Category Archives: Energy

Energy, Uncategorized

National Oil Spill Commission Report, First Take

The findings about the Deepwater Horizon explosion omit the role that the Coast Guard played in the subsequent underwater leak.

From here, it looks like pumping water on the damaged and floating rig for 3 days was, at the very least, a contributing factor to the rig sinking to the sea floor, breaking up the lines and turning one surface leak into three sea-bottom leaks.

The question I asked the oil spill commission concerning the Coast Guard was this, ‘Was their role and the decisions they made in the time-frame between the explosion and the rig sinking ever questioned or examined?’

Aside from the forensic examination of the original explosion, I wonder if it includes the cause of the sinking of the rig itself? I’m just saying.

Link: Spill panel: No evidence of saving $ over safety – Yahoo! News

Economy, Energy, Florida, Politics

Jobless ‘Recovery’, And Here’s Why

Top 10 Reasons for Obama’s Jobless Recovery

by Donald Lambro

1. Stimulus package didn’t stimulate: The economy is growing too slowly under President Obama’s failed government-spending stimulus because it lacks any incentives for increased private investment, risk taking, venture-capital formation and new business formation, the basis of new job creation. The mediocre economic-growth rate is not strong enough to drive down a nearly 10% unemployment rate. (It’s approaching 12% in Florida.)

2. Business uncertainty: Widespread uncertainty across the business community about Obama’s job-killing tax, spending and regulatory agenda that has prevented businesses from expanding and hiring more workers and reinvesting an estimated $1.8 trillion in reserve funds.

3. Tax uncertainty: No uncertainty is more paralyzing than the administration’s plan to allow President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 top tax cuts on dividends, capital gains and upper incomes to expire at the end of this year, raising them at a time when the economy and businesses are still struggling in a weak economic environment.

4. Tax impact: Private investment is the life blood of a dynamic and growing economy and the wellspring of all new jobs. If Obama goes through with his plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire, small business, family-owned enterprises, working families, investors and retirees will be hit by very large tax hikes that will weaken capital reinvestment and kill job creation.

5. Government spending: The more money that government takes from the economy to feed an insatiable spending binge, the less there is in the private sector to create new jobs.

6. Obamacare impact: Obamacare’s job killing impact on businesses large and small has been swift and undiscriminating. Soon after Obama signed the bill, major corporations were forced to take billions of dollars in new charges on their profit line to cover the increased cost of the new law. Major firms like Boeing, Caterpillar, John Deere & Co. and Illinois Tool Works, among others saw their tax deductions for companies offering drug benefits had been cut to pay for the plan’s nearly $1 trillion cost.

7. Financial regulation bill: This sweeping government regulation legislation will raise costs throughout the entire banking and financial regulation industry. That will mean higher costs for consumers and in turn force the industry to prune payrolls or other cost-cutting moves to bolster their bottom line earnings.

8. Energy cap-and-trade taxes: The so-called climate-change tax bill that Democrats passed in the House, and has been stalled in the Senate, was one of the biggest economic uncertainties threatening economic growth and job formation. It would impose sharply higher, job-killing energy costs across the nation’s entire energy industry, hurting producers, businesses and manufacturers, and consumers. U.S. businesses, to avoid the tax, would have to move plants elsewhere to avoid the tax, moving jobs out of the country.

9. Economic restructuring: One of the big reasons for slower job growth stems from our economy’s ability to boost productivity with fewer workers through increased technology, mechanization and other production innovations. Faster economic growth would increase hiring in all of business sectors and new business formation would lift our economy to a much higher employment rate. Lower business tax rates, faster depreciation of capital purchases for new equipment, zeroing out capital gains and dividend tax rates to unlock new capital investment for start-up companies would spark an explosion in new firms and hiring.

10. Minimum wage: No government initiative has killed more entry-level jobs than the higher minimum wage. Congress pushed up the federal minimum wage in the midst of a severe recession, from $6.55 in 2008 to $7.25 in 2009. Small businesses struggling to survive in the downturn were hurt most and quickly cut their payrolls. Unemployment shot way up for younger workers, especially among blacks, Hispanics and other unskilled minorities. Almost half of blacks between 16 and 34 are jobless, up 13% since March 2008.

