Free Republic

Future Fuels: Our secretary of energy pushes bio-refineries and windmills to oil executives at an energy conference as the administration announces a three-year offshore drilling ban. This is a policy for economic suicide. They don't qualify as an official group of victims, but carbon-Americans, as they have been called, did not have much to cheer about last week, when Energy Secretary Steven Chu addressed CERAWeek 2010, a premier industry conference hosted by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. With an economy struggling to regain sound footing, Chu advocated a starvation diet devoid of additional fossil fuels that are to remain under...

Some of the nation's biggest oil companies are looking at permanently reducing how much gasoline and diesel fuel they make, a move that analysts say would almost certainly trigger higher prices for drivers. Energy companies are suffering huge losses from refining because of slumping gasoline use -- a product of the economic downturn and changing consumer habits and preferences. Energy experts say refining cutbacks have begun and will accelerate as corporations strive for profits.

The Obama administration’s six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will become a new three-year ban, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters last Friday. Which means that no new oil and gas leases will be approved during President Obama’s term even though two –thirds of the American public supports such activity, according to a December 2009 Rasmussen poll. Sixty percent also believe that gas and oil prices will drop if the government allows offshore drilling, opening up an estimate 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas On July 14,...

The Obama administration’s six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will become a new three-year ban, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters last Friday. Which means that no new oil and gas leases will be approved during President Obama’s term even though two –thirds of the American public supports such activity, according to a December 2009 Rasmussen poll. Sixty percent also believe that gas and oil prices will drop if the government allows offshore drilling, opening up an estimate 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas On July 14,...

U.S. energy secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday that the U.S. must decrease its energy use to allow developing nations the room to grow, while emphasizing that prosperity doesn't have to come with a large carbon footprint. "We believe we have to decrease our use of energy to allow headroom for the developing nations to grow their economies," Chu said in a speech in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. "There is no law of physics that says prosperity is proportional to carbon emissions," Chu said.

Energy: A new study shows that our reluctance to develop domestic energy will cost the beleaguered U.S. economy trillions in opportunity costs, reduce our gross domestic product and increase our trade deficit. From trying to stimulate jobs in nonexistent ZIP codes at great expense to worshiping the false gods of climate change, our biggest deficit these days may be in the area of common sense. A new study shows that many of our wounds are self-inflicted as we forgo the wealth and jobs to be found in our waters and under our feet. The study by Science Applications International Corp....

One of the most disappointing aspects of the Obama Administration’s domestic policy has been the way it has dealt with domestic energy production – in particular new offshore energy production. It took oil prices reaching $147 a barrel for President Bush to tear up the moratorium on offshore energy production, but at least when he did, he quickly moved forward with the regulatory process to give Americans access to these energy sources—and the jobs this development would create. The Obama Administration, on the other hand, would be hard pressed to move any slower than they already have, never mind what...

How much money is the US losing by maintaining its de facto drilling ban on the coasts and the explicit ban on drilling in ANWR? The SAIC Corporation studied the question, in part funded by the oil industry, and claims that the American economy will lose over $2.3 trillion dollars in opportunity costs over the next two decades: Restrictions on oil and gas drilling will cost the U.S. economy $2.36 trillion through 2029, according to a study requested by state utility regulators and paid for in part by industry-sponsored groups. Drilling restrictions in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off...

nterior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Wednesday that big oil and natural gas companies will no longer be "the kings of the world" like they were under the Bush administration, announcing new drilling policies to protect the environment on western federal lands. While the reforms would likely slow the permitting process to search for oil and gas on government lands and decrease the number of acres available for energy exploration, Salazar rejected industry claims that the Obama administration's policy change would reduce domestic energy supplies. "The difference is in the prior administration the oil and gas industry essentially were the...

Has this been a trying decade for the average American, or what? It's bad enough that we've have had to cope with stagnant wages and tax increases at just about every level. But in the months ahead, we may have to deal with yet another nightmare: surging gasoline prices. Factors are lining up that could end up pushing gas prices back over $4 per gallon sometime next year. If you're already exasperated about prices at the pump, you're not the only one. Gasoline demand in 2009 has been comparatively low -- take 7.6 million Americans out of the workforce through...

Republicans may be planning a crude surprise for Democrats this October. I mean crude in the sense that it will involve unrefined petroleum. Since the House recessed earlier this month, Republicans have been demanding that Speaker Nancy Pelosi call it back into special session to vote on whether to allow new offshore oil-drilling. The Republicans know Pelosi won't do that. So, what do they really want? Let's start with some sense of the oil resources America could develop if Congress would allow it. In 2006, the Interior Department estimated that about 85.9 billion barrels of "undiscovered technically recoverable" oil sits...

Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less