BP Says Spill End Is In Sight, Critics Doubt It

July 28, 2010

BP capped the well, and the oil on the surface appears to be dissipating faster than many scientists expected. Now, BP predicts it's only weeks or even days away from sealing the well for good. But while new oil may stop flowing, nobody knows the extent of the damage the spill may have caused.

and more>>>

Obama Walks On Oil

Idled Gulf Rigs Head For Africa

Posted 07/13/2010 07:04 PM ET

Commerce: What does it say about America’s investment climate when the Republic of Congo now attract oil rigs that once drilled the Gulf of Mexico? That’s the effect of the Obamaadministration’s nonstop bid to halt production here.

As millions were enjoying the World Cup last weekend, powerful engines began churning the waters of the Gulf of Mexico as Diamond Offshore Drilling began pulling its huge floating rig on a 60-day trip to the Republic of Congo.

Congo is hardly the place that springs to mind for the quality of its investment environment. But because of the Obama administration's nonstop efforts to halt offshore drilling through one executive order after another, that is now the reality.

On May 27, in the wake of the BP oil spill that began three weeks earlier, the Department of the Interior issued a blanket ban on all drilling deeper than 500 feet. When a federal judge threw that out as unjustified, the administration came right back with a new diktat that amounts to the exact same ban.

For rig companies, such pigheadedness gave the game away: The Obama administration is determined to halt offshore drilling by any means necessary. And for energy companies, the only rational response is to pull out.

"As the uncertainty about continued deep-water drilling in the (Gulf of Mexico) persists, we must consider alternatives that allow our deep-water assets to remain employed," Diamond Offshore's CEO, Larry Dickerson, explained in a press release.

Diamond Offshore had already moved one of its big floating rigs to the Nile River delta of Egypt a few days earlier, and now another is heading to the Congo. These facilities rent for $510,000 a day — a lot of money to lose as rigs await the Obama administration's "six-month pause" to run its course.

Industry analysts estimate that another five of the 33 rigs that have been directly idled will be leaving the Gulf for places with better business climates.

Amazingly, one of these places is the Republic of Congo, a country in the middle of a war with Ugandan rebels and busy dealing with 200,000 refugees. The country ranks 169th out of 179 in the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal's 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. That's low even by African standards, with major deficits in property rights, freedom from corruption and even investment freedom.

Still, it outranks the U.S., where there is no drilling at all.>>>

Take a Stand: Offshore Drilling

Take a Stand: Offshore Drilling

President Obama has proposed allowing offshore drilling in certain areas of the United States.

Under a plan announced last week, the federal government would allow drilling along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Alaska.

It would not allow drilling along the Northeastern United States, the Pacific Coast and environmentally sensitive areas in Alaska.

Environmentalists groups generally oppose the plan, although some have said they would be willing to accept it as part of a broader energy bill.

Click the appropriate link below to send your letter to Obama and your Members of Congress.

Support Offshore Drilling
Back President Obama's Plan

Expand Offshore Drilling
Open More Areas to Exploration

Oppose Offshore Drilling
Vote Against President Obama's Plan

Congress.org users have sent 931 letters so far, with 59 percent in favor expanding offshore drilling beyond Obama's proposal, 19 percent supporting Obama's proposal and 23 percent opposed to offshore drilling.

The Big Wind-Power Cover-Up

Posted 03/12/2010 07:12 PM ET

Scandal: Spain exposed the boondoggle of wind power in 2009, discrediting an idea touted by the Obama administration. In response, U.S. officials banded with trade lobbyists to hide the facts.

It was a cold day at the Energy Department when researchers at King Juan Carlos University in Spain released a study showing that every "green job" created by the wind industry killed off 4.27 other jobs elsewhere in the Spanish economy.