Energy, Florida, Pensacola

New BP Claims Facility Opens Tomorrow

Beginning Monday, August 23, 2010, all those who have a claim to file must do it through the Gulf Coast Claims Facility run by Kenneth Feinberg, President Obama’s pay czar. Claims will be accepted from August 23 through November 23, 2010.

According to their website . . .

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), administered by Kenneth R. Feinberg, has been established to assist claimants in filing claims for costs and damages incurred as a result of the oil spill resulting from the Deepwater Horizon Incident of April 20, 2010. Claims previously filed with the BP Claims Process have been transitioned to the new GCCF Claims Facility for review, evaluation and determination by the GCCF.

The rules for settling with BP include agreeing not to sue them later. If you think you have a claim, it’s your choice. Settle with them now, or go to court and wait years for whatever is left over after the lawyers take their share.

People affected by the spill seeking final settlements will face a choice: If they decide to sue instead of accepting a settlement, they could face years of litigation; and if they decide to accept the settlement, it could come before the full damage from the spill is known.

The new rules for the claims process were released Friday by Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who was chosen by President Obama to run the fund and who previously oversaw claims for the victims of 9/11.

Beginning Monday, the claims will begin to be handled by Feinberg rather than BP, which is still footing the entire $20 billion bill.

Who gets paid and who does not will depend largely on how much proof there is that losses were caused by the spill and not by something else, such as the recession. Feinberg’s guidelines say that key factors include a claimant’s geographic proximity to the disaster and how much the business or property is linked to “injured natural resources.”

Feinberg elaborated on his reasoning during town meetings this week in Louisiana. “How close are you to the beach? To the gulf?” he said. “. . . That’s a major factor.”

For instance, fishermen, shrimpers, and seafood processors as well as hotel and restaurant owners with beachfront property in areas where oil washed ashore will have the easiest time getting reimbursed. An ice cream parlor or golf course miles from the affected shore but along the main highway headed to the beach would not be eligible, according to documents obtained by the New York Times.

Link: New rules limit claims for oil spill |  GCCF – Gulf Coast Claims Facility

2010 Election, Economy, Energy, Florida, Politics

Dr. Farid Khavari’s Economic Plan For Floridians

Running as an Independent candidate for Governor of the State of Florida, Dr. Farid Khavari is the only candidate that has a plan that is designed to help the state, and every citizen in it as well. His plan will generate money for the State that will be used to lower costs that our taxes currently pay for. His plan will lower our cost of living via lower interest rates on everything we do.

Lowering costs is the way to lift us all up without creating more debt. And his plan is so simple, you’ll wonder why other States are not doing it. Actually, candidates in other states are considering it right now. But Khavari’s plan for Florida doesn’t stop at a public bank. The public bank is the engine that will fund and drive projects in all aspects of our lives, including reducing the costs of education, health care, and reducing or eliminating taxes, creating energy independency, and more. He wrote the book on it. Towards a Zero-Cost Economy is available from his website free for download.

Enjoy the videos. Visit his campaign website for the details, and vote for Dr. Farid Khavari in Florida’s primary. Florida needs him. And he needs your support.

Link: Farid Khavari for Florida Governor

Energy

Oil Pressure Down, Lawyer Pressure Up

According to the wellsite leader of the well-killing project at the Deepwater Horizon site, Bobby Bolton, the “pressure is down and appears to be stabilizing.” That’s good news.

That can mean only one thing for the class action lawyers. The pressure is up.

Tired of seeing BP ads saying how they’re here for us to clean up the mess and make us ‘whole?’ Wait ’till you see the ads from the lawyers.

Energy, Pensacola, Politics

Jimmy Buffet Stuck On Stupid

In an Associated Press interview last Tuesday, Buffet said that it’s perfectly normal for people to be mad when they see oil washing up on beaches and marshes. No argument there. But then he parrots (no pun intended) the tune of the administration, putting the blame on the previous administration.

“To me it was more about eight years of bad policy before (Obama) got there that let this happen. It was Dracula running the blood bank in terms of oil and leases,” he said. “I think that has more to do with it than how the president reacted to it.”

I think that blaming Bush for this is what being stuck on stupid is.

Link: Jimmy Buffet Organizes Gulf Benefit, Blames Bush for Spill.

Economy, Energy, Politics

Obama’s Gulf Disaster Speech

1 Comment

Obama’s address to the nation Tuesday night was true to form to what he knows and how he operates. And some of his staunchest supporters are beginning to have some buyers remorse. He isn’t turning out to be what they thought they voted for.

