A Miserable Way To Start Off Monday Morning -- California Cap'n Trade -- RBN Energy

Wow, wow, wow: had the Keystone XL 1.0 been approved, gasoline prices would be lower -- CNBC is saying that, not me. Mentions Bakken oil -- part of the bottleneck; Seaway blockage; rail lines aren't going to correct the glut in the near term -- Cramer -- he actually has the Seaway and the rail part correct; pipelines falling out of favor; wants govt to get out of the way of Enbridge and TransCanada pipelines; mentions Sasol -- biggest synfuel project in the US (in Louisiana) -- in a 30-second "rant" hit all the high buttons. [Comment: historians will look back on killing the Keystone XL 1.0 one of the worse policy decisions ever made.]

RBN Energy continues its series of blogs on California Cap'n Trade -- part II.

Wells coming off confidential list have been posted: this is a very interesting list -- a must-read.

Brooklyn oil field has been updated. We're now seeing Brooklyn oil field wells with cumulatives over 100,000 bbls; slow but steady.

A big moat: when corporate America needs telecom, corporate America has two choices: ATT and Verizon, and even of those two, one can argue there may be only one choice. GM selects ATT to make their cars wireless.

For investors only: In pre-market trading, all three US majors (XOM, COP, CVX) are trading up.

[Disclaimer: this is not an investment site; do not make any investment decision based on what your read here.]

WSJ Links

Section R (Wealth Management): did not read, but cover story is "12 Debt Myths That Trip Up Consumers." On that note, CNBC noted this morning that the $85 billion-across-the board cut for the entire year -- is about what the Fed is buying up every month. You can look at that two ways: 1) Wow, the Fed is certainly buying a lot of Treasury bonds; or, 2) the 'cross-the-board cuts sure are trivial in the big scheme of things. At the end of the day: sequester = job cuts in recession-immune Washington, DC

Section C (Money & Investing): bigger rivals mean B&N has a tough job to kindle enthusiasm for Nook

Section B (Marketplace): huge story on Huawei; we discussed Huawei some time ago -- finger on the pulse?

Again, the ATT/GM story: GM plans smart phones on wheels. Big story; everyone will follow.

Section A: front page, not-so-good-news-story for JCP CEO

Page 3 (and we've talked about page 3 before); two stories today, one "happy"; one "sad"; one has to do with government stimulus, again, gone awry: logging towns are on a roll; gaps persist in high-speed web access

Voters grow weary of Washington's drama;

Congress has moved on; no longer working on "sequester"; the big concern is the impending government shutdown in March -- most have forgotten about that...

Op-ed: Will Mexico welcome wildcatters? The new finance minister says his country needs entrpreneurs to find untapped energy reserves.

Wow, the Virginia GOP -- a new GOP -- read our lips -- increasing taxes in Virginia -- I guess when you live that close to Washington, DC, it's hard for bad judgement not to rub off one one...

• a $6 billion transportation bill financed almost entirely with higher sales and car taxes
• sales tax from 5% to 6% in populous Hampton Roads; everywhere else up to 5.3%
• sales tax on new cars to 4.3% from 3% (that's huge when tax on a new car approaches "regular" sales tax
• a new 0.25% sales tax on homes in Northern Virginia plus a new hotel tax
• eliminates the state 17.5-cent/gallon tax on gasoline
• adds a more hidden 3.5% tax on the wholesale price of gas (now, 14 cents/gallon); over time...

More than one person has written or tweeted that the GOP governor of Virginia can now remove his name from consideration for higher offer.

Op-ed: wanted -- a balanced approach to shale gas exports, by the chairman/CEO of Dow Chemical -- against "rushing" into exporting shale natural gas; as soon as I saw the author, I knew I wasn't going to read the op-ed; I am aware of the argument.