“Oil and gas” on The Daily Caller

We have established that Obama’s war on coal hinges on the assumption that 100 new nuclear reactors will be built in the U.S. in the next few years. Without the power from those 100 new nuclear reactors, Obama’s plan will cause the lights to go out. You cannot rule out half of our electricity supply and pretend otherwise. (more)

Americans are all too familiar with the ways political instability in oil-rich places like Iraq and Saudi Arabia impacts the price they pay for gasoline and heating oil. This week, amid widespread unrest in Egypt, we’ve gotten a sobering reminder that even countries that are not large oil producers can influence global crude oil prices. Indeed, it is a small and tightly interconnected world when it comes to the politics of oil and gas. (more)

1.) Remember: The five worst reactions to the Loughner shooting — Washington never fails to disappoint. While normal people cry in response to tragedy, the buttinskys on Capitol Hill are attempting to legislate away the pain. The Daily Caller’s Chris Moody rounds up the dumbest of the dumb, from a plan to “encase the entire House and Senate floor with Plexiglass so the tourists can’t throw things at members of Congress,” to a Republican-proposed law that would make it illegal to carry a firearm within 1/5 of a mile “of any ‘high-profile’ public official.” In a lapse of judgment that will go unpublished by his base, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn argued that the FCC–on which his daughter is a commissioner–should bring back the Fairness Doctrine. “You cannot yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that.” And people say Congress doesn’t listen… (more)

To boost confidence among entrepreneurs and investors, America’s political leaders need to send positive, pro-business signals. Members of Congress and President Obama have talked a good game of supporting small business, but the policies of the past two years have been downright hostile. Indeed, it’s time for a major shift in direction. (more)

In a recent address before the National Press Club in Washington, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the United States is in clear danger of losing the “energy race” to China. (more)

The president and many in Congress are using this year’s catastrophe in the Gulf to push for sweeping, unrelated measures that would punish not only the US oil and gas industry but the American economy as a whole. (more)

“Our civilization is not indestructible: it needs to be actively defended” — so said a recent Wall Street Journal article highlighting the “Huntingtonian model” as laid out in the classic work of political science Clash of Civilizations, written by the late Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington. In short, the model contends that “a civilization-based world order is emerging in which states that share cultural affinities will cooperate with each other and group themselves around the leading states of their civilization.” Huntington defines the three main civilizations as Western, Muslim, and Confucian — and the West, according to the model, is declining in power. (more)

While there is a smörgåsbord of Democratic energy bills floating around Congress, the common thread they all share is a yearning to further tax oil and natural gas producers. Expected to be voted on today, H.R. 3534, the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2010 (CLEAR Act) levies a tax of $2 per barrel of oil and 20 cents per million BTU of natural gas. Thursday the House voted on H.R. 5893, the humorously named, Investing in American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, a bill which would tax oil and natural gas producers and raise gas prices for consumers. (more)

Robert Dudley, the man charged with righting BP (BP), won’t sound a retreat. Despite the disastrous blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, BP will plunge even deeper into deepwater exploration. Dudley, who becomes the first American chief executive officer of the British oil giant on Oct. 1, will slim BP to its core strength: the high-risk, high-return search for oil and gas in demanding environments. That’s the same strategy that led to the Gulf spill and turned outgoing CEO Tony Hayward into a pariah. It remains alluring because it can generate large profits for companies that avoid calamity. “The key to this industry is replacing earnings, and BP thinks they know how to do that in deep water,” says J. Robinson West, chairman of consultant PFC Energy in Washington. (more)

The board of BP PLC is negotiating the departure of its embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, according to people familiar with the matter, a bid by the U.K. oil titan to move beyond the Gulf of Mexico disaster that has undercut his three-year effort to remake the company. (more)

Three out of every four lobbyists who represent oil and gas companies previously worked in the federal government, a proportion that far exceeds the usual revolving-door standards on Capitol Hill, a Washington Post analysis shows. (more)

China has at least $2.5 trillion in foreign exchange and must, due to its own balance of payments rules, invest it all overseas. Most unavoidably goes into American bonds, the only market big enough to absorb it.[1] However, since the beginning of 2005, the PRC has invested almost $200 billion in foreign assets outside bonds. Official Chinese data are unhelpful, but The Heritage Foundation’s China Global Investment Tracker sorts non-bond spending by country and sector. The tracker is current through June 30, 2010. (more)

Following the tragic explosion and oil spill that rocked the Gulf coast on April 20, President Obama responded to the crisis by announcing a six-month moratorium on offshore oil drilling in the region. This impetuous response was comparable to that offered by the president and his Democratic colleagues following the mortgage crisis and subsequent credit crunch that struck the American economy and ushered in a phalanx of legislation designed to address its root causes. Each incident evoked a strong reaction from the public, nearing what sociologists refer to as a “moral panic,” and each incident equally saw the president attempt to advance his own legislative priorities throughout the crises. (more)

On Tuesday, President Obama promised in his Oval Office address that the US could end our addiction to imported oil through technological innovation and sheer gumption: (more)

After a White House meeting with BP executives that lasted significantly longer than the twenty minutes initially allotted, President Obama announced that BP had agreed to establish a $20 billion escrow account to pay for claims resulting from the spill at its Deepwater Horizon rig. (more)

President Obama keeps trying to make our electric bills skyrocket. (more)

Washington (CNN) — An effort to plug the ruptured oil well that is spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico may halt the leak when oil giant BP tries it Sunday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday. (more)

As we are still sifting through all of the information about the causes of the tragic Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico, experts are tirelessly working around the clock to contain the spill and clean-up the affected area. Americans rightfully expect all appropriate actions to be taken to move forward and repair the Gulf Coast following this tragic accident – including learning what went wrong to ensure that this never happens again – as we have done in the past and will continue to do in the future. (more)

Sen. Byron Dorgan, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, has been waging a lonely battle to enable Indian tribes across the country to develop what could be vast gas, coal and oil resources on their lands. Standing in the way of Senator Dorgan—and the Indian tribes—are a huge series of uneconomic and anachronistic laws and regulations that taken together render Indian lands disadvantaged compared to state or private land. At a time when we are desperately seeking domestic energy sources, this situation badly needs to be remedied. (more)

Last Friday I traveled to the Gulf Coast area affected by the oil spill caused by the April 20 explosion on the ultra-deep-water exploratory oil rig, Deepwater Horizon. The most dreadful consequence of this tragedy is the loss of life—of the 126 men and women on board the rig, 11 perished. Oil is now leaking into the Gulf at rates currently estimated at 5,000 barrels per day, and thousands of men and women have been working around the clock to get the spill under control. (more)