Romney's Energy Policy

[Skysooner]

This particular article doesn't go into the details some other sites do, but this gives a general idea. The one thing that is wrong in this article is the statement about the CBO saying 70% of oil and gas drilling is open for drilling. This is "proved" reserves only and doesn't get into the permitting restrictions that occur on a regular basis with federal land. They can literally lease you the land and then prevent you from drilling on it through huge environmental impact studies. I'm not saying this is always a bad thing, but the local BLM office can really be restrictive and the rules are not consistent. Hopefully this would go a long way towards energy independence.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/23/news/economy/romney-energy/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The campaign for presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney released a plan Thursday for North America to be energy independent by 2020.

Touting the country's newly accessible oil and gas reserves Romney touched on familiar themes he said would wean the country off imported oil and spark an economic boom at home. Namely, fewer regulations and more drilling.

"I have a vision for an America that is an energy superpower, rapidly increasing our own production and partnering with our allies Canada and Mexico to achieve energy independence on this continent," Romney said in a statement.

Specifically, he called for states to have control over drilling on federal land within their borders, the opening of new offshore areas off coasts of Virginia and the Carolinas, and a streamlined and expedited regulatory process.

He also laid out a list of benefits that he said would come from obtaining energy independence, including the creation of 3 million new jobs and $1 trillion in government revenues.

But a recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, requested by Romney's running mate Paul Ryan, was less sanguine.

CBO said 70% of the nation's oil and gas reserves are already available for drilling. Opening the rest, it said, would increase government receipts from an estimated $150 billion under current policy to $175 to $200 billion over the next 10 years.

When asked to explain the difference, a Romney staffer said the campaign's projections were more inclusive and stretched out over a longer time period.

Romney is scheduled to highlight his energy plan in a speech on Thursday.

The United States is in the midst of an energy boom, largely thanks to new drilling technology. Some analysts say it is possible that North America will not need to import any oil in a decade or so. That's partly due to the energy boom but also because of higher fuel economy standards.

But the energy boom is not without controversy. Many of the new oil fields require hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short. That process involves cracking the rock with pressurized water, sand and chemicals. Critics fear it is contaminating the ground water.

President Obama has also encouraged this energy boom. He's done little to restrict fracking, opened up new areas for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and indicated he'll issue permits to drill in the Arctic.

But the administration has also increased the environmental and safety standards for fracking, offshore drilling, and tightened emissions rules on power plants. The current administration has also issued fewer permits for drilling than George W. Bush, largely due to the moratorium imposed after the BP spill in 2010.

[okie52]

Sky-glad you brought up BLM permitting because that can be a huge pain in the azz.

As you said, known reserves is so much crap. The Atlantic and Pacific haven't been touched by seismic in over 30 years...back in the day of vertical drilling.


President Obama has also encouraged this energy boom. He's done little to restrict fracking, opened up new areas for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and indicated he'll issue permits to drill in the Arctic.

Now that's funny. Bans drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific and along with his cap and trade bill and he's encouraged the boom. Had the justice department pursue Continental in the Bakken for bird deaths that were a fraction of his green energy wind turbines (which the court threw out).

Indicated he'll issue permits to drill in the Arctic...well where are they? He's only had 4 years. In January he said he was an NG guy...well what's he done?


The United States is in the midst of an energy boom, largely thanks to new drilling technology. Some analysts say it is possible that North America will not need to import any oil in a decade or so. That's partly due to the energy boom but also because of higher fuel economy standards.

Partly due to the energy boom....like almost totally. Yeah we're going to have higher mpg's which I fully support but that isn't what's driving the US towards energy independence.

Although I generally consider CNN the most balanced of the cable networks it certainly isn't here.

[Skysooner]

Agreed. There were better articles out there that I felt were more realistic, but they weren't directly linkable. This is why I will vote for Romney.

[Bourbon St Sooner]

In fairness, the gov't did issue permits to Shell to drill in the arctic.

The Obama adminitration did nix planned offshore lease sales off the east and west coasts that were in the MMS 5 year plan prior to Bush leaving office. And I have no idea what new areas in the GOM were opened to drilling as this article says. The only new area there could be is the Eastern Gulf, but it's under Congressional moratorium.

[okie52]

In spite of my support for ramping up our oil production I'm still an advocate for converting large parts of our transportation to NG. It would solve or ease so many problems and hasten our move to energy independence.

That will require distribution points. Now maybe some companies like CHK and T Boone can gradually move the fleets in that direction by their investment in them but if the government would be behind it then the move would be much faster. CO2 would be greatly reduced and we would be dealing with an energy source that is domestically much larger than oil.

Surprisingly (or maybe not) I noticed an article by Exxon where they were not wanting the government to get involved with NG that way...their philosophy was picking the winners and losers. I felt they were worried about oil consumption dropping and a negative impact for their company rather than for the positives of energy independence...even though Exxon, particularly after the purchase of XTO, would be the largest ng producer in the country. Money always talks.

