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Drill, Baby, Drill... Even Off-Shore. I commend Interior Secretary Salazar’s decision today to conditionally approve drilling at three exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea off the northwest coast of Alaska; it’s a decision that’s been a long time coming. The area north of the Arctic Circle contains some of the world’s richest oil and gas reserves. U.S. Geological Survey researchers estimate that it contains 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil. The international community recognizes the potential of Arctic off-shore drilling; it’s about time our government allowed us to compete with them by...

On the measurability of offshorability Alan S. Blinder Friday, October 9, 2009 Fear of offshoring may force its way back onto policy agendas soon. This column uses a survey of individual workers to measure the offshorability of particular jobs and says that about 25% of US jobs are offshorable. Surprisingly, routine tasks are not more offshorable but those held by more educated workers are. Although overshadowed by the financial crisis and the world recession right now, the debate over offshoring – that is, outsourcing work to foreign (often poorer) countries – seems poised to stage a comeback as a public...

Anchorage, AK - Governor Palin posted this article on her Facebook. page. Governor Palin has been fighting for more and more offshore drilling since she was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The court had no choice but to side with her . The ultra liberal or activist 9th Circuit Court also had a decision overturned by the US Supreme Court, in Governor Palin’s favor, back on July, 22. The article: 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allows Beaufort drilling: A ruling Thursday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for Shell Oil...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

The U.S. government is prepared to provide up to $10 billion in loans to finance the development of massive hydrocarbon reserves off Brazil’s coast, a Brazilian official said Wednesday. President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, discussed the matter with officials this week during a visit to the South American country, Brazilian Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo da Silva told reporters. He said the U.S. Export-Import Bank already has signed a letter of intent in that regard with Brazilian state oil company Petrobras...

U.S. IT providers continue to push jobs offshore, while Indian firms work to refine the amount of work they complete overseas. Although Congress may force the Indian firms to hire more Americans -- and Indian companies have been telling investors that they may have to indeed do that -- the change won't likely affect the overall trend and the shift in jobs outside the U.S. Okay, so where are U.S. jobs going? What's the data show? Data prepared by Everest Group Inc., a research and outsourcing consulting firm, shows in broad brush fashion the shift of jobs overseas by some...

UBS AG and the U.S. Justice Department jointly have asked a federal court to postpone a hearing scheduled for Monday in order to give the two sides a chance to negotiate a settlement and potentially allow UBS to avoid turning over thousands of client names to the Internal Revenue Service. In a filing Sunday morning, UBS and the Justice Department asked that the hearing in Miami be rescheduled for Aug. 3 and 4 if an agreement couldn't be reached. The move staves off what had been an increasing diplomatic fight between the U.S. and Swiss governments over whether Swiss privacy...

Drill, baby, drill? Shame, shame Three to 10 miles offshore exploration and drilling — the first oil spill from the Gulf onto our beautiful beaches will happen. All who voted for this should have to stand barefoot in oil and explain why they voted for this. It would make a wasteland on the Florida West Coast, for supposed profits in the distant future. Lillian Savage Bradenton Safe drilling OK I want to keep Florida’s beaches pristine, too. They are why I moved here! I also support offshore oil and gas exploration and recovery in a safe and environmentally responsible manner....

The correct vote is: "It will cost us jobs at home."

A bill that would allow oil drilling off Florida's coast is ready for a vote in the state House of Representatives. Today legislators questioned Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights, for more than an hour, voicing concern about the bill that would allow the governor and Cabinet to approve drilling leases between 3 and 10.5 miles off the state's coast. They expressed worries that drilling could hurt the tourism industry, the seafood industry, and the environment. Van Zant assured members that drilling technology has advanced to the point that there is minimal risk. He said opening the coast to oil...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist says he is "open minded" about a bill that would let him and the Cabinet OK oil drilling within 10 miles of Florida's Gulf Coast. The moderate Republican governor has built a reputation as an advocate of environmental causes. But Crist said Wednesday the state needs to study allowing more drilling. Crist first softened his opposition to drilling last year, when gas prices rose above $4 a gallon. However, even then Crist said he wouldn't want rigs too close to Florida beaches. A House bill (HB 1219) would repeal the ban on offshore drilling...

