Free Republic

In a watershed moment for the United States, it has now surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest supplier of oil. According to PIRA, an energy analysis firm, the skyrocketing oil output over the last four years is the most dizzying ascent since Saudi Arabia’s from 1970-1974. Since 2009, U.S. oil output has climbed 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd). The total includes natural gas liquids and biofuels. The trigger for the huge expansion is the shale revolution, which has seen areas such as the Bakken in North Dakota and Eagle Ford in Texas lead the way as U.S. supplies...

A jilted bride is experiencing a different sort of happy ending than the one she was expecting. But first, the heartbreak: "I got the phone call on Aug. 10," said Michelle Marxen, 26, a pediatric nurse from Fargo, N.D. Her fiance was on the other line; the news was not good. By the time the betrothed said goodbye, their wedding -- set for Oct. 19 -- was off. "It's hard to explain why, because I never really got an explanation," Marxen says. First, she grieved. "I went through the 'Whys?' and the uncontrollable crying," Marxen says. After she dried her...

To judge by the headlines and media chatter, the only important issue involving American Indians in Washington these days has to do with changing the name of the local pro football team. Those who care about real-world Indians might want to focus instead on how the Obama administration's hostility to the coal industry does more harm to Native Americans than any NFL franchise ever will. The Environmental Protection Agency recently ramped up its attack on coal by issuing stringent limits on carbon-dioxide emissions from new coal-fired generating plants, and the agency has more regulations in the works for existing power...

The proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. would make "OPEC obsolete," billionaire energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens told CNBC on Wednesday. "Canadians say they have 250 billion barrels [of oil]. That's exactly what the Saudis claim they have," he said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "You're sitting there with the same amount of oil available to the United States from Canada … as Saudi Arabia." "But when you move the oil through the Strait of Hormuz everyday, it's 17 million barrels," Pickens said. "The Navy is shepherding a cartel daily through the Strait of Hormuz. And...

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Note: Petroleum production includes crude oil, natural gas liquids, condensates, refinery processing gain, and other liquids, including biofuels. Barrels per day oil equivalent were calculated using a conversion factor of 1 barrel oil equivalent = 5.55 million British thermal units (Btu). The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the United States will be the world's top producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons in 2013, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia. For the United States and Russia, total petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbon production, in energy content terms, is almost evenly split between petroleum and natural...

Heidi Mayer Kruse has lived in Fargo, N.D. and eastern South Dakota, but she says she has never experienced a storm such as the one that buried their Blucksberg-addition home Friday. "It's chest deep consistently over our driveway," she said. Kruse and her family were without power most of Friday and into Saturday. "It was 39 degrees in our living room before power came back on this morning," Kruse said Saturday... Kruse, like many of her neighbors in the subdivision south of Sturgis, is amazed at the ferocity of the storm. "Having lived in areas that experience rough winters, I...

Those of you who are supposedly outraged or indignant over the partial government shutdown, or have friends or neighbors who are outraged or indignant, I can tell you all how YOU can fix it. All you have to do is tell pollsters who call that you think Obama and the Democrats are responsible for the shutdown. As soon as that hits the papers, the shutdown will be over before the end of the day. That is because it is Obama and the Democrats who shut down the government, because they are so certain that the Republicans will be blamed for...

A surge in U.S. jobs has accompanied America’s new drilling boom, putting workers into the oil fields of North Dakota, Texas and other states, an economist told a Washington, D.C. energy summit on Thursday. For nearly two decades, direct jobs tied to oil and gas extraction stayed relatively flat, noted Andrew Lyon, a principal in PwC’s National Economics and Statistics group. But fast forward to 2005, and, suddenly, the trend line spiked up. Direct oil and gas extraction jobs nearly doubled between 2005 and 2011, according to Lyon, speaking at the U.S. Energy Association’ s 6th annual Energy Supply Forum....

20 Sep Republican Sen's Who Are UNDECIDED On Defunding Obamacare! Let's help them decide! Please RETWEET!! #DefundObamacare pic.twitter.com/xn8nG6Y9v6

Hundreds of demonstrators turned out in the tiny North Dakota town of Leith on Sunday to protest plans by an American Nazi group to move in and take over the local government. The loud but peaceful demonstrators, many of them Native Americans from nearby reservations, were on hand for a visit from Jeff Schoep, commander of the National Socialist Movement, and several followers. The National Socialist Movement is America's largest neo-Nazi organization, founded in 1974 by former members of the American Nazi Party, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group hopes to move enough members into Leith -...

