Gas Prices, President Obama, and Keystone XL Pipeline

Read an interesting factoid - 77% of those who voted in seven of the 10 Super Tuesday states said that rising gasoline prices were the most important factor in their vote.  Since January 2009, gasoline prices have more than doubled, and is now reaching levels not seen since the summer of 2008.  Not only are gasoline prices high - they are at unprecedented levels for this time of the year.  Here in SoCal, prices locally are $4.40 a gallon for unleaded regular, and in some neighborhoods of Los Angeles, the prices are near $5 a gallon.

President Obama reminds us that there is no silver bullet for him to use to address gasoline prices. 

His Secretary of Energy is telling Congressional committees that the focus of the Administration is not towards reducing gasoline prices, but lessening our dependence and use of fossil fuels via conservation and promoting alternative green / renewable energy options

The President takes credit for increasing domestic oil production - even though all of the increases are coming from production on private / state lands that are outside the reach and control of the Federal Government.  On Federal lands, production is falling as the regulatory process and Administration policies are preventing new leases and new approvals for oil production.

One of the most visible aspects of this Administration's policies is the Keystone XL pipeline.  This pipeline, under Federal Government review since 2008, is intended to traverse from Alberta to the US Gulf Coast to bring 800,000 barrels of Canadian oil to our refineries every day once built.  However, as President Obama enters his re-election effort - he was faced with a strong objection to the construction of this pipeline by his hard left environmentalist base.  Unwilling to confront this needed base of support, President Obama tried to delay making a decision on the pipeline until after the November election.

Republicans in Congress did not want to let the President punt on this decision.  So they attached to a bill that the President signed into law a provision that required the President to make a decision on the pipeline.  Faced with the inability to delay the decision - President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline...and with the assistance of the ever-so-compliant mainstream media directed the blame towards the Republicans.

Trying to address the problems of the Administration's policies which are directly contributing to higher gasoline prices, the Republicans sought once again to use the legislative process to force President Obama to approve Keystone XL and open a path for the US to replace getting 800,000 barrels of oil per day from unfriendly OPEC cartel members with getting this oil from our number one trading partner and one of our strongest allies.

As reported in today's QH, President Obama has been active lobbying members of the Senate to oppose the Republican Amendment forcing the approval of the pipeline.  The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-Las Vegas), flat out declared earlier today that the Senate Democrats would rally behind the President and kill the Amendment...

Reid’s comments came just hours before the Senate is expected to vote on an amendment to transportation legislation that would force approval of the pipeline. The amendment requires 60 votes for passage.

The majority leader stressed that President Obama opposes the GOP amendment, but does not oppose the pipeline itself.

“So the president has not come out saying, 'I oppose Keystone,' ” Reid said. “He opposes doing it in the manner that's been jammed down our throats.”

Republicans pounced Thursday on a report that Obama personally pressed Senate Democrats to reject the Keystone amendment.

Not long ago, the Senate voted on the Republican Amendment...

...and defeated it by a vote of 56 - 42.

60 votes were needed in the Senate to approve the Amendment, and despite 11 Democrats who crossed over and voted with the Republicans, the effort fell 4 votes short of passage.  This is a clear message that many Senate Democrats are concerned over this issue and how it appears during this campaign season. 

Left unaddressed is the vapidity of both the position of the Administration and Senate Democrats supporting the defeat of the amendment.  An Administration spokesman said before the vote that the GOP is only playing politics with the Amendment and pipeline as it will take 'years' before the oil enters the supply in the US to be refined - and affecting gasoline prices.  As noted above, Reid, calls the effort 'jamming the decision down our throats' by not allowing the President to duck the issue during the campaign season.

There is only one party playing politics here.  There is only one party that is putting their political interests ahead of the interests of the American citizens. 

Building the pipeline, increasing domestic oil and gas production, and taking steps to lessen the regulatory burden placed on the energy industry will stimulate economic growth and add jobs.  This will help lower prices - and can be done in an environmentally responsible manner.  But that also requires those to abandon the dogma of man caused global warming and using higher energy costs to redefine behavior of the American consumer / citizen.

The President and Senate Democrats have reinforced to the American consumer where their priorities are regarding energy policy.  Higher prices are acceptable to this Administration - because the end goal - changing behavior to use less - is the ultimate goal of the Administration.  Remember that priority when it comes time to vote in November.

A Story About Climate Change

On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News broadcast, anchor Brian Williams took a look at the warm winter temperatures across most of the continental United States - and in particular, New York City where he broadcasts from most weeknights.