Two of three partners in a proposed $1.8 billion oil port off Freeport said Tuesday they have withdrawn from the project, but the remaining company involved says the plan will go forward. Enterprise Products Partners and Teppco Partners, both affiliated with Houston billionaire Dan Duncan, said they were pulling out of the Texas Offshore Port System, a project announced last August that would allow two supertankers at a time to unload crude oil into pipelines 36 miles off the coast. The remaining partner, Oiltanking Holdings Americas, said it will continue with the project. The companies would not elaborate on the...

Surfers splashed with organic chocolate "oil spills" and environmentalists dressed as jellyfish and furry polar bears gathered in San Francisco on Thursday and gave a theatrical message to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar: Don't start new drilling off California's coast. In the fourth and last stop on Salazar's national tour to hear public comment on his agency's proposal to open up more than 1 billion acres for petroleum development off the nation's coasts, he heard a resounding "no." A panel of congressional delegates, along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Resources Secretary Mike Crisman, coastal county political leaders and citizens told Salazar they...

Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), or Petrobras, will start seeking bids for new rigs in the next couple of months as it marches on with its ambitious five-year investment plan. The Brazilian state energy giant in January announced it planned to invest $174.4 billion in 2009-13, including $28.6 billion this year -- an increase from $23 billion in 2008, which is unusual as global oil majors including U.S. firms Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips are cutting back on investment. Petrobras is banking on the ultradeep pre-salt area off Brazil's coast to elevate its status to one of the world's largest oil and...

Gov. Sarah Palin told the new secretary of Interior on Tuesday that Alaska needs new offshore oil and gas development or risks an early shutdown of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. "Once that line shuts down, it will mean the end of oil production on the North Slope," Palin said, adding that plans for a new pipeline to carry natural gas to Lower 48 markets are at stake, too. But at the same meeting in downtown Anchorage, skeptical fishermen raised the spectre of the Exxon Valdez oil spill as an example of the dangers of development. The mayor of the North...

Offshore drilling for oil and gas could bring billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to Virginia, and help secure the nation's energy future, speakers at an industry-sponsored forum said yesterday. "More energy equals more jobs for Virginia," Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling said. "That should be priority No. 1 for everybody across the commonwealth of Virginia." Bolling spoke to about 20 people at an offshore oil and gas forum in Richmond sponsored by the Virginia Manufacturers Association and the Southeast Energy Alliance. The federal government is considering leasing areas in the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia coast for oil...

Louisiana representatives encouraged U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to authorize more offshore drilling for oil and gas at a regional meeting held in New Orleans Wednesday. The representatives asked Salazar not to forget the importance of the oil and gas industry in the U.S. economy as a source of jobs and tax dollars. "Lifting the ban on energy development on the outer continental shelf will create 1.2 million jobs across the country and $2.2 trillion in tax revenue," said U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao, R-La. "These numbers represent more than four stimulus packages combined." The meeting, the second of four sessions...

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (AP) — LOS ANGELES, Calif. (AP) Months after making national headlines for supporting offshore oil drilling, the county famous for spawning the modern environmental movement reversed course Tuesday and voted to oppose the drilling. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, citing a need to preserve its coastline, voted 3-2 for a resolution to oppose oil exploration and extraction in the county.

Months after making national headlines for supporting offshore oil drilling, the county famous for spawning the modern environmental movement reversed course Tuesday and voted to oppose the drilling. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, citing a need to preserve its coastline, voted 3-2 for a resolution to oppose oil exploration and extraction in the county.

Things are getting uncomfortable for individuals and corporations looking to deposit their money in tax havens around the world. Just recently, Congress introduced the so-called “Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act,” which is designed to do away with the privacy afforded by doing business or investing outside the U.S. and to eliminate or reduce tax benefits available offshore. We are patriots. We have proudly served in our country’s military, have extended a helping hand to its public sector, and have plowed our entrepreneurial enterprise into its once fertile soil. We love America, but these days, America does not love us back....

With massive deepwater finds in the pre-salt layer, as well as the Campos and Santos Basins, Brazilian state-owned Petrobras pledged an investment of $174.4 billion for 2009 to 2013. With a firm commitment to exploration and production, the company hopes to become one of the five largest energy companies in the world. In an interview with Rigzone, a Petrobras executive explained that the company was able to achieve its recent successes because it invested when times were tough. "This allowed the company to develop in deepwater oil production, in the '80s when only a few companies could do it because...

