Fracky Friday

The Department of Energy says that fracking did not contaminate drinking water in Pennsylvania.

A landmark federal study on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, shows no evidence that chemicals from the natural gas drilling process moved up to contaminate drinking water aquifers at a western Pennsylvania drilling site, the Department of Energy told The Associated Press.

After a year of monitoring, the researchers found that the chemical-laced fluids used to free gas trapped deep below the surface stayed thousands of feet below the shallower areas that supply drinking water, geologist Richard Hammack said. Although the results are preliminary — the study is still ongoing — they are a boost to a natural gas industry that has fought complaints from environmental groups and property owners who call fracking dangerous.

And the Brits, in a fit of good sense and economic logic, aim to encourage the revolutionary technology of fracking in their oil and gas sectors by lowering taxes on shale gas producers.

The UK government has announced large tax breaks for shale gas producers in the country, as part of a consultation on a proposed tax regime for shale gas.

HM Treasury stated Friday that companies will have to pay a profit of just 30 percent on any shale gas they produce in the UK, compared to the current 62 percent tax that is levied on hydrocarbons produced by conventional means on the UK Continental Shelf. This "pad" allowance for shale gas is based on existing field allowance for oil and gas production that are expected to help encourage nearly $21 billion of investment in 2013, according to the department.

Water Water Everywhere, But Will Chavez Allow a Drink?

I like to highlight on this blog anytime an oil & gas exploration company finds a big-ass shitload of 'hydrocarbon resources'. I like to do this to stick it to the Peak Oilers, the greens and the luddites who moan all the time that "we can't drill our way out of our energy problems." Um, yes we can, and for a very long time to come. Frankly, though it's getting old. Big discoveries are coming at a fast and furious pace (the consequence of almost a decade of serious drilling - most countries love drilling, and the one country that matters that doesn't like drilling, had a Texas oil man in the White House for eight years) that it has become so routine.

But today brings news of a massive discovery with an interesting twist. The discovery is of natgas and it is a monster - something like 7-8 trillion cubic feet. And it is in Venezuela. I know what you're thinking - 'Great, more petro-wealth for sociopathic communist nutball Hugo Chavez!' Not so fast. This almost certainly doesn't mean instant wealth and power for the Bolivarian Bozo and it might actually be bad for Chavez. This is a classic example of Dan Yergin's claim the the principal risks in the energy business are above ground.

Let's start the analysis with the basics. OK, the gas is there, but how do you get it out? Offshore natural gas extraction is incredibly expensive and technologically demanding. Not every O&G company is good at it and very few companies have the massive capital resources required to secure the extraction equipment and build out the infrastruture needed to get the gas to market. Sure, state-owned energy companies like PDVSA have large resources, but Chavez has turned PDVSA into a basketcase by purging talent and skimping on reinvestment. There is no way that PDVSA could undertake gas extraction on such a large scale on its own. It would need outside help. Can Repsol do it? Unlikely. The majors - Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP - are really the only players to have taken on massive offshore natgas projects. Many of these companies have gotten the shaft from ole' Hugo recently as have numerous, smaller oil service players. Needless to say, there will not be a stampede of capable players beating a path to Hugo's door to tap this big gas play. His only hope is Asia, but even if Japan (long shot) or China are willing to pony up the billions needed for investment, they will still have to hire some outside help. I doubt any oil service firm is going to do business with PDVSA, so some other entity, like a CNOOC, will have to be in charge of the project, depriving Chavez of the opportunity for patronage and graft.

The next sticking point is what do you do with the gas once it is out of the ground. The domestic economy in Venezuela is on its knees and could not possibly provide adequate demand for that much gas, nor could it support prices that would make the investment economical. Chavez is already tapped out on subsidizing his economy; so either he has to create demand by investing further billions into petrochemical plants, an option which suffers from that same "I've already screwed everybody" problem (who's going to build a multi-billion $ petrochemical complex on Venezuelan soil given the current political situation there?) or he has to send that gas abroad. Essentially that means it has to be compressed into LNG and put on boats. That's several more billions for the gasification infrastruture and those nifty boats. And then he'll have to get off that pesky shipping black list.

