Walker's backward Fossil Fuel Energy Policy Killing the Return of Manufacturing in Wisconsin!!!

There's a reason why Scott Walker's Wisconsin isn't seeing a manufacturing Renaissance; his big oil pals are getting rich overcharging big business. I know, crazy right? Esquire Magazine's Charles Pierce explains Walker this way:

Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin.

Walker's embarrassing AG lapdog Brad Schimel wrote an opinion piece recently in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He claimed...

As one of the top manufacturing states in the country, Wisconsin has much to lose if the Obama administration succeeds in its plan to destroy the viability of clean-coal electric generation. Manufacturing jobs in our state depends on affordable and reliable electric power. Because of the degree to which our state economies rely on manufacturing jobs, we will be disproportionately affected by the president's so-called "Clean Power Plan."

An outrageous lie the press failed to followup on.

Electricity rates paid by businesses and residents of Wisconsin now rank highest among eight Midwest states ... The analysis was released at a time when one of We Energies' largest customers, Charter Steel of Saukville, is raising concerns about the utility's rates and a power plant construction program that has left We Energies with more power than its own customers need.

The fact is, the states biggest manufacturers are getting pummeled with high utility rates, ending any chance they'll expand in Wisconsin. There's not peep coming out of the Walker administration, because they're in the pocket of big oil and energy. Look what he's done to the PSC. The rhetorical stall tactics have run their course:

Charter says We Energies has been telling customers for years to be patient because rates in surrounding states will catch up...

But that hasn't happened. In fact, the price difference is getting worse due to We Energies over expansion, which comes in at twice the planned required reserve:

Wisconsin exceeds the 7.1 percent planning reserve requirement set by MISO for 2016. Wisconsin’s planning reserve margin for the 2016-2022 period is between 14.2 and 17.5 percent.

Just as bad, the big cuts to "Focus on Energy" will kill whatever advantage we had:

An analysis of the state's energy situation found that residential electric bills in Wisconsin actually rank below the Midwest average, because customers here are using far less power on average than those in other nearby states ... nearly $8 a month below the average of all eight Midwest states ... Energy efficiency and the conservation program  Focus on Energy have helped keep average Wisconsin residential usage flat over the last two decades," said the report, 

But Walker couldn't help but mess that up too....

Wisconsin's electric utilities back the bill, which would cut funding for the Focus on Energy program by $7 million at a time when electricity costs in Wisconsin have risen above the national average. But the program's supporters cite its savings, pointing out that the program has delivered $3 of savings to customers for every $1 spent. 

Theresa Lehman, director of sustainable services at Miron Construction said at a time when capital spending budgets are tight, the program offers incentives that help customers cut their costs by allowing them to afford the upfront expenses of switching to more efficient LED lighting. St. Elizabeth Hospital in Appleton is saving $30,000 a year. Another client, Lake Mills Elementary School, received $100,000 in incentives from the program and is now saving $85,000 every year on its energy costs.

Walker's disconnect is unsettling. Hie rhetoric gives the appearance prices are steady right now, even while they increase, even without Obama's Clean Power Plan:

The federal Clean Power Plan was put on hold last month in a 5-4 vote by the U.S. Supreme Court. Wisconsin has joined with coal mining and coal-reliant states to challenge the rule, citing the impact it would have on the state's manufacturing sector.

Ryan's big gift to Big Oil will cost consumers at the pump.

It's not unexpected to see the Republican Party, foot servants to Big Oil, hand their favorite deep pocketed lobbyists another big win, all at the expense of the American driving public:

AP: Congressional leaders and the White House have reached agreement on a massive year-end tax and spending package ... An end to the ban on U.S. crude oil exports ... Lifting the decades-old export ban has been a top energy priority for Republicans for more than a year ... the liberalisation of exports will help companies producing in the US by enabling them to find the most profitable markets for their oil.