Research director Gabriel Calzada Alvarez didn't object to wind power itself, but found that when a government artificially props up this industry with subsidies, higher electrical costs (31%), tax hikes (5%) and government debt follow. Fact is, these subsidies have the same "Cuisinart" effect on jobs as wind-generating propeller blades have on birds. Every green job costs $800,000 to create and 90% of them are temporary, he found.

Alvarez made no bones about the lessons of Spain for the Obama administration, which has big plans for "green jobs." His report warned of "considerable employment consequences" from "self-inflicted economic wounds." It forecast that the U.S. could lose 6.6 million jobs if it followed Spain, and it "should certainly expect its results to follow such a tendency."

A few months later, Danish researchers at the Center for Politiske Studier came to the same conclusion about subsidized wind power from their own country's experience.

"It is fair to assess that no wind energy to speak of would exist if it had to compete on market terms," their report said.

Straightforward experience, facts and the logical conclusions about policy failure in Europe should be de rigueur in science, and the reports coming from nations with long experience in wind power ought to be taken seriously.

But they had no place in the Obama administration, which had declared a "green jobs" agenda with $2.3 billion in tax credits to create 17,000 "high-quality green jobs."

"Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future," said President Obama.

So at the release of the reports>>>

Chortling At Chu

Posted 03/12/2010 07:12 PM ET

Hydrocarbon denier-in-chief. AP View Enlarged Image

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 the ground and seabed. Instead, he supports 53% more funding for wind research and a 22% jump for solar research.

Subsidizing alternative energy fits the classic definition of insanity. Despite huge subsidies, it has proved to be neither cost-effective nor a reliable, significant contributor to our national power grid. Yet we keep subsidizing it, expecting a different result.

"Oil is an ideal transportation fuel, so it will be with us for decades," Chu conceded, even as the administration forbids us from getting more of it here, creating energy jobs, lowering energy costs and cutting our trade deficit. Instead we'll rely increasingly on foreign and often unfriendly suppliers.

Chu acknowledged the role cleaner-burning natural gas can play in electricity generation, but only as a "transition to other fuels" in coming years. And the administration continues to gobble up lands where it might be found and impose environmental regulations that curtail the use of new technologies such as fracking to get more oil and natural gas from America's vast shale deposits.

Equally unimpressed with Chu's presentation was another speaker. "Gas is more than a bridge fuel," said James Mulva, CEO of Houston-based ConocoPhillips, noting that huge gas discoveries in recent years in North America in shale and other unconventional rock formations could provide more than a century of supply. "It is part of the long-term energy solution."

"We must overcome the opposition of the 'hydrocarbon deniers,'" Mulva said, playing off Al Gore's term for climate-change skeptics. Hydrocarbon deniers, he said, are those who "believe that renewable energy will quickly and easily replace hydrocarbons and cure all that ails us."

The headline above a story in the New York Times read,

Drillgate: Secretary Salazar's Cover-Up

Posted 02/08/2010 06:54 PM ET

Energy: The administration asked for public comments on a plan to expand offshore drilling. When they came in 2-to-1 in favor, the Interior Department sat on the news. Time for a "Texas tea" party?

When you ask for public comment on a major policy issue, at some point you should make the results public, not hide them until you can figure out a way to spin the public reaction to support a conclusion you've already drawn.

On its last business day in office, the Bush administration published a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic and Pacific waters for oil and natural gas drilling. The plan authorized 31 energy exploration lease sales between 2010 and 2015 for tracts along the East Coast and off the coasts of Alaska and California.

Hopes that America would soon develop vast untapped energy reserves were dashed when the incoming Obama administration ordered all federal agencies and departments to halt all such pending regulations until they could be reviewed by incoming staff. Incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar extended the public comment period by 180 days.

Last April, Salazar said President Obama told him regarding the comment period "to make sure that we have an open and transparent government" and to make sure that DOI was "maximizing the opportunity for the public to give us guidance on what it is they want us to do" about expanding domestic energy exploration and development.

Well, the public provided no small amount of guidance.>>>