Having pissed off the global energy industry, all Chavez really brings to the table is the real estate. To get this project done, he'll need some very gullible and very deep pocketed partners, but they just don't exist. The gullible don't have deep pockets and the deep pockets aren't gullible anymore. If he gets a partner, it is likely to be the Chinese and they won't allow themselves to get ripped off, so they'll be in control. Chavez will become just another ward of the Chinese state's energy strategy. You don't go around rattling your sword and stirring up the pot when you're hosting tens of billions of $ in Chinese state property - you shut up and keep the factory running. This is not how Chavez operates, he would have to change his stripes or the partnership will crash.

Furthermore this is not a clear homerun for Chavez even if he can find a partner. If anybody does invest in tapping this big natgas find, it will almost certainly be with an eye toward the post-Chavez era. You don't want your investors yearning for the day you are gone.

Finally there are the people of Venezuela. They know what living standards are around the world in nations with huge energy deposits. If they see Chavez failing to make use of the country's resources because he has cut himself off from the civilized world, they will demand leadership that can.

For Chavez this could be an embarassment of riches.

Gas Tax Holiday: Bad Policy, But Good Thing

The gas tax holiday proposed by both Hillary Clinton and John McCain has entered MSM hell where bad analysis and soundbyte journalism wreck any and all reasonable discussion. You know where I stand - any transfer of resource allocation to private hands from government hands is good - and GMU economist Bryan Caplan is OK with the idea too. Well, Instapundit has dug up a gas tax holiday that Obama supported ("Score One for Obama", indeed). And, to be intellectually honest, why shouldn't he? Consumers and voters want it. They see their gas taxes as too high and they know that gas taxes feed inefficient at best, and corrupt at worst, government spending on an enormous scale. While economists and analysts dub the holiday "bad policy" that is not the same as a "bad thing". Sure it is bad policy - any temporary change to tax policy is by definition bad policy, which ought to have a high degree of certainty; and, it doesn't do anything to solve deeper structural problems that cause high gas prices. But that doesn't mean the holiday is a bad thing. Buying the stuff we use cheaper is a good thing. Only an academic economist would tell you that it is not. Here in New York City, we were losing retail business to New Jersey and their tax-free enterprise zones just a train ride away, so we tested out several tax holidays in which clothing and shoes were exempt from city sales taxes. People loved it so much the state also dropped it's sales tax levy. The program was such a success, now there is no city or state sales tax on clothing and shoes under $110. That my friends, is what so many politicians and elites fear - that a gas tax holiday will prove so successful that voter demand for it to become permanent will increase. Think of all the power that would be taken away from politicians and global warming alarmists if they lost the power to tax your fuel consumption. They fear giving you a taste of gas purchases without tax for fear that you might actually like it - and it is they, not you, that know what is good for you.

Anti-Fracker Takes the Money, Agrees to Drilling on Farm

Former anti-fracking activist leases her farm for drilling.

Two years ago, Denise Dennis delivered a dramatic denunciation of Marcellus Shale natural gas development at a Philadelphia City Council hearing. She equated drilling to the tobacco industry, and said that "Pennsylvanians are the lab rats" for a massive shale gas experiment.
The Philadelphia resident had a powerful story: Her family owned a historic 153-acre farm in Susquehanna County, where her ancestors were among the first freed African Americans to settle in Pennsylvania just after the Revolutionary War. She became a potent symbol in the shale gas wars.

"The process for extracting natural gas from shale is as dirty as coal mining," she testified to thunderous applause at the 2010 council meeting.

"Wow," said Councilman Curtis Jones Jr., who sponsored the hearing.
But Dennis' fervor has subsided in the last two years, undone by the financial need of preserving her family's deteriorating historic farm, and by the salesmanship of the Cabot Oil & Gas Corp.