But that's going to raise the price of gasoline. The "abundant" supply of U.S. oil will disappear, costing consumers more in the long run:

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) is throwing another proposal into the mix with his idea that certain oil refiners — who are likely to see reduced profits if oil exports are allowed and domestic prices increase as a result — should get tax credits in the deal.

Startup Renewable Energy Crushing Big Oil's Billionaire Big Bosses?

Funny thing happens as time marches on, we progress. Things change.  Sometimes we find better ways to do everything, from modes of travel to curing diseases.

The same thing goes for energy. And yet Republicans don’t want to move into the new millennium. I’d like to shake the hand of the guy who convinced conservatives that rubbing two sticks together wasn’t the best way to light a fire. Thanks to Matchboxes Inc., they scientifically proved that was not the case.

So our conspiratorial Republican big oil lackeys rolled out a group of sad sack CEO victims who, like unlike Match Boxes Inc., merely claimed our actual environmental, wildlife and health officials were trying to destroy their industry and charge families unheard of energy price like we’re already paying for fossil fuel. Oh, and forget about the cost of coal going up because fewer companies are mining due to a lack of demand:

Fox News: A Senate subcommittee on Tuesday heard witnesses argue that “sue-and-settle” legal arrangements involving the EPA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and hyper-aggressive environmental organizations have cut energy suppliers and state regulators out of the discussion, speeded up the agenda to force unrealistic environmentalist priorities on the energy market, and are likely to cost consumers and producers billions of dollars in the years ahead.

Why wouldn’t you believe big oil special interests and their “scientifically” researched fear mongering, their eyes looked so sad:

“The sue-and-settle model takes policy making away from the public and puts it into the hands of one special interest driving an agenda to ultimately prevent the use of fossil fuels,” declared Katherine Sgamma, vice-president of the Western Energy Alliance, a Colorado-based lobbying organization for small oil and gas producers.

See, Western Energy Alliance is obviously unbiased and only trying to protect the 5 mega oil monopolies from a few startup “special interests” moguls in the wind and solar industries, whoever they are.

Adding insult to injury, the heartless Fish and Wildlife Service schemed with environmentalists to protect 404 threatened and endangered species. What the heck?

In lawsuits involving the Endangered Species, Sgamma noted that after the Fish and Wildlife Service made a deal with one environmental organization that involved 404 threatened or endangered species, the same organization came back the next year with demands involving 53 more.

And the lunacy of cutting down on preventable deaths and saving hundreds of billions of dollars in lost work and health care costs, is one reason big oil special interests are so frustrated:

In the case of the Clean Power Plan, the “artificial urgency” of the legal effort has been “key to push the regulations out the door, rush an incredibly complex and expensive rule through standard regulatory review processes, steamroll any potential political opposition, and put pressure on the states to begin compliance activities immediately,” argued Andrew Grossman, an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Calling the Clean Power Plan announced Monday a “naked power grab” that imposes national standards on state regulators, Grossman charged that “at every step of the way, EPA has relied on sue-and-settle tactics to facilitate its outrageous conduct.”

Of course you have to believe the courts are willy nilly ruling against big energy for the fun of it, and because of liberal judicial activism. Thank god Republicans still believe in federalism:

“This is not how the regulatory process is supposed to work in a country founded on the principles of the rule of law and federalism.”

Republicans, who've been depleting state environmental agencies for years, are now concerned the remaining staff will be overwhelmed by court ordered environmental compliance before it’s all too late for all of us:

Sue-and-settle “overwhelms regulatory agencies, resulting in settlement agreements and consent decrees requiring agencies to promulgate major regulations within an arbitrarily imposed timeline,” said Senator Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who chaired the subcommittee hearing.

Of course states wouldn’t find themselves in this mess if they just did their job enforcing the law.

In the blog post, General Counsel, Avi Garbow,  declared that “the ‘sue-and-settle’ rhetoric, strategically mislabeled by its proponents, is an often-repeated but a wholly invented accusation that gets no more true with frequent retelling.” EPA, he said, had no control over who decided to sue the agency, and “is not complicit in such lawsuits.”  