He’s there in every corner of Congress where a microphone fronts a politician, there in Russia and the British Parliament and the Vatican. You may think George W. Bush is at home in his bathtub, painting pictures of his toenails, but in fact he’s the biggest presence in the debate over what to do in Syria. His legacy is paralysis, hypocrisy and uncertainty practiced in varying degrees by those who want to learn from history and those who deny it. Blame Bush? Of course, President Obama has to lead; it’s his superpower now, his armies to move, his stage. But...

DICKINSON, N.D.—North Dakota is like an overachieving child who attracts the attention of everyone—except Dad. The oil boom taking over western North Dakota and transforming America's energy landscape has prompted visits from people around the world—Germany, Turkey, Japan, Dubai, and elsewhere—to see what they can learn and how they can benefit. President Obama, however, has not visited the state since moving into the White House (although he did drop in twice during the 2008 presidential campaign). Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., has a goal to change that, and she asked Obama earlier this year if he would visit. "He said he...

Another day, another law disregarded by the Obama camp. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and representatives from nine other states have signed a letter to the Obama Administration demanding the administration pay up on mineral lease revenues owed to the states under the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act. This nearly century-old contract requires a certain percentage of the royalties collected by the federal government to be returned to the states where the minerals were produced. The administration now is trying to trim these payments under the guise of sequestration, saying that these royalties are subject to across the board spending cuts...

Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown told the Herald he is exploring a possible 2016 presidential bid today as he hit a well-worn stomping ground for Oval Office hopefuls – the Iowa State Fair. “I want to get an indication of whether there’s even an interest, in Massachusetts and throughout the country, if there’s room for a bi-partisan problem solver,” said Brown, who has been meeting with top republicans nationally and last week hosted a Fenway event for Republican National Committee members. Brown indicated he isn't close to deciding whether he will run. “It’s 2013 I think it’s premature, but I...

Sen. Kay Hagan is asking Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to take action against the new voting law in her home state of North Carolina. The North Carolina Democrat wants the Justice Department to review a measure signed into law Monday by Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican. Hagan is seeking re-election to the Senate in 2014. “Protecting the fundamental right of our citizens to vote should be among the federal government’s highest priorities,” Hagan wrote. “In response to voting restrictions signed into law yesterday, I strongly encourage the Justice Department to immediately review North Carolina House Bill 589 and...

Canada’s two big railroads and oil producers are pressing ahead with plans to increase the use steel-wheels-on-steel-rails to move crude even as the small Quebec town of Lac-Megantic reels from what can go wrong with a crude-laden train. Canadian Pacific Railway, despite four derailments of trains carrying oil or petroleum products this year, posted a record second-quarter profit, crediting long-haul oil shipments for much of the gain, while Canadian National Railway cited oil transport as a key to its profits for the quarter. But, acknowledging the public and political demand for action, both have tightened their safety procedures for trains...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is losing part of his arsenal of local leaders as more and more long-time members of his gun-control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns say they aren’t happy with the coalition’s trajectory and want out. While the group apparently is growing in membership overall amid an effort to assume a larger profile in the national gun debate, it's turning some members off. In the past five months, 50 members of the group have quit. Many say they did so because the organization abandoned its mission statement of going after illegal guns, and instead used its political...

A pro-gun control group of mayors started by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has scheduled an event in Fargo on Monday, but Bloomberg himself is not expected to attend. Neither is Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker, who said he’s gotten nothing but flak from the tri-state area since announcing his membership in Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns group years ago. “I’ve never resigned, but I’m not an active member either. So I don’t plan on attending,” Walaker said, adding that he hadn’t heard of the event until he was contacted by a reporter. Walaker is the only North Dakota mayor...

DICKINSON, N.D. - While the leadership and the rest of the campus at Dickinson State University is waiting for a resolution on the school’s accreditation status, a campus nearly 1,500 miles away sits mostly empty after going through a similar process. Formerly a vibrant campus with about 2,000 students and largely the centerpiece of Beckley, a city of about 17,000 in southern West Virginia, Mountain State University closed its doors for good in January after being stripped of its accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission, a wing of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools that oversees institutions in...

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a new North Dakota law that bans abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy, calling the law "clearly invalid and unconstitutional." U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland in Bismarck granted a temporary injunction Monday that blocks the law from taking effect on Aug. 1. "There is no question that (the North Dakota law) is in direct contradiction to a litany of United States Supreme Court cases addressing restraints on abortion," Hovland wrote. " (It) is clearly an invalid and unconstitutional law based...