Last week Dennis signed a lease allowing the Houston company to extract the shale gas beneath her family's farm, which the National Trust for Historic Preservation has called a "rare and highly significant African American cultural landscape."

"I decided to stop demonizing the industry and to start negotiating with individuals," said Dennis. "I had to be realistic."

The reality was that most of the surrounding landowners had leased their mineral rights, and gas drilling was going to proceed with or without the Dennis farm.  "We were an island in a sea of leased land," she said. "As I saw it, the drilling companies were now my neighbors, and it was better to get along with them than to be antagonistic."

Hard to say whether she capitulated and just took the money or has had a change of heart about the risks of fracking the social cost/benefits.  Either way, there's one less anti-fracking voice out there - just in time for Matt Damon's anti-fracking agitprop movie to hit the screens.

US Economy In Lilliput

Larry Kudlow went on a beauteous rant last night (video here, synopsis here) and he is right. Our government is holding business back in almost every dimension - tax policy, antitrust policy, regulatory policy, energy costs, labor policy, and, by their behavior in the auto company takeovers, they have even shaken the faith in the rock solid rule of law that investors and businesses took for granted. The landscape for the business world looks just dreadful - and much of it just doesn't make sense. Here's just one example of the numerous Lilliputian ropes that the government is lashing the US economy down with. We extract natural gas in many cases using an advanced technology called hydraulic fracturing. This technology has made some massive (and I mean massive) natural gas shale deposits economically recoverable. Natural gas is cleaner than oil and it is a domestic source. Tapping our massive shale gas deposits with this technology ought to serve the dual goals of substituting cleaner energy sources for dirtier energy and reducing our reliance on imported energy. This is great, right? We should encourage this, no? Not so fast. The feds are going after hydraulic fracturing. They want to ban it. Ban it! This would take trillions of cubic feet of clean, domestic natural gas off the books (mean make them unrecoverable). That's just one example.

The effort to stymie business activity in this country is happening at almost every level, large and small. The bleeding is coming from open sores as well as a thousand small cuts. That this is all happening at the same time, so comprehensively might even prompt conspiratorial thoughts. If I had to design a policy approach that would bring the US economy into an effective state of hibernation, what we are experiencing today is exactly what I would design. There is simply no way - no way - the economy can turn around in this environment. We need the current policy trajectory altered or we will not get out of the ditch. Other than a big moderation of the current zeal to tax, regulate and stymie business activity from the current ruling crowd, the only hope is a sweeping roster change of those who hold so much sway over the rules of the road for the economy. I sense little hope for the former. The only thing I see on the horizon that could potentially change the game for the economy is the 2010 mid-terms elections. Gridlock would be a great outcome. Better yet, we could have a slaughter of the incumbents and significantly reset the mentality and character of the lawmaking body of this country and get some common sense approaches to the economy that actually understands that we have to help, encourage and ease the way for business activity. Still, that means rough sledding ahead through late 2010.

UPDATE: Huh, whaddaya know...Exxon announces a big ass shale gas success in...Canada. Canada wants to find energy, they want Exxon there investing and creating jobs and they act like it. And guess what, Exxon is there finding energy, investing and creating jobs. Go bloody figure.

Sausage Factory Brilliant Idea #1,037: Higher Gas Taxes

What was arguably one of the most demogogued domestic issues of the last few years? What have politicians railed, caterwauled, moaned, shrieked, lamented and bewailed over incessantly the last few hot political seasons? Yup. High. Gas. Prices.

Aren't gas prices high in large part due to enormous taxation levels and a patchwork of fuel standard regulations? Yup.

Isn't it widely speculated that high gas prices could be a factor in slowing or reducing consumer spending thereby causing the US economy to go into recession? Yup.

Wasn't the recent transportation bill, whose projects are funded by gas taxes, decried as the sine qua non of wasteful and corrupt government spending and surely partly responsible for Congress's all-time low approval ratings? Yup.