Big Oil not so powerful as gas prices fall, Consumers finally get a break.

I haven't seen the kind of analysis I thought I'd see regarding plummeting gas prices at the pump. I like it a lot, and consumers now have a little extra money to spend elsewhere. But we should also be doing whatever we can to decrease our use of oil once and for all.

The questions...so many questions, and the uneasy feeling that Big Oil has been playing us for complete idiots. Perhaps they didn't think the Middle East would try a stunt like this.

Vladimir Putin faces a catastrophic shortfall of at least $80bn (£51bn) in oil export revenue over the next year, after Opec kingpin Saudi Arabia signalled there will be no easing in the price war it has launched to recapture market share. Russia’s finance minister warned before Opec gathered on November 27 that the country faced an economic crisis from the loss of revenue incurred from falling oil prices.

But oil revenues are a big part of our economy now, and will become even bigger if we make it easier to export oil via the Gulf Coast, the whole reason behind building the Keystone XL Pipeline. This is an oil boom, not a switch over to green energy unfortunately. Not only will big oil lose money due to plummeting prices, but thousands of jobs will disappear as well, punching a hole in local state economies.

We're now getting used to plentiful gas supplies and low prices, what we call energy independence. Sounds a like Russia's problem, a place we don't want to be. The energy shakedown is happening right now. For instance:

British Petroleum announced Wednesday it will cut thousands of jobs worldwide, in addition to a previously announced $2 billion cut in its operating budget and a fire sale of $43 billion worth of assets (most of them in the US fracking patch). BP disclosed that over the next 18 months it will spend a billion dollars on “restructuring.”   

Goodrich Petroleum announced Wednesday it is exploring the sale of “some or all” of its shale-oil assets in the Eagle Ford play in Texas, the second-largest contributor to the country’s shale oil “boom.” Goodrich also said it will make a drastic cut in 2015 capital expenditures.
 According to Bloomberg News, the industry now expects 400 of the 1848 US onshore oil rigs now operating to be idled by next year. Another 200 new rigs, under construction for delivery next year, are now expected to have nothing to do. North Dakota state officials said Friday that oil production in October declined by about 4,000 barrels per day. Oasis Petroleum, one of the large operators in North Dakota, announced Wednesday that it would drop from 16 drilling rigs to six rigs. On Friday, stock prices for the 10 largest publicly traded oil companies with North Dakota operations were down by an average of 51 percent over three months.

Rigs targeting oil in the U.S. will drop below 1,100 for the first time in three years as drillers pull out of fields made unprofitable by a 43 percent plunge in crude prices. According to the energy data and analytics company Genscape, the oil count is set to drop by almost 600 rigs over the next eight months, bottoming out at 1,073 in August.

And what of Wall Street? Possible problems are rising up:

Also vulnerable are highly leveraged North American oil and gas producers. Energy companies issued junk debt with abandon in recent years. Strained financial conditions may force weak energy producers and service companies to divest properties or sell themselves, yet buyers are likely to be scarce until energy prices stabilize. Since June, they have pulled $22 billion from junk-bond funds as they begin to realize they were further out on the risk curve than they wanted. 

If a full-blown global financial crisis unfolds, along with an accompanying worldwide recession, investment strategy will no doubt shift from the current “risk on” stance to “risk off.” In that scenario, you would expect to see a rush into the safety of Treasury bonds and the U.S. dollar and a stampede out of commodities and stocks globally.

Dumb Ron Johnson kills Rail Tanker Emergency Preparedness bill trying to approve Keystone XL Pipeline.

It's dangerous irresponsible behavior like this that has stalled so many bills in the Senate. In a mind boggling move, Dumb Ron Johnson put the breaks on a simple study to deal with tanker disasters. It's a tale of two approaches:  

KUWS-Mike Simonson: An emergency preparedness bill that would investigate the best way for local first-responders to react to a railroad crude oil spill is on hold in Congress. The Response Act would simply form a panel to decide the best way to respond to a rail tanker incident involving North Dakota Bakken crude. Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin says it’s needed in Wisconsin because that oil is transported across 18 counties about 45 times a week. But Baldwin says the bill was derailed at the last minute.

