Friday Morning Links

All Bakken All The Time: Bakken stories resume below this post.

WSJ Links

Section M (Mansion): I don't read.

Section R (Arena): Nothing.

Section C (Money & Investing): Nothing.

Section B (Marketplace):

• Oh, not again: T-Mobile's MetroPCS deal is threatened; T-Mobile cannot catch a break.
• Fisker hires advisers as loan looms; the word "bankruptcy" appears in the second line of the story.

Section A:

• The price of gasoline just went higher: EPA plans to require cleaner gasoline.

The Obama administration is moving forward with tough new standards to cut pollution from cars, prompting an outcry from refiners who say the proposal could raise the cost of producing gasoline by nearly 10 cents a gallon.  

The Environmental Protection Agency, which says the rule will cost considerably less, is expected to say Friday that it wants to reduce the amount of sulfur in gasoline to an average of 10 parts per million, down from the current standard of 30 ppm, people briefed on the plan said.

The plan, which still must go through public comment before becoming final, would give environmentalists one of the top items on their wish list at a time of disappointment on some other fronts.

As mentioned in an earlier post: I finally know what question Mr Obama was answering when he replied, "all the above." The question: which industry do you plan to regulate out of existence (now that you've effectively destroyed the domestic coal industry)?

• Health insurance premiums have increased and will increase due to ObamaCare. No link; too depressing; stories can be found everywhere. Cue up Connie Francis.

• This might be a stand-alone post: states cooling to renewable energy. 

Legislatures in half the states that require electric utilities to buy renewable energy are considering proposals to roll back those mandates.

The policies have helped fuel a huge expansion of U.S. solar and wind capacity in recent years. Now debates are arising, especially in Republican-held statehouses, about whether they increase costs for customers.

There is no federal rule requiring utilities to purchase renewable energy, but mandates require it in 29 states. This year, legislators in at least 14 of those states have introduced bills that would water down or repeal renewable-energy mandates, ...

Ohio state Sen. Bill Seitz, a Republican who is leading a review of his state's renewable-energy mandate, said the policy reminded him of "Joseph Stalin's five-year plan." He added that his main interest is "in what delivers the lowest price for electricity in our state. That is what we are trying to figure out."

• Re: the same-sex marriage case before the Supreme Court. This is really, really cool. All of a sudden folks are asking: why is this case even being heard? Who is being hurt? 

A third party defended the federal marriage restriction—the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. But the court has almost always forbidden individuals and groups from litigating unless they can show how they personally were injured by the challenged conduct.

If interested, google marriage cases may hinge on procedure. GOP-controlled US House of Reps will lose this court case. For political wonks, this is a great case to follow.

Op-ed: the clock ticks on racial racial preferences.

It has been a decade since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan's discriminatory admissions policies. By a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled in Grutter v. Bollinger that the Constitution permitted public universities to employ racial preferences in order to realize "the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

In an unusual footnote, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor suggested that the decision had an expiration date: "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary."

Michigan voters didn't want to wait. In November 2006, by a 58% majority, they approved Proposal 2, a ballot measure prohibiting state and local government agencies from discriminating on the basis of race (or sex, color, ethnicity or national origin). 

Once a white man with a black father was elected to be the US president, I never understood why universities could still get away with admission preferences based on skin color.  Why not admission preferences based on sex, or religion, or political beliefs? Although I'm sure there are a few folks that would like to exclude Tea Party members from being admitted to state universities.

A carbon tax loses in the US Senate -- twice. At least there's one tax some Dems won't support.