Despite all this, are politicians still planning to massively raise the taxes you pay on gas? YUP.

UPDATE: The Pigou Club is ecstatic because Big Business, who inhabit Incumbistan and only really fear the real capitalists of Small Business, is on board. For those new to the debate - why you should reject the membership in the Pigou Club is here.

UPPDATE: Maybe the correct policy response is to launch a Jeffesonian military offensive against the modern day Barbary pirates of MEND in Nigeria.

Second Stimulus (and a Self Back Pat)

Back in August I was talking about a second stimulus for the economy. No, not the putative one talked about in the Great Sausage Factory, but the one coming from falling gas prices. I said a 50 cent reduction in gas prices meant about a $6 billion stimulus per month. Naturally, that's $72 billion per year. Turns out, we've seen gas prices drop $1.10. By my numbers then, that's $158.4 billion in annual savings to consumers. Mark Perry of Carpe Diem Blog, says it could be $188 billion. (Please note, DB's estimate is smack dab in the middle of Perry's range, and he's a professional economist. Not bad for a guy in his jammies, huh?) Furthermore, we appear to be crashing through $3.00 per gallon. If this is accurate, we're at $2.98, so tack on anther $6.8 billion. If we get back to $2.80 where we were just one year ago (and why wouldn't we?), throw another $30.8 billion onto the ole' camp fire, for a total of $225 billion. The checks the government mailed out in 2008 totaled something like $152 billion. That doesn't mean the economy won't be bad, but that is real money set to work exactly where and how it oughta be - in all of our hands for us to do with it as we will. No academic economist's mumbo-jumbo about "marginal propensity to consume" and no political mumbo-jumbo about "targeted" stimulus. Just plain ole' wide open, unfettered stimulus.

UPDATE: So the Baseball Family roadster hit the highways and byways this weekend, and we discovered gas at $2.73 per gallon in New Jersey, which is not known as a cheap gas mecca (unless you live in NY). Bloomberg reports that $50 crude options have soared and OPEC is scrambling to stem the slide (Iran and Venezuela are sweating profusely). The second stimulus is likely to blow through the $300 billion mark with any further declines.

Second Stimulus

A while back I said that gas prices could moderate, maybe not to low levels, but to merely reasonable levels. I just got back from a vacation in which I, the lovely Mrs. Baseball, and our adorable Baseball munchins took the family roadster on a 1,800 mile jaunt to points south and back. Of course, here in New York gas prices stink but as we travelled south the pain at the pump was, well, not really all that painful. We got into $3.40 territory and I think I paid an average of $3.65. Not great, but that won't land you in a Hooverville. So what happens if we hold the line at a reasonable level or even slide a bit lower? The demise of the big truck era might be a bit overblown. In fact, this story hints that I may have been on to something. Most likely, price cutting and sub-$3.50 gas are working in combination. Obviously no one is talking about it, but the impact of this slide in gas prices could be that second stimulus package that our betters in Congress were talking about for a spell. For every month that gas is at $3.50 instead of $4.00 it is roughly equivalent to a $6 billion stimulus.

Go Long Ford, Short Oil

It is always good to have a few reliable contrary indicators to supplement or confirm your own thoughts on a particular subject. Like the CIA. They don't think Iran is making nuclear weapons, so you can pretty much bet that they are. On the economy, there's Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley. When he's a bear on the US, go long the US.

Today brings news of GM's massive corporate bet on persistant high gas prices. GM is my contrary indicator for smart management moves. So I am betting on a moderation in gas prices over the next several years. Five years hence, gas prices may not be low, but they could quite likely be merely reasonable. Although it looks bad now for gas prices, there is a logical scenario for lower prices. Even so, logical scenarios hardly ever play out according to script. It will be rogue or unforeseen developments that are likely to carry the day if gas prices do moderate over the next several years. Black (Gold) Swan anyone?