“Regrettably, there was an attempt to politicize the issue by adding an amendment that would approve the Keystone pipeline.”

Who wrote the Amendment?

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson sponsored that amendment. 

To get an idea of what this really means, and the dangerous political game Johnson doesn't even realize he's playing, check out this story reported Friday in the La Crosse Tribune:

The Canadian oil train that derailed in 2013 killing 47 people in Lac-Mégantic passed through the Coulee Region on its way to Quebec, according to Canadian safety officials. The ensuing explosions destroyed 40 buildings, and contaminated the city’s downtown as well as a nearby river and lake.

According to the report, the tank cars originated in New Town, N.D., and were hauled by Canadian Pacific through Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit on their way to Montreal … The derailment brought additional attention to the increase in rail shipments of highly flammable crude oil as production in the Bakken formation of North Dakota has soared. 

Big Oil Fears Solar, join ALEC to Penalize Homeowners for Tapping into the Sun.

Chris Hayes is a master of summing each and every important issue he covers. And that goes for solar energy. For years utilities have been trying to penalize solar users for trying to, believe it or not, freeloading off their infrastructure. Arizona was at one point ground zero, but big energy lost after asking for way to much from costumers; $100 a month. Crazy? Unbelievably so.

Check this Chris' guest Nikki Silvestri, from Green For All. She makes a great case solar.

ALEC tells Freedom Loving Conservatives to love their Dependence on Big Energy, and Penalize Solar "Freeriders."

So freeing yourself from big energy, and becoming more self-sufficient, makes you a “freerider?”

The Fear of Freeloaders: Conservatives hate it when others get something for nothing. That’s the tact ALEC is taking to appeal to the conservative base, in what could only be described as a Salvador Dali like agenda attacking green conscious consumers. It's so counter-intuitive.

Freedom loving tea party voters are now being told by their local energy company monopolies, that they’re not free to create their own energy. Huh? In fact, that company can penalize you for feeding your excess solar or wind energy into their noncompetitive infrastructure. Competition? Outrageous.

This convoluted concept is just confusing enough to for low information voters to default to a simpler message from the corporate lobbyists at ALEC, who by the way, include many of your not-so-hardworking Republican legislators. The Guardian:

ALEC: An alliance of corporations and conservative activists is mobilizing to penalize homeowners who install their own solar panels – casting them as "freeriders" – in a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy, the Guardian has learned.

American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) will promote legislation with goals ranging from penalizing individual homeowners and weakening state clean energy regulations ... blocking Barack Obama from cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and state governments from promoting the expansion of wind and solar power through regulations known as Renewable Portfolio Standards.

Documents obtained by the Guardian … Alec wanted to lower the rate electricity companies pay homeowners for direct power generation – and maybe even charge homeowners for feeding power into the grid. "As it stands now, those direct generation customers are essentially freeriders on the system. They are not paying for the infrastructure they are using. In effect, all the other non direct generation customers are being penalized," he said.

Jaw dropping enough? Are you a believer yet? Need more convincing? It’s down the rabbit hole for more:

"How are they going to get that electricity from their solar panel to somebody else's house?" he said. "They should be paying to distribute the surplus electricity." In November, Arizona became the first state to charge customers for installing solar panels. The fee, which works out to about $5 a month for the average homeowner, was far lower than that sought by the main electricity company, which was seeking to add up to $100 a month to customers' bills.

Really, Arizona voters would have been good with their energy company charging them $100 for taking free sunlight or wind energy from Mother Nature? That doesn't sound loco to them, a corporate overreach?

Gabe Elsner, director of the Energy and Policy Institute, said "They are trying to eliminate pro-solar policies in the states to protect utility industry profits."  

