At the press conference accompanying the political hara-kiri by his director of the Minerals and Management Service, President Obama changed topics and said, “Now let me make one broader point, though, about energy. The fact that oil companies now have to go a mile underwater and then drill another three miles below that in order to hit oil tells us something about the direction of the oil industry. Extraction is more expensive, and it is going to be inherently more risky. … The easily accessible oil has already been sucked …
Sarah Palin is not the VP of the United States but we can still drill, baby, drill. Although President Obama and some Democrats have hinted at reinstating the ban on offshore drilling and implementing restrictions on oil shale development in the West, nine Republican members of Georgia’s congressional delegation are on the offensive – emphasizing the need for more domestic energy supply. Yesterday, they wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to reconsider any plans to halt energy production in America: Dear Mr. President: We write in regards to …
1082 pages. $3 billion in earmarks. At least 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil off limits. Congress is at it again. In an attempt to squeeze an omnibus package during the lame-duck session, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid said that beginning November 17th a debate over a public lands bill that includes 160 pieces of legislation will take place. The bill contains ridiculous earmarks such as $3.5 million to celebrate the 450th birthday of St. Augustine Florida in 2015 and $5 million on …
Last week at Heritage, representatives from the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Thorium Reactors, Hyperion and General Atomics discussed the potential of new nuclear technologies for America. The full event is available and accessible by going to Heritage’s event site. The INL’s Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) project, which is a private-public partnership that focuses on high temperature gas-cooled reactors, broadly expands the applications of nuclear energy beyond electricity production (by the way, the U.S. currently gets 20 percent of its electricity from 104 reactors). The heat produced from high temperature …
Leave it to Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid to crash the Energy Freedom party. Not only is he crashing the party, he’s doing so through the side door where he thinks no one can see him. Just when it appeared that we could celebrate Congress lifting the ban on oil shale, Senator Reid “has decided to sneak an extension of the oil shale ban through as Congress fights over the financial bailout.” Thanks to Senator Jim DeMint and his blog for alerting the public and providing the text of the …
Drilling and Defense Spending are the two big issues this week in Washington. For years, Congress has banned oil and natural gas drilling on most of America’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). On Oct. 1, that ban, along with one that forbids the extraction and development of oil shale in the Mountain West, will expire. For the past two years, The Heritage Foundation has sought to make the case that America’s global responsibilities call for an adequate defense budget to train, equip, and modernize an all-volunteer force capable of meeting the …
Heritage’s James Sherk says the employment estimates for August are being affected by the collapse of the housing bubble and the high cost of energy. The unemployment rate rose to 6.1%, a five-year high, primarily the result of large job losses among automobile manufacturers. He talked about the August employment numbers this afternoon on CNBC. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk3wcVHyugQ[/youtube] Sherk says there are a couple steps Congress could take immediately to help American workers with these pocketbook issues: To get the economy back on its feet, Congress needs to address energy and food …
We’ve documented before how countries around the world are setting a break neck pace developing their own natural resources, while the United States, crippled by the environmental left, is failing to add energy production. Just this weekend, Jordan announced it was in talks with Royal Dutch Shell on an agreement to extract oil from the desert kingdom’s 40 billion ton oil shale reserves. Jordan’s Natural Resources Authority head Maher Hjazin told AFP, “If our plans succeed, it would be one of the country’s largest projects to help the Jordan become …
Skyrocketing gas prices are rapidly changing Americans’ priorities. Voters routinely identify energy costs as either the second or third most important issue. Considering that any economist will tell you that high energy prices are a major cause of recent economic sluggishness, and that the economy has been the No. 1 issue on voters’ minds for some time, the cost of energy has quickly become a defining issue for the nation. High energy costs were a big reason why liberal efforts to institute a carbon tax failed earlier this month in …