Although, good call on GM's part to kill the Hummer. I defer to no man in my appreciation for the blessed gift that is hydrocarbon technology and they will have to pry my cold dead hands off my SUV's steering wheel, but the Hummer was an atrocity, an assault on the senses, an offense to decorousness. Good riddance.

Gas Prices DO Hurt

I think Mark Perry is great and I get his point here, macro-wise, but micro-wise, gas prices hurt.

An Instapundit reader notes this. Fine. I've been all over the data here at NBfPB and I do field research...I drove from Yonkers, NY to Snowshoe, WV and back this past week so I can tell you the prevailing gas prices in six states! $3.90 is pretty good, the best I found was $3.75 for 87 octane at a high volume rest stop in NJ. Plus, my little vacation reminded me that most people actually drive to work, and if you are living on the edge of economic stability and survival, which many of the people of, say, West Virginia where I was, are, the difference between $3 gas and $4+ gas is huge - you have to work meaningfully longer just to make driving to and from work a winning proposition! Horrible.

The Democrats generally, and the Obamacrats in particular, are the phoniest MFers in the world; they putatively stand for the little guy when their green energy religious faith-based policies are kicking the little guy in the teeth, while enriching their elitist, fat-cat-albeit-Democrat friends.

UPDATE: Ouch. Diesel went nearly 10 cents against us this past week and regular mogas went .13 cents the wrong way...did I say "Ouch"? And it was worse in the midwest. Good thing the midwest has no swing states or anything...

UPPDATE: Whoops.

The Hits (To Your Wallet) Just Keep On Comin'

Ouch. Last week was a bad one for us on the gas price front. Nationally, we took it on the chin for almost 9 cents per gallon, the midwest got whalloped for 13 cents. You heard it here first. Here is a question. What will the tens of thousands - and it will be tens of thousands - of bulldozers, front-end loaders and dump trucks that will be clearing the debris of entire Japanese cities that were washed away in the tsunami run on for the tens of millions of engine hours - and it will be tens of millions - during the clean up? Gas. Or diesel to be more specific. Can this spike in demand be met without prices for gas going up dramatically here in the US? Doubtful. Can this spike in demand be met without gas prices going up with most of our Gulf Coast oil industry idle? Not a chance. This is just the beginning. Gas is going up.

The Consumer is Tapped Out...No, for REAL This Time

Just as gas prices are falling, providing a more positive outlook for consumer spending in the upcoming all-important shopping season, Bloomberg is still pimping the gas price wrecks the economy meme. In what is an atrociously bad article titled "Credit Card Users, Hurt at Pump, May Sap Retail Sales", Bloomberg introduces you to Sandra Cuevas, a Queens, NY woman who has racked up $25,000 in credit card debt. In a display of either enormously disingenous journalism or sheer stupidity, the reporter, Andrea Cheng, links energy prices with this woman's woes. There is no earthly possibility that Ms. Cuevas from Queens could have racked up $25,000 in credit card debt due to the high gas prices we have experienced for the last six to twelve months. Only Ms. Cuevas's sad profligacy could have achieved that feat.

Cheng does admit that gas prices are falling, but notes that they are higher than 2004. Yes, but so what? That was two years ago, all that anybody is concerned about is comparisons with last year. The article then goes on to make some mildly acceptable assertions that credit card balances have increased and that it presents a risk to the consumer outlook (despite the fact that carried credit card balances have been on an upward trend for many years as more and more of what we buy everyday is now able to be bought via credit card). Finally, after presenting us with dueling analysts and after inserting the de rigeur worn out and heretofore inaccurate phrase "the consumer is tapped out", we get this stunner - Sandra Cuevas has paid off all of her credit card debt! Apparently times have been so bad, wot with gas prices and all, that Ms. Cuevas found the money to expunge her debts. What's more, it would seem then that this Queens shopaholic has dry powder going into the holiday season. Hmmm. Might be time to buy retail stocks.