I could have told you what he was going to say before he said it. Oh that’s right, I did.

Testing someone in a crisis does reveal a lot about what one knows and how they operate. Where THE ONE is concerned, he knows to appoint commissions and tell people to fix the problem and ‘report back to me.’ We’re all witnessing the consequences of taking a chance on electing a chief executive that has no executive experience.

Last night’s speech brought nothing new to the table. BP will pay for all damage$. He has said that before and so has BP’s Tony Hayward.

He used the crisis to advance his cap and trade agenda. That’s how community organizers will operate. Though advancing an agenda is also his job, the Gulf disaster speech is not the place and time for it. The never-ending campaign rolls on.

He used Bush’s ridiculous statement about us being ‘addicted’ to oil and fossil fuels for energy. We are no more addicted to fossil fuels than we are addicted to the air we breathe or the blood in our veins. He doesn’t understand the reality that petroleum is the blood of the world’s economy. He doesn’t (or won’t) understand that petroleum is used for more than gas in our cars or energy production.

Where energy is concerned, about half of our electricity is produced by coal, another fossil fuel. And in all his talk about clean energy and wind and solar, industries that are really still in their infancy, he does not even bring up nuclear, making it patently obvious that solving our energy needs take second seat to his cap and trade agenda which is nothing more than taxing energy producers and energy consumers, making everything we do and buy, including our electric bills, more expensive while putting the government’s foot on the neck of the industries we need. A-la community organizer, not chief executive.

A discussion on the merits (?) of cap and trade is for another topic, but is only relevant here to the point that he brought it up in his speech last night. Well, he more than brought it up. He made it his focus.

Economy, Energy, Florida, Pensacola, Politics

Who Is The Most Dangerous Man To America?

If you are thinking of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the president of North Korea Kim Jong IL,  or BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, it’s not your fault. That would be the desired reaction by any sleight of hand magician who has you looking at his right hand while his left hand is removing your wristwatch. The magician of whom I speak is our own President, Barack Obama.

His agenda to remake America and, in his mind, become America’s new founding father is the reason the tea party movement has surfaced. And rather than deal with their heartfelt objection to his policies, his disciples simply discount them as racists.

His eighteen months in office has not been a string of coincidences to fundamentally change the role of the federal government, to expand the size of government, to control and usurp private sector industries, and expand ‘social justice’ by owing America’s future to China. Not to mention dismantling our global military defense and foreign policy strategy.

His Gulf Coast tour to talk about the oil disaster in the Gulf is not designed to ‘feel our pain.’  It is just another coincidence, along the line of Rule 1, to advance an ‘energy policy’ called Cap and Trade.

The evidence of this comes directly from the most dangerous man TO America himself in this email I received this morning, during his visit to Pensacola.

Ross —

The BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast is the worst environmental disaster of its kind in our nation’s history. I am returning to the region today to review our efforts and meet with families and business owners affected by the catastrophe.

We are working to hold BP accountable for the damage to the lands and the livelihoods of the Gulf Coast, and we are taking strong precautions to make certain a spill like this never happens again.

But our work will not end with this crisis. That’s one of the reasons why last week I invited lawmakers from both parties to join me at the White House to discuss what it will take to move forward on legislation to promote a new economy powered by green jobs, combat climate change, and end our dependence on foreign oil.

Today, we consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but have less than two percent of the world’s oil reserves. Beyond the risks inherent in drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth, our dependence on oil means that we will continue to send billions of dollars of our hard-earned wealth to other countries every month — including many in dangerous and unstable regions.

In other words, our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk. We cannot delay any longer, and that is why I am asking for your help.

Please stand with me today in backing clean energy. Adding your name will help create a powerful, public display of support for making this change happen.

The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a new future. That means continuing our unprecedented effort to make everything — from our homes and businesses to our cars and trucks — more energy-efficient. It means rolling back billions of dollars of tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development.

Many businesses support this agenda because shifting to clean energy creates opportunities for entrepreneurship. This is how we will reinvent our economy — and create new companies and new jobs all across the country.

There will be transition costs and a time of adjustment. But if we refuse to heed the warnings from the disaster in the Gulf — we will have missed our best chance to seize the clean-energy future we know America needs to thrive in the years and decades to come.