This look brought forward Williams' concern that the warmer than normal January temperatures are just the latest in the examples of the effects of climate change that we are facing.  He then turned the story over to the network's Chief Environmental Affairs correspondent Anne Thompson who proceeded to present a story to add to the climate change alarmism and promotion.

Zombie, the intrepid blogger for PJ Media, has an excellent post that brings forward something that we all need to consider the next time we are inflicted with an individual, a group, a panel, an academic, broadcasters, non-government, or government entity that argues that climate change demands immediate action and solutions...

I just finished reading a terrifying new book about climate change. I learned this:
• Climate change is happening faster than we realize and it will have catastrophic consequences for mankind.

• There’s very little we can do to stop it at this late stage, but we might be able to save ourselves if we immediately take these necessary and drastic steps:

- Increase our reliance on alternative energy sources and stop using so much oil and other carbon-based fuels;

- Adopt energy-efficient practices in all aspects of our lives, however inconvenient;

- Impose punitive taxes on inefficient or polluting activities to discourage them;

- Funnel large sums of money from developed nations like the U.S. to Third World nations;

- In general embrace all environmental causes.

You of course recognize these as the solutions most often recommended to ameliorate the looming crisis of Global Warming. But there’s a little glitch in my narrative. Because although the book I read was indeed about climate change, it wasn’t about Global Warming at all; it was instead about “The Coming of the New Ice Age,” and it isn’t exactly “new” — it was published in 1977.

The real goal and focus from the progressives who are advocating the immediate adoptions of 'solutions' is not to address what is causing the problem.  The cause for them is immaterial.  What is important is the solution - and the implementation of the solution which just so happens to support the progressive / socialistic solution to society which has nothing to do with science and everything to do with power and control for the elite progressives.

It's a perfect example of - when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Or in this case is it when all you have is the hammer and sickle?

BREAKING NEWS - President Obama Says 'NO' to Keystone XL Pipeline - UPDATE

In a stunningly bad decision, but one that was not entirely unexpected as the President has to bow to his hard left environmentalist base, Fox News sources are saying that President Obama will reject the request to build the Keystone XL pipeline which will bring more Canadian oil to the United States.

President's message to Canada and the American people - FU

This decision is irresponsible and wrong on a number of fronts.

With the 'No' decision, the President insults the closest friend and trading partner of the United States.

With the 'No' decision, the President is taking action to not acquire needed oil from a friendly country at favorable prices - locking in our dependence to buy oil from unfriendly nations at prices defined by a cartel.

With the 'No' decision, the President ensures substantially higher energy costs for the American people.

With the 'No' decision, the President turns his back on up to 250,000 direct and indirect jobs being created by the project.

With the 'No' decision, the President has provided China with a new low cost supplier of oil for their economy.

With the 'No' decision, the President has placed party politics and his own re-election ahead of the best interests of the United States.

With the 'No' decision, the President reaffirms his interests to use higher costs and damaging the national economy in order to fulfill his social re-engineering agenda.


Question - Should Canada retaliate in any way towards the snub from President Obama beyond selling their oil to the People's Republic of China?

Or should they just reapply and hope for the best after adding 150km - 200km to the route?

Smoke, Mirrors, Agenda's, and Loons

One of the other contentious provisions in both the House and Senate bills to temporarily extend the temporary Social Security payroll tax reduction involves the Administration's decision to delay making a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline extension to carry more Canadian oil to US refineries along the Gulf Coast. This works against not only the Administration's policies to curb the use of fossil fuels by the United States, but the virulent environmental base of the President which is needed to be on the President's side for his reelection.

Democrat Congressman Hank Johnson, from Georgia, became well known after taking to the floor of the House to express his concern that the island of Guam would capsize into the Pacific Ocean because of overpopulation....

 This loon has now taken to the House Floor to explain why he and his fellow Democrats really oppose the Keystone XL pipeline extension...courtesy of Powerline...

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., protested today on the House floor that the libertarian Koch brothers “control Congress,” arguing that the Republican push for President Obama to approve the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas is motivated by a desire to reward the Koch brothers for financing the Tea Party during the 2010 election.


“The Koch brothers are a secretive brother-brother combination,” said Johnson in a floor speech about the payroll tax cut and the Keystone pipeline legislation. “They’re all involved in the energy business. And they stand to get quite a bit of return on their investment through the 2010 elections, wherein through their front group, Americans for Prosperity, they financed the Tea Party — which is supposed to be grassroots, but actually its a corporate-driven animal; and the financing for that animal comes from the Koch brothers.”