Renewable Portfolio Standards require electricity companies to source a share of their power from wind, solar, biomass, or other clean energy. In the confidential materials, prepared for the August board meeting, Alec claimed to have made significant inroads against such clean energy policies in 2013. "Approximately 15 states across the country introduced legislation to reform, freeze or repeal their state's renewable mandate," the taskforce reported.

Big Oil makes case to quite, move on to renewable energy...now!

This headline caught my interest:

Despite boom oil companies struggling

It was the most amazing piece of big oil whining I've seen from these blood suckers. The most profitable companies the world has ever known are in a slump, dejected, and sadly promising higher prices at the pump if things don't get better. Boo hoo?

I will try and hit just the “low” points that show how the suffering oil barons are just limping along:

New troves of oil have been found all over the globe, and oil companies are taking in around $100 for every barrel they produce. But these seemingly prosperous conditions aren't doing much for Big Oil:

AP/Fox News: Profit and production at the world's largest oil companies are slumping badly.

Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP all posted disappointing earnings this week. All of them face the same problem: The cost to get newfound oil from remote locations and tightly packed rock is high and rising. And it takes years and billions of dollars to get big new production projects up and running.

Still not tearing up? By the way, are they arguing against oil? It sure sounds that way:

The higher extraction costs could translate to higher oil and gasoline prices for consumers. Brian Youngberg, an analyst at Edward Jones, "Even though oil prices are $100 or higher, the returns on investment aren't what they used to be."

I can barely control by sobbing. Sounds like alternative energy’s the way to go:

The new oil being found and produced is in ultra-deep ocean waters, in sands that must be heated … makes this new oil far more expensive to get -- large pools of oil and gas in relatively easy-to-drill locations have always been hard to find, but now they are all but gone outside of the Middle East.

See, we’re running out of oil, time to move on to green energy:

David Vaucher, who tracks oil production, says new oil projects in the U.S. and Canada, require high oil prices to be profitable.

Many oil analysts predict that relatively weak growth in world oil demand coupled with rising production from newfound fields will make for flat or lower oil prices in the years to come. But if big oil companies can't earn strong profits … it may mean prices will have to rise higher to convince them it's worth the risk … If they worry they can't make enough money, they'll cut back.

Okay, okay, it’s time to abandon our dependence on oil, I get it:

The growth of U.S. oil production is slowing because the best new American fields have been tapped, and the number of rigs probing new fields has flattened out … major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP were late to get into the U.S. shale oil game, and therefore had to pay high prices to acquire promising land. And the drilling is hugely expensive, too. Drillers are making technological leaps that are reducing some costs, but those are being countered by higher costs to lease equipment, buy supplies and pay workers rise that are shrinking profits. For a major oil company like Exxon or Shell, even big increases from dozens of wells in Texas or North Dakota aren't enough to make up for declining production in giant fields around the globe.

The oil majors have been investing heavily in major new projects, but the price tags are so high that the companies can't pursue everything they want.

Ryan, Sensenbrenner, Petri, Ribble vote for Big Oil Secrets, Continued Irresponsible Drilling Practices, and Great Lakes Oil and Gas Drilling.

Why would small government Republicans want to keep what oil companies pay us in royalties a secret? Apparently, taxpayers don't need to know these things, say Wisconsin Republicans. Who do we think we are anyway? Wisconsin State Journal:

OIL DRILLING, FINANCIAL RULES: Voting 256 for and 171 against, the House on June 27 passed a Republican bill (HR 1613) to implement a Gulf of Mexico deepwater-drilling treaty in a way that would exempt U.S. oil companies from transparency rules in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-regulation law. Those rules require companies to publicly disclose how much they pay the U.S. or foreign governments for rights to extract oil, gas and minerals. A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Paul Ryan, R-1, James Sensenbrenner, R-5, Tom Petri, R-6, Sean Duffy, R-7, Reid Ribble, R-8

Voting no: Mark Pocan, D-2, Ron Kind, D-3, Gwen Moore, D-4

Maybe somebody should ask "why the secrecy? 

