Free Republic

An on-again, off-again effort to restrict harmful methane emissions on federal lands is off — again. A federal judge in Wyoming has halted the clean-air rule indefinitely. Judge Scott Skavdahl says it "makes little sense" to force oil and gas companies to comply with the Obama-era rule when the Trump administration has moved to roll back the 2016 regulation. Skavdahl says enforcing the rule "provides minimal public benefit" while imposing potentially significant costs on industry. Wednesday's ruling is the latest in a back-and-forth series of court decisions and administrative actions as the Trump administration tries to weaken or delay a...

'God help us if it gets hot and this material is still out here' (Newser) – Springtime in one small Alabama town smells more like manure than magnolias this year—and it's going to get a lot worse as the weather gets warmer. Dozens of freight cars carrying some 10 million pounds of human waste, enough to form a malodorous train more than a mile long, have been stranded in a Parrish rail yard for two months awaiting transfer to a landfill site, and residents say they can't take the stench for much longer, NJ.com reports. They say the freight cars...

A new discovery off the coast of Bahrain is estimated to contain at least 80 billion barrels of tight oil, the kingdom's biggest ever find, its oil minister said on Wednesday. Independent appraisals by U.S.-based oil consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton and oilfield services company Halliburton had confirmed Bahrain's find of "highly significant quantities of oil in place ... with tight oil amounting to at least 80 billion barrels, and deep gas reserves in the region of 10-20 trillion cubic feet," Oil Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al-Khalifa said. Russia's entire oil reserve is 80 billion barrels. Tight oil is a...

Stocks in the U.S. are rising Thursday and major indexes in Europe are surging as global markets continue a rally that began late the previous day. Wall Street is getting more optimistic that a trade dispute between the U.S. and China, the two largest economies in the world, will be resolved without too much pain. Some of the biggest gains are going to technology companies, retailers and banks. The S&P 500 index climbed 18 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,662 as of 12:45 p.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 237 points, or 1 percent, to 24,501. It...

The Trump administration seems to be leaning towards allying with the oil refining industry in its fight against Big Corn and federal rules requiring the use of corn ethanol. Reuters reports that the U.S. EPA apparently granted an exemption to Andeavor, a large oil refiner, from having to comply with blending requirements as part of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) last month. The RFS requires refiners to blend biofuels, such as corn ethanol, into their refined fuels. If they can’t or find it too costly, they are required to purchase credits. The law dates back to 2007 under the George...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Ties between Russia and Turkey are growing closer than ever, as Russia runs into widespread diplomatic fallout from the poisoned spy scandal and Turkey's relations with its Western allies worsens over human rights issues and its military operations against Kurdish militia in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin heads back to Turkey on Tuesday, joining Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony for a Russian-made nuclear power plant being built on Turkey's Mediterranean coast at Akkuyu. On Wednesday, Putin, Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani are expected to hold a summit in the Turkish...

A whistleblower has emerged in the controversy of Governor Jerry Brown’s use of state oil experts to study his own family’s private land. Jennie Catalano, a mapping specialist for the California Department of Conservation, says she faced retaliation after complaining about being required to do personal work for Brown. It is illegal for politicians to use state resources for personal benefit. Brown says he used the same resources available to any Californian. The Associated Press confirmed the whistleblower complaint, which is separate from the original legal action by Kern County farmers alleging that Brown colluded with oil companies over the...

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Monday formally scrapped a key piece of the Obama administration’s fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light-duty trucks, throwing the future of the program into doubt. In a statement, Mr. Pruitt said the program, known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE standards, fell victim to politics during the final days of the Obama administration. He said his predecessors at the EPA rushed through rules governing fuel economy for model years 2022 through 2025, and that those rules simply aren’t realistic. “The Obama Administration’s determination was wrong,” he said. “Obama’s EPA cut the midterm evaluation...

MONTERREY (Reuters) - Mexican left-wing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has an 18-point lead ahead of the July 1 election, according to a poll published on Monday that showed him with a growing advantage at the start of formal campaigning. Lopez Obrador, who launched his campaign on Sunday, holds 38 percent of the vote, according to the poll by Parametria, published by Reuters on Monday ahead of wider distribution. That compared to 35 percent in its previous poll. A Lopez Obrador victory could usher in a Mexican government less accommodating toward the United States, where President Donald Trump has...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday over his criticism of Israel's resonse to the protests on the Gaza border over the weekend. "The most moral army in the world will not be lectured by someone who for years is bombing civilian populations indiscriminately," Netanyahu said in a statement. "Apparently that’s how they mark April 1 in Ankara." Erdogan said in Istanbul on Saturday that he “strongly condemns the Israeli government for its inhumane attack," referring to the killing of 15 Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border on Friday. “Israel will imprison Palestine under its...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday lashed out at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the two exchanged accusations over Palestinian and Kurdish civilians killed by the two countries respective armies. “The most moral army in the world will not be lectured by those who have indiscriminately bombed civilian populations for years,” Netanyahu said, seemingly referring to Ankara’s decades-long military campaign against Kurds in Turkey and now those in Syria. “Apparently, this is how April Fool’s Day is celebrated in Ankara,” a statement by the Israeli PM’s office on Facebook read.

