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‘Will To Drill is Strong’ – Gore ‘Afraid of Discussing Nuclear Power’ – Nothing Wrong with $5 Gas?
July 21, 2008

Posted By Marc Morano – 5:46 PM ET – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov

 

 ‘Will To Drill is Strong’ – Gore ‘Afraid of Discussing Nuclear Power’ – Nothing Wrong with $5 Gas?

Round Up  

New Webpage: Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices – LINK   

Sampling of articles in past week:  

Investor’s Business Daily: Will To Drill Is Strong, Poll Finds; Climate Change Pales As Concern- July 15, 2008

Excerpt: Contrary to claims by Al Gore and others that global warming is the greatest challenge of our time, Americans by better than 3-to-1 say the price of gasoline is a bigger problem now, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll.Moreover, they stand willing to do something about it, including and especially drilling for oil in the Outer Continental Shelf and in federal shale reserves in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.Even drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is backed by a plurality of Americans. The poll of 920 adults taken last week shows that 73% think "fuel prices at the pump" are a bigger problem for the country than climate change, the new term for global warming.

 

NY Times Blog: Three Questions for Al Gore - John Tierney - July 17, 2008

Excerpt: Why is Mr. Gore still afraid of discussing nuclear power? He tries to sound Kennedyesque in setting his decade-long quest and inveighs against “the defenders of the status quo.” But he’s still reluctant to use his stature among greens to get them to reconsider the largest carbon-free source of electricity in America today, nuclear power. Is this a profile in courage? 3) Why hasn’t his one-year plan for energy worked at his own home? A year ago, after the embarrassing revelation that his home in Tennessee used 20 times as much electricity as the average home, he renovated his home to make it more energy-efficient. But a year later, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research reports that his home electricity usage has increased by 10 percent — an additional 1,638 kilowatts per month — since the renovations, which included solar panels, a geothermal system and a variety of conservation measures. Does this inspire confidence in his 10-year plan for the rest of America?

RealClearPolitics.com: - ‘Liberals basically don't see much wrong with $5 gas’ - July 16, 2008 

Excerpt: The truth is that the Democrats put the need to mitigate climate change ahead of the imperative of holding down gasoline prices at the pump. If there was ever a fault line between elitist and populist approaches to a problem, this is it. In fact, liberals basically don't see much wrong with $5 gas. Many have been urging a tax to achieve precisely this level, just like Europe has done for decades. Obama said that he was unhappy that there was not a period of "gradual adjustment" to the high prices, but seems to shed few tears over the current levels. After all, if your imperative is climate change, a high gas price is worth 10 times a ratified Kyoto treaty in bringing about change.

 

CNBC.com’s Larry Kudlow: Bush Says Drill, Drill, Drill — And Oil Drops $9! – July 15, 2008

Excerpt: In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news conference, Bush repeated his new position, and slammed the Democratic Congress for not removing the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136. […]  A new report from Wall Street research house Sanford C. Bernstein says that California actually could start producing new oil within one year if the moratorium were lifted. The California oil is under shallow water and already has been explored. Drilling platforms have been in place since before the moratorium. They’re talking about 10 billion barrels worth off the coast of California. There’s also a “gang of 10” in the Senate, five Republicans and five Democrats, that is trying to work a compromise deal on lifting the moratorium. So it’s possible a lot of action on this front could occur much sooner than people seem to think. So I repeat: Drill, drill, drill. Deregulate, decontrol, and unleash the American energy industry. Those hated traders will then keep selling oil as the laws of supply and demand and free markets keep working. Bravo for Bush. Bravo for the traders.

 

The Journal Record: Energy leaders applaud president’s lifting of offshore ban- July 15, 2008

Excerpt: U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said the country needs to add to its reserves by putting the areas in play. “Congress should follow the president’s lead and lift the moratoriums on domestic energy exploration,” Inhofe said. He said 85 percent of the OCS, or an estimated 19 billion barrels of recoverable oil – is off limits. Bush’s actions were not welcome by all.