Like the their continued support of the Bush tax cuts and Wall Street deregulation, our House Republicans refuse to learn any lessons from the BP Oil spill:

BP OIL SPILL LESSONS: Voting 194 for and 232 against, the House on June 27 defeated a bid to ensure that safety lessons from the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 are applied to deepwater drilling in the western gulf that occurs under HR 1613 (above). This motion by Democrats also sought to require companies responsible for spills to pay all cleanup costs. A yes vote backed the motion.

Voting yes: Pocan, Kind, Moore

Voting no: Ryan, Sensenbrenner, Petri, Duffy, Ribble

But the following vote reveals how our own House Republicans are planning to drill for oil and gas in the Great Lakes. And like our valuable fresh water shores, California’s pristine waters off Santa Barbara are ripe for drilling too:

GREAT LAKES DRILLING BAN: Voting 195 for and 225 against, the House on June 28 defeated a Democratic attempt to bar HR 2231 (expanded offshore drilling) from authorizing oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes. Though the bill contains no mention of the Great Lakes, backers of this motion said it contains language sufficiently broad to lead to possible drilling in these inland waters. A yes vote was to bar drilling in the Great Lakes. SANTA BARBARA MORATORIUM: Voting 176 for and 241 against, the House defeated a bid to strip HR 2231 of its language to lift a moratorium on oil and gas drilling offshore from Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in southern California. The ban was imposed after a major oil spill in that area in 1969. A yes vote was to retain the drilling moratorium.

Voting yes: Pocan, Kind, Moore

Voting no: Ryan, Sensenbrenner, Petri, Duffy, Ribble

Big Oil will not thank Government for Fracking, and now wants to take all the credit.

If Mitt Romney and the Republicans had their way, alternative energy subsidies would disappear completely. Let the free market decide. But in reality, what should happen is just the opposite, which is typical when we're talking about Republicans.

While the American public would be happy to cut subsidies to big oil, “opposite day” Republicans want to keep giving taxpayer dollars to big oil. Solar and wind...forget it.

They're quick to point to examples like Solyndra, who couldn’t compete with cheap Chinese labor. But China subsidizes solar, and helped drive down prices, killing the American company. But what happened is normal when it comes to developing new alternative energies. The story below shows how big oil is now trying to take credit for developing fracking, even though they would have given up decades earlier if it wasn’t for government subsidies and tax credits:  

AP: It sounds like a free-market success story: a natural gas boom created by drilling company innovation, delivering a vast new source of cheap energy without the government subsidies that solar and wind power demand. "The free market has worked its magic," the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, an industry group, claimed over the summer. The boom happened "away from the greedy grasp of Washington," the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank, wrote in an essay this year. If bureaucrats "had known this was going on," the essay went on, "surely Washington would have done something to slow it down, tax it more, or stop it altogether."

But the pioneers of fracking tell a different story:

But those who helped pioneer the technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, recall a different path. Over three decades, from the shale fields of Texas and Wyoming to the Marcellus in the Northeast, the federal government contributed more than $100 million in research to develop fracking, and billions more in tax breaks.

Now, those industry pioneers say their own effort shows that the government should back research into future sources of energy — for decades, if need be — to promote breakthroughs. For all its success now, many people in the oil and gas industry itself once thought shale gas was a waste of time.

"There's no point in mincing words. Some people thought it was stupid," said Dan Steward, a geologist who began working with the Texas natural gas firm Mitchell Energy in 1981.

In 1975, the Department of Energy began funding research into fracking and horizontal drilling, but it took more than 20 years to perfect the process. Alex Crawley, a former Department of Energy employee, recalled that some early tests were spectacular — in a bad way. "There's not a lot of companies that would stay with something this long. Most companies would have given up," he said, crediting founder George Mitchell as a visionary who also got support from the government at key points.

