Interesting Items
Alex Gimarc
[email protected]
Monday May 30, 2011
Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
1. Ethanol
2. EPA on Frac
3. NY 26
4. Coastal Management
1. Ethanol. Yet another opportunity presents itself to conservative
candidates for federal office – that of repealing clean air mandates leading to
the requirement to burn ethanol as part of our vehicular fuels. This has
constricted the supply of corn into the food chain, jacking up food prices
worldwide, and triggering in no small part the Arab uprisings. Ethanol does a
number on internal combustion engines and is not efficient as a liquid fuel,
cutting 15% or so from my vehicle’s MPG each winter. Ethanol subsidies steer
large quantities of dollars from the Treasury into the hands of corporate
farmers, serving to skew both the energy marketplace and the price of foods.
Over the course of the last couple weeks, elimination of ethanol subsidies has
started turning into a seminal issue in the early campaign. If we want to fix
the government created, artificial energy problem here in the US, among the
first thing we need to do is eliminate
all green energy subsidies and mandates. Eliminating the ethanol subsidy and
requirement is merely the first step toward a rational energy policy. Tim
Pawlenty last week told voters in Iowa that he would eliminate ethanol
subsidies and mandates if elected. The room was silent afterwards. This will
likely hurt him in Iowa, but will please a lot of other people in many, many
other states. Palin also supports elimination of ethanol mandates and
subsidies. She takes it further, calling for repeal and elimination of all
energy subsidies, which is the correct call. Mitt Romney on the other hand,
supports the ethanol mandate and subsidies, demonstrating that he has not a
clue about how to fix the energy problem. This is not that difficult. Simply
get the feds the H___ out of the marketplace. Chris Christie (R, NJ) is
supposed to be “visiting” Iowa this week. Last weekend he was reportedly
agreed with the notion of manmade global
warming and the need for the feds to take steps to mitigate it. Expect him to
also support Ethanol mandates and subsidies which logically fall out of
embracing the notion of manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide
emissions. In doing this, Christie demonstrates he does not understand the
problem.
2. EPA on Frac. The latest cause célèbre out of the anti-oil and anti natural
gas greens (redundant) is an attempt to get the EPA to outlaw the use of
hydraulic fracturing of oil and natural gas formations as a way to enhance
production out of wells. Fracing has been used for decades and is a stable
technology and industry standard approach. A quick description is that a well
is drilled and lined with pipe. A perforation gun is lowered into the depth of
the well where the formation contains oil or natural gas and is fired. The gun
creates fractures in the formation. The more surface area open, the better the
well produces. After the perf a frac job is done. This pumps a mixture of
gels and specially designed sand into the well and once filled, pressurizes the
well and thumps the column over a period of time, forcing the sand into cracks
in the formation, opening them wider and keeping them open. The anti-frac
greens want to make the
gel mixture illegal under the Clean Water Act. They are furiously attempting
to make the case that that fracing any formation will end up putting oil and or
natural gas into the local water table, which usually sits thousands of feet
above the oil / natural gas reservoir. The little game they are playing is
that reservoirs are not completely impervious and there is usually a little bit
of leakage – which is one of the ways we find oil and natural gas. Do a search
for the term oil seep for more information. Another fluid pumped down wells is
diesel. An additional little game the EPA has recently played using the excuse
of the Clean Air Act is to prohibit pumping diesel underground. This does not
pass the laugh test, as they are prohibiting reintroducing a refined
hydrocarbon back into a well and formation that contains unrefined
hydrocarbon. It is a bit like prohibiting putting clean water back into a
river. This is all a long way to
get to the hearing in the House last week in which EPA Administrator Lisa
Jackson stated that:
“I’m not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has
affected water, although there are investigations ongoing,”
She does leave room for herself to reverse her position, but this is perhaps
the most honest thing out of the EPA for decades. Source: Hot Air, Thurs.
3. NY 26. The fake Tea Party candidate combined with a lackadaisical
Republican candidate managed to throw a comfortably conservative House seat in
NY to a democrat last week in a special election. The district voted for
McCain in 2008. The democrat won by 5% and the fake Tea Party candidate who
had run several previous elections as a democrat got 9%. In the campaign, the
democrat ran a relentless series of MediScare ads, accusing the Republican of
doing everything to send the elderly down the Sweeney Todd hospice chute. The
Republican ran a defensive campaign and did not respond or embrace a
conservative message. Instead she assumed she would be elected because she was
the Republican. The State Run media and Obamaoids immediately jumped on this
outcome as an example of what they were going to be able to do next year.
Limbaugh had the best take on the election, reminding Republicans that they
were not elected in 2010 because they were
Republicans. They were elected because they were not democrats and they were
the most conservative candidates running in each particular race. Conservatism
wins. Mushy moderation does not. And it was the Pelosi – Reid congress
coupled with Obama’s signature on ObamaCare that most recently destroyed
Medicare, which was already going bankrupt. Republicans in the House propose
to make it solvent and those changes do not touch anyone on Medicare today.
Everything out of the democrats on this is a lie. All you have to do is point
this out.
4. Coastal Management. In yet another knife fight between the
democrat-dominated Alaska Senate and Republican-led Alaska House, the coastal
management program died last month. The program was a federally-supported
effort to integrate the needs of all players with anything having to do with
coastal and offshore development and use. Since Alaska has over 44,000 miles
of coastline and substantial offshore fishing and oil / natural gas resources,
this is a pretty big deal. The basic dispute is over who is in charge? Who
gets the ultimate veto? The House views that decision to reside with the State
of Alaska. The democrat-led senate wanted to give local communities – the vast
majority of which are in Bush Alaska – the veto, essentially turning the
program into yet another way to funnel protection money into Bush coastal
communities. Most recently, Kaktovik managed to destroy a years’ worth of
exploration in the Chukchi Sea off the
North Slope via a complaint on a clean air permit. The industry is thick with
stories of local companies proposing work to the major corporations; getting
turned down; and then legal challenges to environmental permits filed. The
permitting process has been turned into a protection racket by our neighbors in
the Bush. Democrats in the senate along with the two RINOs hoped to ensconce
it into law. We can tell that something serious is afoot, as we have seen
multiple heart-rending columns from local leftists decrying loss of state
control of its resources to the feds. We never, ever hear this sort of thing
out of the left unless they stand to lose something serious, which is what
caused my ears to perk right up at the controversy. The senate was the body
that picked this fight, defunding the existing program early in the most recent
legislative session. There were two versions of the legislation passed out of
the House that went to a
conference committee. A version came out of conference with a verbal
agreement from the senate to move it. Unfortunately a senator from the Bush
reneged on that agreement and took to rewriting the legislation; which the
House refused to participate in. His colleagues in the senate did not see fit
to hold to their agreement with the House to move the legislation after it came
out of conference. This issue will come up next session in January 2012 and
that session will be an election year. I predict ugliness with no small amount
of yelling.
More later -
- AG
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better
than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not
your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your
chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our
countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia
State House, August 1, 1776.
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