Gas Price Update

Gas prices have been going the wrong way recently, the last three weeks have been somewhat ugly. We are already back to $4 here in New York state for mid-grade gas. This is a big anti-stimulant to the economy. Watch this space, it will be very easy for some Republican Super PAC to say, 'while you're paying $4 for gas, Obama has been shoveling tens of billions to now-bankrupt green energy fantasies...that are run by his cronies. Have a nice day."

Gas Price Update

Gas numbers just out. Another bad week in a succession of bad weeks, nationally gas prices went .04 in the wrong direction - some areas saw worse - and diesel went nearly .09 cents against us with a .10 hit in the Midwest. Ouch.

I filled up this weekend and couldn't help notice that regular gas was touching $4 and premium grades were as high as $4.25 in my neck of the woods. Looking at crude oil lately, it doesn't look as if we'll get a break soon. We're closing in on $120. Remember, $140 broke the back of the consumer in 2008 and was a much bigger part of the recession than people give credit for. We are flirting with danger here and this is a big vulnerability for the Lightworker.

Malaysia Announces Hydrocarbon Bonanza

Yesterday it was Mexico, today it is Malaysia announcing a ginormous hydrocarbon find.

Malaysia is one step closer to strengthening its position as an Asia's liquefied natural gas powerhouse with the discovery of two major gas reserves offshore Sarawak.

State-backed Petronas said in a statement emailed to Rigzone Monday that it has made two major gas discoveries, which combined could contain over 4 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas reserves, at the Kuang North and Tukau Timar fields.

Now might be a good time to remind people that I predicted the end of Global Warming Climate Change as a policy movement.  There have always been two paths under which the crusade was always destined to die: 1) the science behind the crusade would be revealed as fraudulent, and/or 2) the policy prescriptions offered up by the crusaders would be so destructive and distasteful to most nation-states that the entire agenda would be rejected out of hand.  I have always thought that number two would be the actual downfall of the movement (although as John Hinderaker points out today, the scientific crash might not be far behind).  Climate change policy is nearly diametrically opposed to most nations' core interests (outside of those nations whose sole interest is extracting payments from richer nations). Malaysia's announcement today (and Mexico's) adds to the ever-mounting evidence that this is so.

Hydrocarbon Cornucopia

Major natural gas discovery off of Mozambique.

"We estimate this new complex, which is located entirely within the Offshore Area 1 block, holds 10 to 30-plus trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of incremental recoverable natural gas resources," said Daniels.

This is an absolute shitload of gas.  Couple finds like this with the fracking revolution going on here in the U.S. and the world is looking more and more awash in clean-burning natural gas.

Boehner & Co. Best Be Focusin' On Energy...

Is the insanely stupid, idealogically driven drilling moratorium starting to bite? Last week was a bad week for gas prices, up 2.1% nationally, just under a third of the total rise from a year ago. Who knows where to lay the blame, Ben Bernanke sure isn't helping, but my feeling is that both Obama's moratorium and Bernanke's QE2 are starting to bite. It's a wonder gas prices have only increased this much, which tells me that more is coming, as we've discussed - no secret here. Cold weather could bite too as heating oil stocks appear to be inadequate.

While much of this is out of his control, Obama has baked himself a turd pie with what portion is within his control. Republicans ought to be careful too, when energy costs start to bite, people are just going to get angrier. News that the deficit commission is thinking about a new gas tax is a huge political backfire for the political class of all stripes. If I were John Boehner, I'd be doing anything I could to get energy flowing again - removing regulatory hurdles, gumming up anything that Obama's EPA wants to do, even going so far as to propose reduced taxes anywhere possible on the chain from drill bit to gas pump. The new Republican house majority shouldn't want to be caught on the wrong side of rising consumer energy prices, so better get some ideas flowing and votes teed up PDQ. Inaction will be quite costly.