"The government has to be involved, to some degree, with new technologies," Steward said … the fracking pioneers point out that it's impossible to predict how and when research will pay off. "It wouldn't be research if you already knew that it was going to be effective," said Crawley.

Terry Engelder, a Penn State University geologist known for his enthusiastic support for gas drilling, said the story of how shale gas went from longshot to head of the pack — and how long that took — shows that serious support for renewable energy research makes sense, too. "These renewables have a huge upside," Engelder said. "In my view, the subsidies are really very appropriate."

Building Keystone XL will Raise Gas Prices....

Here's the most incredible "untold" story, about the Keystone XL pipeline, from the Osgood Report. I heard this and had to pass it along;

Iran Halts Crude Exports, Oil Jumps in Price!! Obama's Fault? Give me a break.

Isn't it odd how the Republicans candidates love to saber rattle and threaten Iran, knowing those threats could raise the price of oil? Funny how that works?

Even Newsmax couldn't hold back the truth about oil prices. Remember this, and a few other posts, pointing to the world markets cause for oil prices, not lack of drilling in the U.S.. Maybe the Republicans can ask big oil why they shut down refineries when supplies peaked.:

Oil Jumps to 9-Month High After Iran Cuts Supply, Predicted to Hit $150: Oil prices jumped to a nine-month high above $105 a barrel on Monday after Iran said it halted crude exports to Britain and France in an escalation of a dispute over the Middle Eastern country's nuclear program. That news came even as a semiofficial Iranian news agency reported that Tehran is considering extending its oil embargo against France and Britain to other European countries.

Fox News thought they could defend George W. Bush's troubles with high gas prices with the current argument that the GOP will use the argument against Obama. While disproving the ginned up outrage over gas prices by Republicans, they showed a few clips of the Democrats making the same argument. Wrong. Dick Cheney knew all along price could go up, reaping huge profits for big oil, if there was a conflict in the middle east (Iraq). Thank you Fox News for trashing the GOP's ace in the hole:

Obama Policies Lower Gas Prices at the pump!!!

Its official; with Obama’s new found energy and powerful jobs plan, he’s managed to force gas producers to lower their prices or else. As expected, Republicans are promising to oppose any further price cuts until more jobs are created first. The GOP leadership blames Obama for campaigning again, and resorting to cheap “low gas price” trickery.

jsonline: Gas prices have dropped more than 25 cents a gallon in the past month,  It happened in 2008, she notes, when the bottom fell out of gas prices and the economy. The price dropped from an average $4.11 in the state on July 16 to $1.97 by Thanksgiving of that year. The fears created by the debt crisis in Europe caused the drop in oil and other commodity prices, but experts have been hard-pressed to predict with certainty how low they will go. 

Perry believes Big Money Behind Global Warming Myth. No...that's big money saying its a myth.

Gov. Rick Perry is about to educate those wondering where all these weird idea came from that drive the Republican Party platform. Like global warming:

Politico: Rick Perry is accusing climate scientists of cooking the books for money.

"There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they would have dollars rolling in to their projects," the GOP presidential candidate said …"The cost to the country and to the world of implementing these anti-carbon programs is in the billions if not in the trillions of dollars," Perry said.

For many conservatives, they believe there is an effort to create global economy; with its own currency and green energy monopolies. It sounds ridiculous because it is. But that’s enough to stop progress in its tracks, and continue the OPEC monopoly with its big oil fiefdoms.

That’s okay though, since we have gotten used to paying $4 or $5 a gallon for gas now. Let’s protect the current monopoly.  

Wall Street Speculation Added 83 cents per Gallon of Gas.

While the Republicans blame Obama for high gas prices, an outrageous and over the top accusation, the real culprits were the Wall Street speculators.

The drain on our wallets didn't have to happen! Republicans held up Dodd-Frank, a law that would have regulated commodity speculation. Was this intentional? Will their own party hold them accountable for allowing big oil to drain our wallets and limit or cancel our summer vacations? Nah.