Conoco Phillips has almost entirely pulled out of the Beaufort Sea, citing the economic difficulty of developing the remote, isolated and challenging region. Since late last year, the company has surrendered 26 leases, or 107,000 gross acres, in the waters stretching off the coast of the North Slope, and allowed another 15 to expire. "We released them because we don't believe there is hub potential in the area," said Natalie Lowman, spokeswoman for Conoco Phillips Alaska. "Exploration within the Beaufort Sea is cost-intensive since the targets are offshore and the area is substantially segregated from existing production infrastructure." The surrendered...

The 166-foot supply vessel Monarch is likely to remain in Cook Inlet after its sinking near Nikiski. "The vessel has been declared a total loss," Jim Butler, spokesman for the company that operated the boat, Ocean Marine Services Inc. in Nikiski, told the Peninsula Clarion. The Monarch sank Jan. 15 when sea ice pinned it against a platform operated by Chevron. Seven crew members were evacuated onto the platform and flown to shore by helicopter. "Because of the size of the boat and its proximity to the platform, lifting is a dangerous proposition, and we don't want to do something...

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that the Central Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale 208, held today in New Orleans, attracted $703,048,523 in high bids. The sale was conducted by Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) and had 70 companies submitting 476 bids on 348 tracts comprising over 1.9 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The sum of all bids received totaled $ 933,649,315. "Today's lease sale will help us make a wise addition to our nation's energy supply," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. "The responsible energy development resulting from today's sale will be a part...

The second-biggest bank of the US, JP Morgan Chase, which acquired Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns recently, will increase its outsourcing to India by 25% this year to nearly $400 million. It will also manage the integration of the acquired companies from India to bring down the cost of integrating different information technology (IT) systems. Right now, JP Morgan outsources $250-300 million worth of IT and back-office projects every year to Cognizant, TCS and Accenture, apart from to its own captive centre in Mumbai.

President Obama on Saturday struck back aggressively at critics of his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, casting himself as a populist crusader whose "sweeping change" has angered Washington's entrenched special interests, and promised to fight them. "I realize that passing this budget won't be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington," Mr. Obama said in his weekly video and radio address. Mr. Obama's language was combative and confrontational, as he promised to fight for "American families." "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

Top executives from some of the nation’s biggest oil companies on Wednesday pleaded with Congress to expand 
offshore drilling to help wean the U.S. off foreign energy sources and spur new jobs. Gary Luquette, the president of Chevron North America Exploration and Production Co., said new offshore drilling is essential to meet growing energy demands in the U.S. “Today’s decisions should help us prepare for — not jeopardize — tomorrow’s economic growth,” Luquette told the House Natural Resources Committee. “To prepare for tomorrow’s economic growth and meet our nation’s increasing long-term energy demand, we need … more conservation, we need...

Cuba's government still expects that more oil prospecting will be conducted this year in its territorial waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the country's Basic Industry minister said. "Our plan is that this year we should begin conducting the first new prospecting in the Gulf," Yadira Garcia said in statements broadcast Tuesday by state television. Exploration work would entail the resumption of test drilling that Spain's Repsol-YPF began in 2004; Cuban authorities say the results were positive even though the finds were not commercially viable. Garcia said that "we're already working on practically 50 percent of the areas with (foreign)...

Noting that a large portion of the US' offshore oil and gas resources has been off-limits to development for close to 30 years, industry officials Tuesday said a further delay in leasing is unwarranted. "We've already delayed development of our offshore resources by over two decades," Larry Nichols, Devon Energy's CEO and chairman of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a telephone press briefing. "We can't be happy about any further delays. The country needs those resources and the sooner we get to work on it, the sooner we'll get there." Nichols is scheduled to testify Wednesday before a House...

President Obama will pledge Tuesday night that the nation "will rebuild, we will recover," as he delivers an address to a joint session of Congress and with a nervous nation watching at home. "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Mr. Obama will say, according to excerpts of his remarks. In lofty language, Mr. Obama is expected to promise a new path forward...

