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An agreement signed in Colombia this week allowing the ousted former Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, to return home and resume political activity without fear of prosecution marks “a great day” for the Honduran people, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But in the view of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the accord sets the stage for Zelaya and his leftist ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to further damage democracy in the small Central American country. “Hugo Chavez’s handprints are all over this deal,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement. “He can’t wait to have Zelaya...

"This administration's policies have been designed to drive up the cost of energy in the name of reducing pollution, in the name of making very expensive alternative fuels more economically competitive."

WASHINGTON — After two court rulings against its six-month moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling, the Obama administration on Monday announced a revised ban that it described as essential and appropriate. The Interior Department said the revised ban incorporates "new evidence regarding safety concerns" as well as new procedures to gather industry feedback. Moreover, the revision suspends drilling not based on water depth, it said, "but on the basis of the drilling configurations and technologies."

The Obama administration said on Friday it is essential that its ban on deepwater oil drilling be restored after a court struck it down and promised a revised moratorium would be announced soon. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters in California he will make an announcement on a new ban on deepwater drilling in the "next several days." His comments came a day after a federal court refused to reinstate the six-month ban on deepwater drilling below 500 feet, which the Obama administration imposed after BP Plc's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Court of Appeals...

WASHINGTON/NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The Obama administration said on Thursday it will immediately issue a revised ban on deepwater drilling if an appeals court does not allow it to reinstate the six-month moratorium it imposed in the wake of the BP oil spill...

Govt: Obama Drilling Ban to Cut Supply Sharply Thursday, 08 Jul 2010 09:42 AM The Obama administration's contested moratorium on deepwater drilling will take a larger portion out of U.S. oil production next year than previously thought, the government's energy forecasting agency said on Wednesday. Oil production next year is expected to be cut by 82,000 barrels per day, or almost 30 million barrels total, due to delayed or canceled drilling caused by the moratorium, the Energy Information Administration said. That is 17 percent more from the 70,000 bpd in lost output the agency predicted just last month. Monthly production...