 

Spiegel Online: Germany: Bureaucrats Killing Jobs to "Save" the Climate – July 17, 2008

Excerpt: The EU's Carbon Trading Scheme: Killing Jobs to Save the Climate - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - NewsThe price of European emission permits is rising so rapidly that German companies are threatening to leave the country. Thousands of jobs could be lost. And the environment may, in the end, be no better off. 

Thewest.comau: Australia: "wasting electricity could become a criminal offence in the foreseeable future." –July 18,  2008

Excerpt: Meanwhile, prominent human rights lawyer Julian Burnside says wasting electricity could become a criminal offence in the foreseeable future. Wasteful large companies in particular could be targeted, he said. "If we come to general agreement that part of the problem is that people are using too much electricity, then you have to create a regime that encourages people to use less electricity, you might make it an offence to waste electricity," Mr Burnside told ABC Radio. There were obvious difficulties enforcing such a regime. 

PressZoom: INHOFE PRAISES PICKENS’ CALL FOR INCREASING USE OF NATURAL GAS, WIND POWER- July 21, 2008

Excerpt: U.S. Sen. James M. Inhofe ( R-Okla. ) today praised T. Boone Pickens for bringing forward a common-sense energy plan for America’s energy future. Senator Inhofe met with T. Boone Pickens last week and discussed Pickens’ call for increasing natural gas and wind energy production. Through his leadership position on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Inhofe has a long record in supporting not only increasing natural gas and wind energy production, but a strong record of supporting a domestic, diverse, and affordable energy supply.

 

Tulsa World: Reaction to Bush's oil ban lift mixed- July 15, 2008

Excerpt: Congress would need to remove its own restriction before exploration and production can resume. Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, imposed the ban in 1990, but gasoline prices nearing $5 in some regions — closer to $4 in Tulsa — have pushed some leaders to join the call for renewed domestic drilling efforts. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said, "President Bush is to be commended for taking a critical step to ensure increased domestic energy supply for America." 

 

Investor's Business Daily: Answer To Energy Is 'All Of The Above'-July 15, 2008

Excerpt: Republicans are offering a clean break from the failed policies of the past in the form of an "all of the above" approach that employs cutting-edge, 21st century technologies and appeals to the same do-it-yourself ethos that brought leaders of foresight and purpose to Philadelphia 232 years ago this month. Through this agenda, we will increase production of American-made energy — including renewable and alternative forms, next-generation oil, natural gas and clean coal — while protecting our nation's natural resources.

 

Wash. Journal: Let's Have Some Love for Nuclear Power- July 21, 2008

Excerpt: All over the world, nuclear power is making a comeback. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just commissioned eight new reactors, and says there's "no upper limit" to the number Britain will build in the future. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has challenged her country's program to phase out 17 nuclear reactors by 2020, saying it will be impossible to deal with climate change without them. China and India are building nuclear power plants; France and Russia, both of whom have embraced the technology, are fiercely competing to sell them the hardware. And just last month John McCain called for the construction of 45 new reactors by 2030. Barack Obama is less enthusiastic about nuclear energy, but he seems to be moving toward tacit approval.

 

Wash. Post oped: Will the environment survive the environmentalists? - No Friends of the Ice Bears – By Michael Gerson – July 18, 2008

Excerpt: Once, the main threat to these creatures came from hunters who lived in lonely shacks and set traps along the ocean shore. Now a threat comes from an unexpected source: elements of the environmental movement, whose political blindness and ideological baggage may undermine efforts to reduce the role of carbon in the global economy. Americans (appropriately) love furry things in distant places, but political leaders make decisions (appropriately) based on national interest and future risk. […]  Yet many environmental leaders seem unpracticed at coalition-building. They tend to be conventionally, if not radically, liberal. They sometimes express a deep distrust for capitalism and hostility to the extractive industries. Their political strategy consists mainly of the election of Democrats. Most Republican environmental efforts are quickly pronounced "too little, too late." Even worse, a disturbing minority of the environmental movement seems to view an excess of human beings, not an excess of carbon emissions, as the world's main problem. In two recent settings, I have heard China's one-child policy praised as an answer to the environmental crisis -- a kind of totalitarianism involving coerced birth control or abortion. I have no objection to responsible family planning. But no movement will succeed with this argument: Because we in the West have emitted so much carbon, there needs to be fewer people who don't look like us. Human beings are not the enemy of sound environmental policy; they are the primary reason sound environmental policy is necessary. If the movement to confront climate change is perceived as partisan, anti-capitalist and hostile to human life, it is likely to fail, causing suffering for many, including the ice bears. And so the question arises: Will the environment survive the environmentalists?

