition to the shale oil extraction process known as fracking is growing, particularly among minorities, threatening the political viability of the oil industry in New Mexico, an oil and gas industry expert told state lawmakers Thursday. Claire Chase, the government affairs director for Mack Energy of Artesia, said while state government is heavily reliant on oil revenues, New Mexico is the most vulnerable state in the nation to increasing opposition to fracking and fossil fuels in general. She said a new culture of protests and activism has the oil and gas industry in its sights. Chase said...

Climate Change: U.S. output of so-called greenhouse gases continues to decline, a new report shows. Even so, global warming activists are likely to be disappointed. The drop has nothing to do with their pet cause, alternative energy. That's right. The Environmental Protection Agency's yearly greenhouse gas emissions report noted that after rising slightly in 2013 and 2014, greenhouse gas output fell in 2015 — the most recent full year for which data are available. OK, but maybe it was a one-year fluke? Hardly. First off, the drop was significant in size — 2.2% on an annual basis, far too big...

The Environmental Protection Agency has told Oklahoma regulators to do more to protect the state from a surge in earthquake activity that scientists have linked to the underground disposal of oil and gas wastewater. An EPA administrator sent a letter in November to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, saying a magnitude 5.0 earthquake happened despite state and federal action to curb wastewater injection. The Frontier first reported the contents of the letter. […] Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is President Donald Trump’s pick to head the EPA. His nomination is pending Senate approval. Environmentalists have criticized Pruitt for not doing more...

It’s been a month now that investors and analysts have been closely watching two main drivers for oil prices: how OPEC is doing with the supply-cut deal, and how U.S. shale is responding to fifty-plus-dollar oil with rebounding drilling activity. Those two main factors are largely neutralizing each other, and are putting a floor and a cap to a price range of between $50 and $60. The U.S. rig count has been rising, while OPEC seems unfazed by the resurgence in North American shale activity and is trying to convince the market (and itself) and prove that it would be...

Moving to dismantle former President Barack Obama’s legacy on the environment and other issues, House Republicans approved a measure Wednesday that scuttles a regulation aimed at preventing coal mining debris from being dumped into nearby streams. Lawmakers also voted to rescind a separate rule requiring companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments relating to mining and drilling. Republicans said the votes were first in a series of actions to reverse years of what they see as excessive government regulation during Obama’s presidency. Rules on fracking, guns and federal contracting also are in the cross-hairs as the GOP moves to...

The recent National Intelligence Council report assessing the involvement of Russia in last year’s U.S. presidential elections spurred a flurry of media reports suggesting that Russia is heavily involved in anti-fracking campaigning. Some authors interpreted this involvement as a “propaganda effort”, while others claimed the Kremlin was financially backing anti-fracking groups in the U.S., without, however, providing any evidence for this claim. The basis for all these reports is part of the report, in which the authors discuss the agenda of RT, a state-funded TV channel and website that is widely seen as the Kremlin’s chief megaphone abroad. They quote...

Hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, has revolutionized energy production in the United States and cornered OPEC. That cartel is currently attempting to restrict oil production and raise prices, but it faces the reality that American frackers can rapidly expand output. It’s a nightmare if you are a corrupt petro-dictator of any stripe, communist to jihadist. Now the never-ending quest for new technologies has yielded a potentially revolutionary replacement or substitute for fracking: microwaving shale to extract oil and gas. James Watkins reports in Ozy.com: As strange as it sounds, producers are experimenting with ways to zap previously unextractable oil resources with...

Campaigners have vowed to fight on despite losing a landmark High Court challenge against fracking in North Yorkshire. Residents from the village of Kirby Misperton in Ryedale failed in their bid to block the controversial technique from being used near their homes. It is the latest defeat for protesters, after the go-ahead was given for sites in Lancashire in October. Mrs. Justice Lang, sitting in London, dismissed an application for judicial review. She ruled that the terms and conditions afforded “a considerable degree of protection to residents” and the council’s decision was lawful. Fracking company Third Energy was granted permission...

The quake hit at 8:41 AM local time, less than a mile from the surface. A second smaller quake hit five minutes later. "The earthquake was the largest in the Geysers area in the past 30 years. This magnitude 5.0 earthquake is only marginally larger than previous earthquakes at the Geysers," USGS Research geophysicist J. Ole Kaven wrote to SFGATE. "This earthquake occurred on the western margin of where previous seismicity has been located." ... "The historical record of earthquakes in this area suggests that earthquakes as large as today's are likely to be near the upper magnitude limit," wrote...