Is Mankiw One of the 'Obamicans' We've Been Hearing About

Pigou-obsessed economist Greg Mankiw's blog is the source of front page news as Reuters uses Mankiw's musings in the lead paragraph to tout Barack Obama. "Score One for Obama" gushes Reuters using Mankiw's words. I'm not sure Mankiw intended that much praise of Obama, who merely failed to offer up a policy that Mankiw disagrees with rather than actively propose a decent policy. Still it was enough for Reuters to relish the linking of a former Bush advisor to a pro-Obama theme. Although, what I can't figure out is where this quote comes from: "In light of the side effects associated with driving ... gasoline taxes should be higher than they are, not lower." It comes right after the sentence that indicates who Mankiw is and what he wrote, so it seems pretty clear that the report intends us to believe that Mankiw said it. But if you go to the actual blog post, he wrote no such thing. Yet this clearly sounds like something he would say, so maybe Reuters called him up so he could provide his climatological expertise - because that is what this is, Mankiw validating the speculative theory of anthropogenic global warming and its presumed negative consequences. Mankiw may be getting the economics right, but if you make a correct economic judgement based on false assumptions about underlying conditions, the consequences can be disastrous. History is littered with these examples.

Let me offer an alternative view. Mobility makes us both more efficient and happier. Reducing the price of mobility increases our efficiency and thus our standard of living, as well as our happiness and desire to maintain and increase that standard of living. Without the artificially increased cost of mobility due to gas taxes, the true level and price of mobility would find equilibrium. Over time we would have exactly the amount of infrastructure needed to provide that amount of mobility, as opposed to now where we have infrastructure added (bridges to nowhere) or restricted (refineries) based on the political process funded by gas taxes. Mankiw seems to be arguing in favor of this sort of inefficiency. Why? Because he's bought into a scientific theory that he is not trained to evaluate properly.

I am not a fan of the McCain gas tax holiday because it is temporary and thus does not impact long term incentives, but for what it is, it represents one ever so small shift of resource allocation from the government to private citizens; and no matter how small or fleeting, that is better than were it not to happen.

UPDATE: Bryan Caplan seems to agree with me. The gas tax holiday isn't a bad idea, it's just not a terribly good one. What were people expecting, a fantastic, silver bullet of an idea that would cure our energy shortage (and that is what it is plain and simple) overnight?

Obama Administration: Gingrich Lying to Say Gas Prices Could Be Back at Levels Last Seen in Obama's First Year in Office

So the White House suggested that Newt Gingrich is lying by claiming to have a plan to get gas back to $2.50/gallon. Forget about the substance of Gingrich's claim for a second, should the White House be allowed to get away with dismissing the claim as a lie? Is $2.50 gas a distant memory, a relic of a world we will never see again? Hardly. Gas was last at $2.50/gallon in July of 2009 (you can download the data here, go to tab "Data 3", cell B986.) So, according to the Obama administration, we cannot return to a situation that prevailed less than three years ago? Why? They should say why because their dismissal doesn't pass the smell test. It all reeks of more arrogance from the administration and more reliance on a complicit media to give Obama a pass to me.

Get It On, Rex T.

Kudos to my fellow ExxonMobil shareholders for slapping down all of these silly shareholder proposals aimed to weaken ExxonMobil and for rebuking the busybody Rockefeller trust fund babies.

Here is an example of the distorted and shoddy reporting on the ExxonMobil shareholders meeting. It is about what you'd expect from the Canadian press. The first error, born of bias, comes right in the title "ExxonMobil CEO take aim at environmentalists". Truth is that environmentalists have taken aim at Exxon. They picked this fight. Tillerson is simply defending his company, which is his job. We don't have to wait too long for the second error, which this time is merely the result of shoddy journalism, for it comes in the first sentence. "Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest oil-and-gas company, came out swinging Wednesday..." ExxonMobil is not the world's largest oil and gas company. Not even close. It is the largest privately held oil and gas company, meaning the largest oil and gas company to allow such open and vigorous debate regarding its role in the industry and even in society. National Iranian Oil and Saudi Aramco, not so much.

Good work Rex. Now let's get it on.