April 25, 2011: Mainstream media (ABC, CBS, and NBC) do not mention the permitorium when talking about the high price of gasoline/oil.
April 25, 2011: EPA shuts down Shell's plans to drill in the Arctic. How much oil are we talking about? Two and a half times all the oil that has flowed down the Trans Alaska Pipeline in the pipeline's 30-year history. That's incredible. And the EPA has shut it down.
April 14, 2011: The permitorium continues and the net widens.
March 25, 2011: Great op-ed in San Angelo Standard-Times (Texas).
March 14, 2011: BLM land grab in Bighorn Basin, Wyoming.
February 14, 2011: Shell announces it will not drill in Alaska's Beaufort Sea due to delay in obtaining air quality permits from the EPA.
February 4, 2011: US federal judge blasts the Obama administration for "determined disregard" of his order to lift a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling last year. Last year? The permitorium continues.
January 23, 2011: No new refineries on President Obama's watch. Not if he has anything to say about it.
November 30, 2010: New York State halts hydraulic fracking.
September 12, 2010: The EPA could end up regulating all facets of the oil industry.
July 18, 2010: Now that the cap is working and containing (at least for the moment) the BP spill in the gulf, the Coast Guard wants the cap removed so that oil can continue to be brought to the surface for skimmers to remove the oil. Why in the world was there an effort to put the cap in place if they now want to remove it?
July 17, 2010: Obama's administration now threatens the Wyoming coal industry which supplies 40% of coal for America.
June 20, 2010: Never waste a crisis to make policy. Obama's BP spill commission made up of policy makers, not environmental engineers. Another opportunity to destroy the oil industry.
June 1, 2010: Feds announce criminal probe of BP. Dow plummets. Anything to destroy not only the oil industry, but the entire market. There will be some reetail investors who will probably never come back.
May 31, 2010: This may not destroy the national oil industry quite yet, but this will certainly destroy the economic lifeblood of Louisiana. Obama administration declares a six-month moratorium on new deep water drilling in the gulf. Can you imagine what would happen to the economy of North Dakota if all new planting was not allowed for six months?
May 27, 2010: As Obama's poll numbers continue to plummet over his handling of the BP spill, it is interesting that he said he's not overly fond of the language Salazar used in the early days after the spill, when he said that the federal government has its "boot on the neck" of the oil company. I agree: it doesn't sound particularly presidential; kinda reminds me of the Nazis in 1939 keeping their boot on the throat of the Czechs.
May 27, 2010: I forgot to post this earlier, the administration's intent to keep "its boot on the neck of BP" until the spill is resolved. Can't we all just get along? It seems like there should be a common interest in solving the problem first and foremost.
May 21, 2010: US Army Corps of Engineers to limit water taken from Lake Sakakawea. This will put the kabosh on fracking in the Bakken.
May 21, 2010: It appears that after paying the ransom, the BP expansion of the Whiting, Indiana, refinery will continue but I can't tell if the EPA is satisfied with new compliance requirements. It's a clever new tactic: give oil companies the go-ahead on new projects, and when the projects are nearly finished, go back, review them, and put them on hold until a ransom is paid. In this case, the city is issuing bonds to pay the costs.
May 21, 2010: Congress to quadruple taxes on oil to pay for a Spill Liability Trust Fund. Yes, quadrupling. Not doubling the tax rate, or raising it a hundred percent, but quadrupling it, 400%. Four times the current rate. The nice thing about this: I assume the oil companies will pay first for any oil spill before the fund would kick in, and if the fund is not needed, Congress has a whole new slush fund to play with.
March 26, 2010: By delaying new off-shore leases until the end of Obama's term, the administration has essentially banned any new off-shore drilling. The leases were to begin going on sale this July but have now been pushed so far in the future, one might as well move on. The goal to move the US toward independence from overseas oil is dead, again. The price of oil will continue to creep up. As an investor heavily weighted in oil, I don't mind. But what's really going on? My opinion: there are those in the administration who would like to see $150 oil. One, they could blame this on the "big bad" oil companies, and second, windfall profits tax will kick in at $100 oil. Ultimately "Big Oil" is going to pay for Obamacare.
March 18, 2010: The EPA is ready to begin its study of the safety of horizontal drilling and fracture stimulation. The EPA says this will be a scientific study but based on their "global warming" stance, the study will obviously become a political endeavor. After all, even if the process is safe, the end result is the production of ever-more hydrocarbons for use as energy. And we certainly can't have more oil and gas production in this country. This is not rocket science.
March 6, 2010: Occasionally there's some sanity: for the time being, the sage grouse will not be declared endangered.
February 9, 2010: Now it's the "cutest" bunny that has environmentalists upset. Groups looking to have pygmy rabbit declared endangered in eight (8) western states.
October 29, 2009: COP denies plans to sell US refineries. Yeah, right.
October 27, 2009: "Cap and trade" could destroy US domestic refinery industry. Nothing new here.
October 25, 2009: Surprise! BP refinery expansion in question.
While pundits keep repeating the mantra that no refinery has been built in the United Stated since 1976, when an oil company finally decides to add refining capacity, the current administration puts it on hold. The refinery had met all regulatory requirements and was surprised when the EPA said BP had 90 days to submit new information on air pollutant emissions. BP spokesmen say that this does not mean the project is scrapped but they are disappointed. Everyone thought the regulatory obstacles had been cleared. Not in ObamaNation. [Later: December 18, 2013 -- BP announces completion of the refinery expansion --
BP announced today all of the major new units associated with the Whiting modernization project have been successfully brought on stream. The start-up of the new 102,000 barrel per day coker in mid-November marked the last major milestone of the multi-year, multi-billion dollar modernization project at the facility in Northwest Indiana.
The refinery is working through post-start-up troubleshooting activities and expects to be ready to begin the ramp up of progressively higher Canadian crude processing from year-end through the first quarter of 2014 as previously announced.]
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