The fact that the Koch Brothers have nothing to do with TransCanada, the company that is seeking to expand the existing pipeline, is entirely lost on this nimrod. Union members, Republicans, and 60% of American's support this effort because it will create jobs, reduces our dependence on oil from the Middle East, and will lower energy costs.

But for the Administration, with its untenable position to appease the watermelon (Green (Environmentalists) / Red (Liberal Fascists)) contingency of its base, they needed some other 'justification' beyond the truth to oppose the pipeline expansion. 

The Administration, as evidenced by their other policies, wishes to continue their efforts towards enacting cap and trade / reduction of fossil fuel use in the US by any means they can.  This means reducing the amount of fossil fuel usage even if that increases the costs to the American consumer in terms of higher gasoline prices, higher heating oil prices, higher electricity costs, and higher costs on goods and services that are impacted by higher energy costs.  The fact that jobs will be lost is also immaterial towards the end result.  The focus of this Administration is not on generating prosperity for America, but rather ensuring the growth and expansion of centralized government control.

Several days ago, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper contacted President Obama to remind the President that Canadian patience over the continued delays by the Obama Administration to make a decision on the plan - and the use of the pipeline as a political football has limits.  Harper let the President know that Canada has other potential customers who are eager to purchase Canadian oil - like the People's Republic of China.  Canada has a strong preference and interest to support it's neighbor and ally, the United States, but if the Obama Administration wants to take steps to piss off another ally (as they have others over the last 3 years), then Canada will have to respond accordingly to the unfriendly act.

This is just another incident and issue that reflects on the Administration's real interest and approach towards governance. The end's justify the means - smoke, mirrors, raving moonbats, and outright lies help achieve these ends.  All of these incidents, actions, and examples of contempt need to be highlighted prior to the November 2012 election.  Otherwise this country will not see it's tricentennial.

More Administration Regulatory Fiat

Today we have two new examples of the Obama Administration's efforts to operate via regulatory fiat in order to enact their version of 'fundamental change'.

The first comes from the National Labor Relations Board.  Just days prior to Democrat NLRB member Craig Becker's recess appointment expires, the 2 Democrat members on the Board slammed through rule (by 2-1 vote, the sole Republican voting to oppose) to define new procedures to govern union elections in the workplace.  The new NLRB rule shortens the time period between the day an employee requests an election to unionize and when that election has to take place.  The new rule will take effect on April 30, 2012.

This rule change had been opposed by the Republicans who see it as a way to make it far easier for unions to enter workplaces.  The House of Representatives has passed a bill to establish via legislation a minimum 35 day election period, but the bill is sitting in the Senate where it is unlikely to get passed by the Democrat majority.

Combining this rule with 'card check', another pro-union initiative supported by the Administration to eliminate secret balloting in these elections, and the Administration will have dramatically simplified the process for unions to enter workplaces across the US.  Rather than undertaking these steps through Congress and the legislative process, the Administration is doing so by the actions of just 2 people and regulatory fiat.

At the end of year, when Craig Becker's recess appointment ends, the NLRB will have three open seats - seats that President Obama is looking to fill either via the nomination process (if the Senate GOP doesn't fillibuster the nominee) or via another round of recess appointments.

The second example comes from our friends at the Environmental Protection Agency.  This afternoon the EPA formally announced regulations that will require power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxins within the next three years.  Targeting specifically power plants that use coal, the rules will force plants to close, electricity rates and compliance costs to skyrocket, and cost jobs across the US in another effort to limit the use of fossil fuels in the US.

“Utility MACT will undermine job creation in the United States in several different ways,” Segal explained. “It will result in retirement of a significant number of power plants and either fail to replace that capacity or replace it with less labor-intensive forms of generation. It will increase the cost of power, undermining the international competitiveness of almost two dozen manufacturing industries, and it will reduce employment upstream in the mining sectors. All told, it is anticipated that the rule will result in the loss of some 1.44 million jobs by 2020. While some jobs are created by complying with the new rule, the number and quality of those jobs is far less than those destroyed. We estimate that for every one temporary job created, four higher-paying permanent jobs are lost.”

The EPA tries to justify the new regulations by claiming the new regulations will save up to 17,000 lives per year - a number that lacks any real scientific basis in fact - much like the 'jobs created or saved' statistic touted by the Administration to support the $800 billion stimulus program. 

Rather than addressing a common-sense and reasonable approach via partnering with the industry towards retiring older plants, retro-fitting plants to leverage clean coal technologies, and actively support the development of viable replacements like constructing new natural gas and nuclear power plants, the Administration through the EPA regulatory process is attempting to achieve cap and trade. This is the policy that it couldn't achieve via the legislative process even though it held a 60-40 vote majority in the Senate and a huge majority in the House. 