OPEC and Russia are looking to solidify their cooperation on crude oil production for another decade or two, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Reuters in an interview while on a visit to the United States. “We are working to shift from a year-to-year agreement to a 10-20 year agreement,” the Crown Prince of OPEC’s biggest producer and de facto leader said in New York. “We have agreement on the big picture, but not yet on the detail,” the Crown Prince said. The idea to extend the current oil supply cooperation between OPEC and the Russia-led non-OPEC producers into...

OPEC and Russia are working on a long-term deal to cooperate on oil supply curbs that could extend controls over world oil supplies by major exporters for many years to come. Crude has recovered to $70 but fast-rising output from U.S. shale producers has capped prices. Russia, never a member of OPEC, has worked alongside OPEC during previous oil gluts, dating back to 1990, but a 10-20 year deal between the two would be unprecedented.

The Wall Street Journal reports that ExxonMobil petitioned the court yesterday to allow it to depose and obtain documents from public officials involved in the various climate change lawsuits recently brought by several California communities against the energy industry, as well as #ExxonKnew campaigner Matt Pawa, who is representing San Francisco and Oakland in their lawsuits. The legal filing accuses the communities of either exaggerating the risks of climate change in their lawsuits against energy companies or downplaying the risks of climate change when issuing municipal bonds to investors. Although the plaintiffs claimed in their lawsuits that climate change poses...

RUSH: Here’s Chuck You Schumer. This is in Washington today on the Senate floor. Audio sound bite No. 24. SCHUMER: Overall, we Democrats are very happy with what we’ve been able to accomplish on a number of very important priorities to the middle class in America: infrastructure, education, opioid treatment, mental health, child care. This spending agreement brings that era of austerity to an unceremonious end and represents one of the most significant investments in the middle class in decades. RUSH: I don’t know, folks. I just want to puke when I hear this stuff. I just want to vomit....

“I don’t see how it can go on,” Young said of the Trump presidency. “The man — Trump, the president of the United States — is a mess. He has no balls. He hasn’t got one ball. He literally has nothing. All the bravado, all the you’re fired, you’re fired, all that shit, he doesn’t have the balls to look anybody in the face and tell them anything.” Young added that his “biggest problem” was with Trump is his environmental policies, which include reducing fossil fuel regulation and pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. “[The environment]...

The Left's romance with the Islamic Republic ensues. The Senate debated on Tuesday a resolution introduced by Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders that would require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Yemen. The surprising support the resolution won from 44 U.S. Senators handed a big win to Iran, which is engaged in a hot war with Saudi Arabia on the Arabian Peninsula. And it was a huge slap in the face to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who was meeting with President Trump in the White House as the Senate debated the motion on the floor. It also showed the...

China will open up its economy further, and its door to the outside will only get wider, with foreign and domestic firms allowed to compete on an equal footing, Premier Li Keqiang said at the close the country's annual parliament session on Tuesday. The familiar-sounding pledges from Beijing came as the prospect of a global trade war loomed in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump imposition of hefty import tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this month. (please see link, for full article)

China Jumps to Number Two Importer of U.S. Crude By MarEx 2018-03-19 00:17:30 U.S. crude oil exports in 2017 were nearly double those of 2016, and China accounted for 202,000 b/d (20 percent) of the 527,000 b/d total increase. As a result, China surpassed the U.K. and the Netherlands to become the second-largest importing destination. However, similar to previous years, Canada remained the top destination for U.S. crude oil exports. Canada’s share of total U.S. crude oil exports continued to decrease in 2017, down from 61 percent in 2016 to 29 percent. U.S. crude was shipped to 37 destinations, compared...

Climate change triggering ‘flying rivers, rain bombs’, Gore warns Former US vice-president tells GESF delegates in Dubai large areas in Middle East could become uninhabitable Dubai: Bizarre weather such as “flying rivers” and “rain bombs” are just some of the recent effects of climate change, warned former US vice-president Al Gore at the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF) in Dubai on Sunday. Gore, who is the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a non-profit establishment “devoted to solving the climate crisis”, told GESF delegates global weather is becoming “extreme” and “disruptive”, mainly because of global warming. Gore...