 

The Hill: Boehner says majority of Congress wants to drill – July 19, 2008

Excerpt: House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Congress is ready to lift the ban on offshore drilling but is being blocked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “Nancy Pelosi and the liberals here in the Congress, they worship at the altar radical environmentalism. The last thing that that group wants is more drilling,” said Boehner in an interview with Bloomberg TV Saturday. The Ohio Republican argued that lawmakers are ready to sign off on lifting the ban in order to increase fuel supplies to lower record high gas prices.   “There’s a majority of the House and Senate who are for more drilling. We have to produce more supply if we’re going to bring down the price,” Boehner said.  Pelosi’s office, however, sought to depict the GOP as unresponsive to Americans’ energy concerns.

 

Investor’s Business Daily: Does It Have To Take A Decade To Bring New Crude To Market?- July 18,2008

Excerpt: With oil prices hitting record highs, the question arises: Why aren't we drilling for more oil?It seems simple. And yet, a Democrat-led Congress still opposes opening any new lands to drilling. "We can't drill our way out of our problems" is a common mantra. Polls show most Americans favoring opening federal lands and offshore areas to energy production. As it stands, 97% of our offshore areas and 94% of our federal lands are off limits.President Bush raised the likelihood that that could change with his lifting of the federal moratorium on offshore drilling. But he's been opposed by Congress, which argues it will simply take too long — as much as 10 years or more — for the new oil to come to market to do any good.That doesn't appear to be true.To begin with, industry analysts note, much of the drilling delay is self-inflicted — a result of excessively stringent environmental and land-use regulations. Scrap those, or modify them, and new oil can be produced in far less than 10 years. Producing oil from new sources has three stages, which can take years, notes Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association in Anchorage. First, comes an environmental impact report, then bidding on leases and, finally, drilling.

 

Tom Nelson: Natural Oil Seepage- July 21, 2008

Excerpt: Natural oil seepage from the ocean floor accounts for far greater petroleum contamination than man-made sources in the United States.

 

Heritage Foundation: Opposition to ANWR Drilling Is No Laughing Matter- May 2, 2008

Excerpt: Echoing the sentiments of conservatives, Jay Leno last night on “The Tonight Show” chided Democrats for their repeated opposition to oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Leno’s punchline: Democrats say drilling in ANWR wouldn’t produce any oil for 10 years — the same point they’ve been making for more than 10 years now. President Bill Clinton vetoed legislation in 1995 that would have opened ANWR to oil exploration.

 

American Thinker- Republicans Could Tap a Gusher of Support Off the California Coast-July 21, 2008

Excerpt:  However, Speaker Pelosi is not alone in making her opposition clear. California's 's senior Senator Dianne Feinstein has joined the battle by writing an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times opposing efforts to increase offshore oil production. This effort would almost certainly and immediately help to bring down oil prices -- a fact that she seems unwilling to recognize or appreciate.