Allowing oil and gas producers access to the areas of the US Outer Continental Shelf that had been off-limits to exploration and production could contribute $273 billion annually to the domestic economy and create 1.2 million well-paying jobs over the life of the fields, the American Energy Alliance, a free-market think tank, said Monday in a new report. AEA, which describes itself as an advocate for free-market energy and environmental policies, said granting industry access to the estimated 85 billion barrels of recoverable oil and more than 440 Tcf of natural gas would over the life of the project contribute...

Barack Hussein Obama will propose a massive business tax on greenhouse gases in his FY 2010 federal budget to be presented this week.The massive tax increase and power grab was buried at the end on article on Obama's forthcoming budget proposal in The New York Times:On energy policy, Mr. Obama’s budget will show new revenues by 2012 from his proposal to require companies to buy permits from the government for greenhouse gas emissions above a certain cap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the permits would raise up to $300 billion a year by 2020. Since companies would pass their...

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) has accepted high bids valued at $483,959,404 and awarded 313 leases to the successful high bidders who participated in Western Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale 207. Funds from the total high bids will be distributed to the general fund of the U. S. Treasury, shared with the affected States, and set aside for special uses that benefit all fifty states. The leases were awarded following the completion of an extensive, two-phase bid evaluation process to ensure that the Federal government receives a fair monetary return for the public mineral resources it makes...

A proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas will move forward under the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, an Interior Department spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday. Shortly after being sworn in on Tuesday, Obama ordered all federal agencies and departments to halt pending regulations until they can be reviewed by incoming staff. Hugh Vickery, a department spokesman, said the department has been notified by the White House that it will be able to proceed with a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic...

Petroleo Brasilerio SA (Petrobras), citing uncertain market conditions, suspended the tenders for building the P-61 tension-leg well platform and P-63 floating production, storage, and offloading vessel for the Papa-Terra field, which lies in the Campos basin off Brazil. The company noted that proposals received had an excessive cost. Petrobras had expected the Papa-Terra field, discovered in 2003, to go on stream in 2011. The company has formed an internal working group to analyze alternatives for developing the field that holds an estimated 700 million bbl of 14-17° gravity oil. Water depth is about 1,200 m. Chevron Overseas of Brazil Ltd....

A majority of America's largest publicly traded companies and the U.S. government's largest federal contractors -- including some receiving millions in federal bailout money -- use multiple subsidiaries in offshore tax havens to conduct business and avoid paying U.S. taxes, a new report finds. The new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, released today by Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), lists Citigroup and Morgan Stanley as having set up hundreds of tax haven subsidiaries, along with American International Group and Bank of America. Also in the tax-haven list are well-known companies and such federal contractors as...

The National Ocean Industries Association and seven other industry trade groups issued a statement supporting the US Mineral Management Service's formal solicitation of comments about leasing off Virginia. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and other state officials indicated an interest in limited development off Virginia's coast. For decades, federal law limited Outer Continental Shelf leasing to parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The public comment period for initial information gathering for a proposed OCS Shelf Lease Sale 220 ended Jan. 13. The comment period had been extended 15 days from an initial deadline of Dec. 29, 2008. The...

President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of the interior nominee, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), said he will consider restoring parts of an expired federal ban on offshore oil drilling, but told CNSNews.com that he has “no idea” how much of the drilling restrictions should be reimposed.

Leasing of more of the US Outer Continental Shelf and development of oil shale should be considered only as part of a larger national energy strategy, US Interior secretary nominee Ken Salazar said on Jan. 15. Salazar, who is currently Colorado's senior US senator, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during his confirmation hearing that President-elect Barack H. Obama has made development of a new energy economy a top priority of his administration. "We need to look at the OCS as an element within a comprehensive energy strategy. Given the opening up of a five-year plan with DOI,...

Satyam Computer Services, a leading Indian outsourcing company that serves more than a third of the Fortune 500 companies, significantly inflated its earnings and assets for years, the chairman and co-founder said Wednesday, roiling Indian stock markets and throwing the industry into turmoil. The chairman, Ramalinga Raju, resigned after revealing that he had systematically falsified accounts as the company expanded from a handful of employees into a back-office giant with a work force of 53,000 and operations in 66 countries. Mr. Raju said Wednesday that 50.4 billion rupees, or $1.04 billion, of the 53.6 billion rupees in cash and bank...