It's just another case of the Administration wanting what it wants, and only what it wants, regardless of the real world implications and costs associated with that decision. 

Another $2.1 Billion in Stimulus Dollars Lost with Another Bankrupt Solar Company

The Obama Administration's efforts to pick winners and losers - in addition to providing taxpayer funds via their 'stimulative' efforts to promote their preferred 'winners', has paid "huge dividends" to the US taxpayer as we've seen with Solyndra.

Newsmax is reporting that in addition to the stimulus dollars paid to the bankrupt Solyndra, and other examples of crony capitalism, a German firm, Solar Millennium, received a $2.1 billion stimulus grant for it's US subsidiary to build a new solar plant in Blythe, California.  (Solar Millennium was not the only foreign company to receive US taxpayer funded grants, Spanish solar energy company Abendgoa Solar received $1.45 billion)

CNet has a story today that Solar Millennium entered insolvency proceedings in Germany in order to 'save existing assets'.  The entry into bankruptcy is the latest in a string of major failures that are plaguing the solar energy industry.

In the case of Solar Millennium, it appears that the rapid price drop of solar photovoltaic panels--estimated to be more than 50 percent in the last two years--is the primary cause for its financial shortfall.


The company designs and develops large-scale solar thermal power projects that use reflective troughs to produce heat in areas of abundant direct sunlight. The heat produces steam to drive a traditional electricity turbine.


Solar Millennium earlier this year had to abandon its initial plans to use solar thermal technology at the huge Blythe project in California, which will be 500 megawatts in the first phase. Industry analysts suspected that shift was because solar PV was substantially lower in cost, making it easier to secure financing from investors.

After the initial rush of press on the collapse of Solyndra, to which the Obama Administration provided nearly half a billion dollars, the charges of crony capitalism against the Administration dropped from regular attention.  This is despite the increasingly embarassing connections of Obama campaign donors to companies receiving US taxpayer funds in stimulus grants given by the Adminstration. 

Examples like the dual role of GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt in getting grants from the Administration at the same time he was an contributor and advisor to the Administration on job growth.
Or $510 million in stimulus loans and grants to companies owned by Steve Westly - a money-bundler for the Obama campaign?  Or a half million dollar tax credit given to a company employing the spouse of a former Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy who was responsible for handing out $16 billion in stimulus money?  Or a half billion in grants that went to firms associated with John Doerr, who has donated over $800,000 to Democrats since 2000?

The mainstream media may not want to report on the malfeasance, corruption, and terrible judgment of the Administration particularly entering an election season- but these issues reflect on the President, his policies, and his ethics.

The Corruption of Science & Global Warming

Scientific method is defined as a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.  While the process may differ slightly depending on the discipline or topic, the concept has remained the same.  One of the key figures associated with the development of scientific method, Ibn al-Haytham, placed the emphasis on using scientific method to seek the truth. 

When I consider scientific method and seeking the truth through the use of scientific method, I am always confronted with the contrast of scientific method and the process with which so many academics and scientists assert that our global civilization is on the verge of it's self-destruction because of man-made global warming.  While I fully know that mankind is fully capable of taking his local environment and making it unlivable by his irresponsible actions, there are many elements about man-made global warming that I question.

Under a scientific method analysis, we would define a problem - in this case, several.  One, are global temperatures rising at a consistent trend as to cause a direct threat to the existence of life on Earth.  Two, are these temperature increasing at an unprecedented level and not part of a climatic cycle?  Three, Who or what is directly responsible for the temperature increases - actions of man, nature,  solar conditions, or a combination of all of these?  Fourth, based on the answers to the first three broad questions, what is the conclusion that can be deduced?  Finally, from this conclusion, what solutions are available / possible?

Yet, when I look at how the scientific, academic, and political communities have acted regarding global warming, I see some disturbing trends.  I see an assumption being made and stated as fact that temperatures are rising at an unprecedented pace.  I see another assumption being made and stated as fact that these increases pose an immediate, clear, and present danger to mankind.  I see yet another assumption being made and stated as fact that these increases are the direct action of man's actions and not of nature's or being part of a solar cycle.  Finally, I see, ad nauseum, the solution to the 'threat' being that the wealthiest nations must spend billions or trillions of their wealth towards not only reducing their environmental footprint - but effectively redistribute this wealth to less wealthy nations so they can also afford (?) to lessen their environmental footprint.  After all, as we are told by these scientists, academics, and politicians, like Al Gore, the solution just requires lots and lots of money.  And that is the real item we are talking about.