 

Journal Sentinel- Yes, we can drill our way out — and should- July 19, 2008

Excerpt: We can drive down oil prices tremendously if we get supply to outstrip demand. There are about 29 billion barrels of proven reserves in U.S. territories. There’s more that’s unproven because what is five miles below the Gulf of Mexico, including a few miles of rock, is difficult to estimate, let alone prove. That 29 billion doesn’t include a recent enormous find 175 miles south of New Orleans. It’s estimated to be between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels. If it’s 15 billion, that single discovery would increase the proven domestic reserves by 50%.Also, the 29 billion barrels only counts traditional crude. There are untold billions of barrels worth of oil in shale in the United States. This is difficult to extract but still worth going after

 

NRO: Dems’ Doublethink on Drilling-July 17, 2008

Excerpt: In the novel 1984, George Orwell used the word “doublethink” to describe the process of believing two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The concept invites an appropriate but superficial comparison to congressional Democrats’ current approach to gasoline prices. Idea Number One: High gasoline prices are good. A high price, imposed through federal carbon taxes or carbon caps, is precisely the mechanism by which Democrats hope to curb carbon emissions. We know that this mechanism works because it is already working: As gas prices rise, American consumption is down right now, year over year (a historical rarity). CO2 emissions from gasoline are down from 2007 by a modest 84,000 tons, or roughly 2 percent. Idea Number Two: High gasoline prices are bad. With constituents irate over gasoline prices that are pushing $5 a gallon, Democrats complain that high prices are a bad thing. They have dreamed up a number of boogie men responsible for high prices and drafted silver-bullet bills to kill them off.

 

NRO: The Congressional Drilling Showdown-July 17, 2008

Excerpt: President Bush’s lifting of the executive ban on offshore drilling this week is more than a symbolic gesture. It means the only thing preventing expanded offshore oil-and-gas development is a temporary, one-year congressional ban set to expire on September 30. While Congress has a habit of re-imposing this ban each year, it has never gotten around to writing it into permanent law. This creates a key opportunity for supporters of domestic energy production, including the president, to force a showdown. 

JunkScience.com: Conservation Nation?- July 17, 2008

Excerpt: Not only does the U.S. have vast reserves of oil offshore and on public lands, our Western state oil shale holds twice the oil as the Mideast. Although Canadian oil counts as "foreign oil," our neighbor to the north is the Saudi Arabia of oil from tar sands. There is plenty of oil at home and nearby that we can access to fuel vital economic growth -- but the Greens won't let us. But shouldn’t we conserve our oil resources for future generations? Well, as Barack Obama might say -- that is, if he could break away from the maximum security prison of Green-think -- "We are the generation that we’ve been waiting for." First, if the Greens won't let us use our oil now, why would they in the future? Won't they always tell people to conserve or to wait for some fantasy alternative fuel or magical car battery? Next, future generations are very likely to have improved energy technologies that are less, or even not at all dependent on oil. Finally, if you think that conservation will lead to less oil being used worldwide, think again. China, India and other rapidly developing countries plan to use all the oil they can get. If we don't buy Canadian tar sands oil, India will buy it to fuel their $2,500 Tata cars. If we don't drill off the coast of Florida, others will, like the foreign oil companies working with Cuba right now.  CEI

Open Market: Gore’s 10-Year Plan to Save the Planet – July 17, 2008

Excerpt: Meeting all new demand in the next few decades just with renewables would be extremely difficult and expensive. Doing that and replacing all current coal and gas power plants in ten years is preposterous. 

Investor’s Business Daily: Last But Not Leased-July 18, 2008

Excerpt: Energy Policy: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing the "Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act" to block offshore drilling. The fact is, these offshore rigs may be the ticket to saving both our coasts and our economy. The act would deny oil companies any new leases unless they can show that they're diligently exploring and drilling in existing holdings. It's designed to con the public into thinking the Democrats actually support drilling and the oil companies are restricting supply to drive up prices and profits.

 

The Foundry: She’s Afraid … She’s Very Afraid- July 18, 2008

Excerpt: The reason why Pelosi is deathly afraid of allowing members of her own caucus the freedom to vote on offshore drilling, is because she know the facts are not on her side. Under current law, the U.S. has about 22 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. It is estimated that the areas Pelosi wants to keep off limits from production in just the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) have another 19.1 billion barrels. The mean estimate for the areas Pelosi wants to keep off limits from production in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is 10.4 billion barrels. In other words, the U.S. could more than double our oil reserves with a stroke of a pen. Just imagine what a huge effect such a signal would have on world oil prices. But Pelosi and her liberal allies refuse to even allow a vote on the issue.

 

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