Myron Ebell

Congressional Republicans Move on Keystone Pipeline

President Barack Obama’s announcement last month that he would delay making a decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2012 election is provoking strong opposition in the Senate and the House of Representatives.  Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and 36 Republican co-sponsors introduced a bill on Wednesday, 30th November, that would require the President to approve the project within sixty days unless he decides that it would not be in the national interest.

Representative Lee Terry (R-Neb.) introduced a bill on Friday, 2nd December, that would transfer the decision from the State Department to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and give FERC a thirty-day deadline to issue the permit after final agreement has been reached between the State of Nebraska and Trans Canada Corporation, the company that would build the pipeline, on a new route that goes around Nebraska’s Sand Hills.

Terry introduced his bill at a press conference just before the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on it.  He said that House Speaker John Boehner was considering including the bill in a larger package supported by President Obama and Senate Democrats that would extend unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut.  Including the Keystone bill in the larger bill would make it much harder for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to block in the Senate and for President Obama to veto.

Rep. Terry has been a strong backer of the 1,700 mile pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to U. S. refineries in the Gulf, even while most of his state’s political establishment has objected to the route.  That dispute has now apparently been resolved.  The pipeline would carry over 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the oil sands in northeast Alberta and from the Bakken field in North Dakota.  Bakken production is going up rapidly, and much of the oil is currently being transported by rail to refineries in the lower Midwest.

[click to continue…]

The New York Times has a special section on energy in its 26th October edition that suggests that the paper is trying to catch up with the big news of the last decade in the energy sector.  The front page story by Clifford Krauss is headlined, “The Energy Picture, Redrawn.”  Inset photos are headlined DEEP WATER, HIGH ARCTIC, OIL SANDS, and SHALE, and the caption reads: “A CHANGED GAME  New oil and gas fields are expected to yield a vast supply of fuels that should help relieve the United States of dependence on the Mideast and help drive booming economies in India and China.”

Here’s the conclusion of Krauss’s long summary of recent history: “‘The fossil fuel age will be extended for decades,’ said Ivan Sandrea, president of the Energy Intelligence Group, a research publisher.  ‘Unconventional oil and gas are at the beginning of a technological cycle that can last 60 years.  They are really in their infancy.’”

[click to continue…]

Former Senator Malcolm Wallop died on Wednesday, September 14, after a debilitating illness that had confined him to his home near Big Horn, Wyoming for several years. He is survived by his wife, Isabel, and four children and their families.

Malcolm was a hero of mine long before I knew him, and so it was a great privilege to work for him after he retired from the Senate in 1995 and to become his friend.  After I worked for Malcolm and got to know him, I admired him even more. I loved working for him, as I expect all of his Senate staffers did. He was unfailingly polite and considerate, intellectually engaging, and entirely positive. Malcolm had a healthy sense of his own worth, but entirely lacked the swollen head that afflicts many Senators.

When Malcolm defeated a Democratic incumbent in 1976 (not a good year for Republicans), he came to Washington as an uncompromising Cold Warrior, but as somewhat moderate on many domestic issues. While many conservatives tend to drift toward the center after a few years in Washington (which is variously described as growing in office or selling out), he was so appalled by how Washington works that he rapidly became a hardcore conservative across the board.  He joined an extraordinary group of mostly Western conservatives in the Senate, a group which included Bill Armstrong, Steve Symms, Paul Laxalt, Phil Gramm, and Jesse Helms.

[click to continue…]

Last week I wrote about the brave automakers who were taking out radio ads opposing the Obama Administration’s proposal to raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy (or CAFE) standards for new cars and light trucks to 56.2 miles per gallon by 2025.  This week I must report that thirteen automakers signed on to a 54.5 miles per gallon CAFE standard by 2025.   President Obama announced the deal on Friday.

My CEI colleague Marlo Lewis discusses this insanity here.  Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Tex.), Chairman of the House Science Committee, sent out a press release last night making the point that CEI’s Sam Kazman has made for decades: CAFE kills.  Kazman makes the point again here.

[click to continue…]