A new University of Massachusetts, Amherst study has determined speculation added 83 cents per gallon.



From January 16, Think Progress' Lee Fang wrote this about Koch Industries ties to speculation that lined their pockets:

The Koch Industries front group Americans for Prosperity is preparing a tour across America “aimed at trying to put the blame for high gas prices on the Obama administration.” The tour will demand that Obama increase domestic drilling — even though domestic oil production is at an all time high and further drilling will do nothing to affect prices.

Koch’s relaunch of Drill Baby Drill appears to be a crass attempt to distract Americans from a true driver of high prices: oil speculation, coming from companies like Koch. In fact, a new Think Progress investigation of Koch’s oil speculation business reveals that Koch is perhaps the most important player in distorting oil markets for private profit. Our report highlights:

– Koch’s role in inventing modern oil derivatives.– Koch’s alliance with Enron and the Gramm family in deregulating oil speculation, first in the early ’90s then again ten years later.– Koch’s participation in unregulated exchanges, and the ways in which it uses its political power to allow excessive oil speculation to continue.

Experts contacted by ThinkProgress pin the blame for sky-high prices and record volatility on excessive oil speculation, the oil market corrupted by unregulated Wall Street traders who buy and hold onto oil futures contracts with no interest in the actual delivery of oil. Koch Industries — generally known as an oil pipelines and refining company — is also on the forefront of speculating on oil for profit.

Ryan says one thing about Reckless Spending, Does Another...for Oil Money.

Looks like Rep. Paul Ryan got caught in the act of lying. This web vid does a nice job of documenting that and the money Ryan's family is making off of oil companies. 

Examiner: In a League of Conservation Voters video released yesterdayWisconsin US Congressman Paul Ryan is called out for his support of subsidies for oil companies despite his claim to support ending these subsidies. He also failed to mention his family ties to business with oil companies.

In the video Rep. Ryan is shown in a town hall meeting.  He claimed to support ending subsidies for oil companies, yet one week later he voted to continue billions in these taxpayer handouts. A recent Newsweek investigation also revealed that Rep. Ryan, his wife and father-in-law have made hundreds of thousands off the oil companies whose tax breaks he continues to support.

Oil Reserves Tapped while Gas Prices are Dropping! Huh!

As we've documented here a couple of times, oil speculators were responsible for most of the increases at the pump, about 40 cents or so. We also know there is no shortage whatsoever of gasoline. None. Saudi Arabia even announced it was cutting production because the market prices didn't reflect the oversupply available to consumers. But...

There's absolutely no explanation for this action. None. Is the administration that cut off from reality that the Republican meme of oil shortages and the need to drill baby drill is any more believable than before? 

Memorial Day Reminder why Gas Prices are so High; Wall Street, who else!

I can't post this story enough. Republicans continue to block the government watch dog, the CFTC, from stopping speculators from jacking gas prices through the roof. HELLO OUT THERE! It's called market manipulation.

From MSNBC this wonderfully easy to understand insiders look, from Dan Dicker, the author of "Oil's Endless Bid":

Big Oil Republicans Vote to Continue to Give Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Oil Barons.

Here's Cenk Uygur on the most incredible, ballsy vote by big oil Republicans. It's impossible to imagine any conservative voter, whining about wasteful government spending, going along with this bonehead move and outrageous insult to our intelligence. What are their priorities?

The Clarity of the Big Oil Moment of Whining! Corporate Blackmail.

So where does it end? Corporate blackmail is starting to get REAL old, and I think the public in general is starting to catch on, after watching big oil whine about losing taxpayer money on top of their record profits and high gas prices. The balls!

States are breaking budgets and giving away taxpayers dollars under the threat of corporate relocation-blackmail. If  business doesn't get what they want, they'll leave for another desperate state hungry for jobs.

The compilation of comments and corporate thinking is not only stunning, but scary. They really think they're that powerful and untouchable.

Even more revealing is the support and lighthearted teasing from elitist Republican corporatist: