Free Republic

The United States imported a rare cargo of 1.033 million barrels of Iranian crude in March despite sanctions on Iran’s energy sector, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed. The cargo is only the second oil import by the United States from Iran since late 1991, data on EIA’s website showed.

When the U.S. created NATO, a primary purpose of the alliance was to serve as a western wall to defend Germany against the 400,000 Russian troops on the eastern side of the Elbe River. Seventy years later, Germany has decided to double its dependence on Vladimir Putin's Russia for the natural gas needed to run the German economy, despite the opposition of her great protector, the USA. The Biden administration decided to waive sanctions on Matthias Warnig, the ally of Putin whose company, Nord Stream 2 AG, is laying the pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany that...

On Joe Biden’s first day in office, he shut down construction of the Keystone Pipeline. Canceling the Keystone Pipeline costs over 11,000 construction jobs and 42,100 jobs throughout the US during the construction process ....Snip.... On a personal note — a friend traveling in Mississippi says the gas stations are out of gas. It took only FOUR MONTHS for Joe Biden to ruin the US. Biden’s First 100 Days Accomplishments: – Kill Keystone XL Pipeline – Gas Lines – $3 Gas (National Avg) – Inflation – Crumbling Dollar – Rising Unemployment – Open Border Crisis – Antifa Terror Squads –...

Fearing that incessant warnings about manmade climate cataclysms would not be enough to end U.S. fossil fuel use, the Obama-Biden administration instructed a special Interagency Working Group to concoct a “social cost of carbon” concept. The SCC would “scientifically” calibrate the dollar value of damages that a ton of carbon dioxide emitted today in America would inflict on the USA and world in the future.The price tag was set at $22/ton in 2010, raised to $36/ton in 2013, and just as arbitrarily increased to $40, before finishing the Obama era at $51/ton. President Trump disbanded the IWG and had the...

Representative Katie Porter (D., Calif.) was indignant, her tweet went viral, and she is getting rapturous coverage. She was also wrong. At a hearing yesterday, Strata Production Company president Mark Murphy said that she had a “misconception . . . that somehow the oil and gas industry have benefits from some special sort of tax structure.” Porter hit back: Top Articles READ MORE Researchers Cited by CDC Allege Agency Ignored Favorable Data on School Reopenings 00:04 / 00:30 SKIP AD You do benefit from special rules. There’s a special tax rule for intangible drilling costs that does not apply to...

Detroit - As the Texas power grid shudders in part under renewable power, the auto industry is also facing an uncertain transition to green energy. General Motors dropped a bombshell last month that it will build only electric vehicles by 2035. The commitment comes as the Biden administration stocks up on climate activists to?transform the economy to fight global warming.The administration is in line with governments from Europe to China that have declared EVs the future and - for the first time - are mandating which powertrains automakers must use.But as GM and other automakers spend billions to bring electrics...

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday said coal and natural gas – NOT frozen wind turbines – caused the power grid failure in this week’s Texas cold snap. Texas got hit with a rare cold snap that spanned to the southern part of the state and the power grids gave out. .... Snip.... Millions of Texans suffered blackouts partly due to the frozen wind turbines. Psaki said reports suggesting renewables caused the power grid failure in Texas are inaccurate, rather it was renewables that came in to save the day. “Numerous reports show that it was failure in...

Joe Biden wasted no time destroying tens of thousands of jobs his first day in office by canceling the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Biden also put a 60-day moratorium on new oil and natural gas leases and drilling permits on federal lands. New Mexico’s leaders are worried that Biden’s war on the energy business will devastate the state’s economy, where education, jobs and public programs depend on funding from the industry. Joe Biden (supposedly) won New Mexico with 54.29% of the vote vs 43.50% for Trump. “During his inauguration, President Biden spoke about bringing our nation together. Eliminating...

Almost any U.S. employment snapshot looks grand compared with last April when COVID shutdowns rocketed joblessness to 14.8 percent. By December, the seasonally adjusted rate fell to 6.7 percent. So, everything zen? As the song goes, I don’t think so. Current unemployment is nearly double what it was in December 2019 and remains higher than at any point since March 2014. Neither the 2001 recession nor the 1990 downturn drove joblessness so high. And this doesn’t express the problem’s full magnitude. The effective unemployment rate, including those who have given up looking for work and those who involuntarily work part-time,...

Growing up in Miami, Florida, I knew next to nothing about the energy industry. As long as I could afford to put gas in my car and the lights came on when I needed them, I was happy. I had no clue — like many Americans — how essential energy is to every aspect of our lives. After the manager of a successful land management firm took a chance on a young, ignorant college kid who just needed a job, my eyes were opened to the reality of just how dependent our modern, comfortable lives are on access to energy...