The federal government is taking steps that may open California's fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay. Millions of acres of oil deposits, mapped in the 1980s when then-Interior Secretary James Watt and Energy Secretary Donald Hodel pushed for California exploration, lie a few miles from the forested North Coast and near the mouth of the Russian River, as well as off Malibu, Santa Monica...

Shell Oil has canceled its drilling and other exploration plans for next year in the Beaufort Sea while it focuses on court challenges to its offshore plan. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that federal regulators improperly granted Shell permission to drill in the Beaufort. The court ordered the Minerals Management Service to reconsider how exploratory drilling would affect wildlife and Inupiat Eskimo subsistence hunting and fishing. Shell said the agency completely analyzed the exploratory plan and correctly found that it would have minimal impact on marine mammals and subsistence activities. Shell...

The development of America's vast domestic oil and natural gas resources that had been kept off-limits by Congress for decades could generate more than $1.7 trillion in government revenue, create thousands of new jobs and enhance the nation's energy security by significantly boosting domestic production, a study released Monday shows. The ICF International study, commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API), shows that developing the offshore areas that had been subject to Congressional moratoria until recently, as well as the resources in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a small portion of currently unavailable federal lands in the Rockies, would...

Cyprus agrees to turn in owners of Russian offshore companies The Russian financial regulator intends to find out soon who owns all the Russian companies in Cyprus and obtain confidential information about them. The heads of the Russian Federal Financial Markets Service signed a memorandum of mutual understanding yesterday with the Commission on Securities and Stock Operations of Cyprus, where many Russian companies are registered in order to optimize taxes and hide their real ownership. Access to that information may threaten those Russian companies with taxes charges and reexamination of deals already carried out. The owners of many Russian companies...

Even though our attention for the last couple of months has been focused on the banking and auto industry crises, U.S. energy policy still looms as a critical issue. Everybody except the Democrats in Congress understands that while we are trying to develop a sensible and effective energy policy, we have to avail ourselves of domestic supplies of oil and natural gas and get the United States out from under dependence upon foreign supplies controlled by OPEC. Congressional Democrats have steadfastly refused to do the sensible thing, which is opening the offshore areas to drilling now and getting the development...

Oil and gas companies appeared to score an all-out victory over the summer when President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling and congressional Democrats let a moratorium expire soon after. But those who think nothing stands between oil rigs and the outer continental shelf are dead wrong. "Every lease that has been granted in the last several years has been immediately challenged in the lawsuits 100 percent," said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. When the ban was lifted, the federal government was permitted to sell drilling leases three miles off the nation's coastlines, free of state objections. The Interior...

The federal government improperly granted Shell Oil permission to explore for oil and gas in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, a federal appeals court ruled today The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the U.S. Minerals Management Service to reconsider how exploratory drilling would affect wildlife and Inupiat Eskimo subsistence hunting and fishing. The ruling was hailed by conservation groups. “This decision confirms that the Bush administration rushed to approve Shell’s drilling program in the Arctic Ocean without a full review of impacts to whales and the subsistence way of life for people in the region,” said Eric Jorgensen, an attorney...

Pollution or prosperity: Which will offshore drilling bring to South Carolina?By JIM FABER Published Sunday, October 12, 2008 It's a thorny question: Can a state economy based largely on tourism afford to have oil and natural gas drilling offshore? The answer, of course, depends on whom you ask. Some say it could threaten the natural beauty of the beaches that bring so many people to South Carolina and Hilton Head Island. Others say it could bring in thousands of high-paying jobs to a state struggling with a high unemployment rate and lessen dependence on foreign oil. **SNIP** THE CASE FOR...

To repeat, Prudhoe Bay has produced 15 billion barrels of crude oil, and there’s more where that came from in ANWR, which is home to more than ten billion barrels of oil and nine trillion cubic feet of natural gas. I know this is a controversial issue. But most Americans do not realize that of the 20 million acres that make up ANWR, we are asking for the right to access just 2,000 of them—a mere 1/10,000th of the total area. Opening up just that sliver of ANWR—which would create a footprint smaller than the total area of Los Angeles...