The House of Representatives has already passed a comprehensive energy and climate bill, and there is currently a plan in the Senate — a plan that was developed with ideas from Democrats and Republicans — that would achieve the same goal. But this is an issue that Washington has long ignored in favor of protecting the status quo.

So I’m asking for your help today to show that the American people are ready for a clean-energy future.

Please add your name to mine:

http://my.democrats.org/CleanEnergy

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

The magic show is on.

Energy, Florida, Pensacola, Politics

Obama Raising Ire Of GOP?

In his usual cynical community-organizer kind of way, President Obama echoed the talking points from the George Soros wing of the Democratic party. Responding to criticism of his handling of the largest oil leak in the country’s history, from even the legacy media now, President Obama quipped that if he stepped up and took charge, or gave the appearance of taking charge, that he might raise the ire of the GOP.

The line from Progressives/Liberals, in order to not have to respond to the criticism, is to simply say that Republicans are being hypocritical in denouncing government control on one hand and criticizing the administration for not taking control of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on the other.

It is a cute talking point for the lemmings, but does not hold up to an honest examination of the facts.

The federal government’s only responsibility is to preserve and protect this country, it’s people, and its constitution. That’s why Haley Barbour (R-MS), Rick Perry (R-TX), and Bobby Jindal (R-LA) expect the government to step up. This is a national disaster after all.

This is a case where the federal government ought to be taking actions to remedy. Not by pointing blame and sending in lawyers. Not by photo ops on Pensacola beach. Not by delaying approval for Gov. Jindal (R-LA) to actually DO something to help protect his state. And  not by demonizing a company that supports the  livelihood, pension and retirement plans of thousands of Americans and a large percentage of Brits. Not by refusing help from other countries and business entities around the world.

The president’s inaction is indicative of a person with no executive experience who is in way over his head. Lucky (?) for him though, his inaction does allow more damage to be done and more cat calls from the peanut gallery to advance his Cap and Trade agenda.

Rahm Emanual’s Rule 1

“Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” Mr. Emanuel said in an interview on Sunday. “They are opportunities to do big things.”

What they don’t want? the federal government to do is to tell everyone how to run their lives, what kind of car to make, where to go for health insurance, and forcing you to buy some (or face a penalty). Let’s see, run automobile companies, nationalizing private sector businesses and industries, dictating how much pay a company can pay their executives. You know, all the stuff that the the government is doing that it has no authority to do.

See the difference?

Energy, Politics, Uncategorized, United Nations

Demand For Biofuels Hurting Poorer Nations

This is not a new subject, just an example of what happens when governments fail to learn from their mistakes. It’s what happens when foodstuffs are used in biofuel production.

Families from Pakistan to Argentina to Congo are being battered by surging food prices that are dragging more people into poverty, fueling political tensions and forcing some to give up eating meat, fruit and even tomatoes.

With food costing up to 70 percent of family income in the poorest countries, rising prices are squeezing household budgets and threatening to worsen malnutrition, while inflation stays moderate in the United States and Europe. Compounding the problem in many countries: prices hardly fell from their peaks in 2008, when global food prices jumped in part due to a smaller U.S. wheat harvest and demand for crops to use in biofuels.

But it goes even further than that. In terms of the carbon footprint created in producing biofuels compared to that of fossil fuels, fossil fuels out-green biofuels. So how smart is it to do unnecessary harm to the environment while increasing food prices and hurting the poorer nations around the world?

More of history repeating itself happens when governments refuse to learn how markets operate and what happens to them when the government steps in with taxes and price controls.

Argentina’s government has responded with higher taxes, export limits, controls on supermarket prices of meat, wheat and corn, subsidies to food producers and pay hikes of 30 percent for union workers. The moves have temporarily eased the pain but beef producers have thinned their herds in response to government intervention and the price of meat has doubled in the last year.

“Before, we would eat meat three times a week. Now it’s once, with luck,” said Marta Esposito, a 45-year-old mother of two in Buenos Aires. “Tomatoes, don’t even talk about it. We eat whatever is the cheapest.”

The environmental movement really has to come clean on what their goal is. Is it to help the environment, or is it to handicap the United States?

Link: Surging costs hit food security in poorer nations |  Fossil Fuels Out-Green Biofuels |  United Nations Warns Of Food Fight