With President-elect Joe Biden about to assume office, he will soon roll out his “clean energy” plan, aimed at reducing America’s dependence on fossil fuels. But such a move will cause ripples beyond America’s borders. It will likely impact key developing countries that have become increasingly reliant on fossil fuel imports from the booming U.S. oil and gas industry. Biden’s Clean Energy PlanIn December 2020, Joe Biden appointed his climate team, which included a person who served under the Obama administration. Among the list of climate nominees and appointees is Gina McCarthy, who spearheaded the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan,...

Outgoing U.S. Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico tops a list for secretary of the Interior Department for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, according to a national news outlet. Also being considered is Democratic U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico and U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and leader of the House committee on natural resources, according to Bloomberg News. The Interior Department oversees concerns crucial to the West and the nation, including grazing, parks and recreation, and oil and gas extraction on federal land. The agency also oversees coastal drilling, among other environmental concerns. A spokesman for...

Fracking (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) has unleashed bounties of US oil and natural gas, dramatically reduced energy prices from their historic 2008 peak, saved families and industries billions of dollars annually, helped create and sustain millions of American jobs, made the United States stronger militarily and turned it into a net energy exporter. Those fixated on alleged climate dangers from fossil fuels don’t care. In fact, they are aghast and angry about this oil and gas renaissance. Unable to stop all production, they have focused on blocking pipelines. If companies can’t get oil and gas to markets, they reason...

Was the power on in your house this morning? If so, thank fossil fuels!A few parts of America do get energy from other sources. Washington state has fast-flowing rivers that allow Washingtonians to get most of their electricity from hydroelectric power. Iowa now gets about 40% of its electricity from wind.But most of us get power from the much-hated fossil fuels, primarily natural gas and coal.Burning them does pollute, although government-mandated controls like scrubbers in smokestacks have nearly eliminated the dangerous pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide. (Yes, government has done some useful things.) But fossil fuels still emit greenhouse gasses, and...

The collapse of the price of a barrel of oil this week was something to see. It was cheaper for producers to pay people to take it away than it was to store it themselves, as capacity had been reached. They were offering almost $40 per barrel to take the oil. Made me wish I had an Olympic sized swimming pool I could fill up for a rainy day. While people watched dumbfounded at how this could happen, people working in the energy industry were terrified - what would this mean for the jobs, millions of them? The answer isn’t...

A proposal by two senators to send $500 billion to state governments, due to the coronavirus, would be a horrible incentive. It would encourage governors to keep their economies closed despite their losses in tax revenues from the lack of business activity. Some Republican-led states have courageously reopened or remained open for business, and their money should not be taken and sent to mostly Democrat-controlled states who ordered people to stop working. States should have an incentive to reopen, as the Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia is doing, rather than receiving bailouts to remain closed. Yet Senators Bob Menendez...

An ancient habit of Western elites is a certain selectivity in condemnation. Sometimes Westerners apply critical standards to the West that they would never apply to other nations. My colleague at the Hoover Institution, historian Niall Ferguson, has pointed out that Swedish green-teen celebrity Greta Thunberg might be more effective in her advocacy for reducing carbon emissions by redirecting her animus. Instead of hectoring Europeans and Americans, who have recently achieved the planet's most dramatic drops in the use of fossil fuels, Thunberg might instead turn her attention to China and India to offer her "how dare you" complaints to...

Whether by accident or by deliberate osmosis, Israel and the U.S. have adopted similar solutions to their existential problems. Before 2002, during the various Palestinian intifadas, Israel suffered hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries from suicide bombers freely crossing from the West Bank and Gaza into Israel. In response, Israel planned a vast border barrier. The international community was outraged. The Israeli left called the idea nothing short of "apartheid." However, after the completion of the 440-mile border barrier -- part concrete well, part wire fencing -- suicide bombings and terrorist incursions into Israel declined to almost nil....

A trucking company out of Artesia has been chosen to deliver this year’s White House Christmas tree. Wilbanks Trucking Services owner Lance Wilbanks says his company normally handles transport of large oil rigs. With the oil and gas boom, the company has grown to more than 250 employees. The Current Argus reports that Wilbanks Trucking will pick up the tree from the Carson National Forest near Taos and deliver it more than 18-hundred miles to Washington DC in November.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- For the past few years, much of the American news media has bombarded the world with hysteria about purported Russian election interference. Millions of dollars and a 448-page report later, we're left with a few tone-deaf ads purchased by Russians on social media and some online trolls in St. Petersburg. Much of the hysteria has come from the anti-Trump left. But what do they have to say about the activist left joining forces with the Democratic donor class to meddle in another country's elections? The Canadian federal election is just over three months away, on Oct....