[okie52]

In fairness, the gov't did issue permits to Shell to drill in the arctic.

The Obama adminitration did nix planned offshore lease sales off the east and west coasts that were in the MMS 5 year plan prior to Bush leaving office. And I have no idea what new areas in the GOM were opened to drilling as this article says. The only new area there could be is the Eastern Gulf, but it's under Congressional moratorium.

Bush had offshore lease sales in the Atlantic set for 2010 which Obama moved to a later date and then cancelled altogether.

Artic lease sale? When did that occur?

I don't know of any new areas in the GOM that have been opened either.

Are you working offshore leasing?

[okie52]

Here is a link for Romney's energy plan...obviously it will be an extremely positive outlook but a much more in depth view than the CNN article.

http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2012/08/mitt-romney-sets-goal-north-american-energy-independence-2020

[Skysooner]

A sane energy policy would contain the following:

Reduction on dependence of foreign oil via more efficient use (primarily funded through R&D). Right now we have roughly 25-30 years of crude oil at our current usage rate in the US without any dependence on foreign oil. This contains some speculative but technically recoverable reserves.

Increased use of natural gas. We have over 100 years supply of natural gas with very little ability to increase demand at this point without adding infrastructure to support natural gas vehicles. My company currently has a large fleet of NG vehicles that are used in the field.

Support R&D of alternative energy but don't take direct stakeholder (i.e. Solyndra) status. Protect US companies through legal tariffs against cheap Chinese imports that are being government subsidized.

Fast-track permitting for reputable operators with a proven track record. Many of the drilling issues we have come from companies that aren't technically ready to handle the current horizontal well drilling.

Open up more areas for drilling (this mainly applies to offshore). ANWR would be great, but it will be years before that production would have capacity in the current Alaska pipeline.

Stop, stop, stop saying that there are billions of oil and gas subsidies when every other industry gets these same breaks. They are primarily talking about intangible drilling and completion costs which are essentially labor among other things. We are allowed to write these off the year of expense just like every other industry can. Instead they want to make us amortize them over the life of the well which essentially takes the ability to write them off away. This is only going to drive the cost of crude oil and natural gas up.

I believe he addresses all of these and more.

[okie52]

A sane energy policy would contain the following:

Reduction on dependence of foreign oil via more efficient use (primarily funded through R&D). Right now we have roughly 25-30 years of crude oil at our current usage rate in the US without any dependence on foreign oil. This contains some speculative but technically recoverable reserves.

Increased use of natural gas. We have over 100 years supply of natural gas with very little ability to increase demand at this point without adding infrastructure to support natural gas vehicles. My company currently has a large fleet of NG vehicles that are used in the field.

Support R&D of alternative energy but don't take direct stakeholder (i.e. Solyndra) status. Protect US companies through legal tariffs against cheap Chinese imports that are being government subsidized.

Fast-track permitting for reputable operators with a proven track record. Many of the drilling issues we have come from companies that aren't technically ready to handle the current horizontal well drilling.

Open up more areas for drilling (this mainly applies to offshore). ANWR would be great, but it will be years before that production would have capacity in the current Alaska pipeline.

Stop, stop, stop saying that there are billions of oil and gas subsidies when every other industry gets these same breaks. They are primarily talking about intangible drilling and completion costs which are essentially labor among other things. We are allowed to write these off the year of expense just like every other industry can. Instead they want to make us amortize them over the life of the well which essentially takes the ability to write them off away. This is only going to drive the cost of crude oil and natural gas up.

I believe he addresses all of these and more.

Kudos, Sky...well said.

[pphilfran]

A sane energy policy would contain the following:

Reduction on dependence of foreign oil via more efficient use (primarily funded through R&D). Right now we have roughly 25-30 years of crude oil at our current usage rate in the US without any dependence on foreign oil. This contains some speculative but technically recoverable reserves.

Increased use of natural gas. We have over 100 years supply of natural gas with very little ability to increase demand at this point without adding infrastructure to support natural gas vehicles. My company currently has a large fleet of NG vehicles that are used in the field.

Support R&D of alternative energy but don't take direct stakeholder (i.e. Solyndra) status. Protect US companies through legal tariffs against cheap Chinese imports that are being government subsidized.

Fast-track permitting for reputable operators with a proven track record. Many of the drilling issues we have come from companies that aren't technically ready to handle the current horizontal well drilling.

Open up more areas for drilling (this mainly applies to offshore). ANWR would be great, but it will be years before that production would have capacity in the current Alaska pipeline.

Stop, stop, stop saying that there are billions of oil and gas subsidies when every other industry gets these same breaks. They are primarily talking about intangible drilling and completion costs which are essentially labor among other things. We are allowed to write these off the year of expense just like every other industry can. Instead they want to make us amortize them over the life of the well which essentially takes the ability to write them off away. This is only going to drive the cost of crude oil and natural gas up.

I believe he addresses all of these and more.

I am on board...

[okie52]

Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith called Romney's energy plan "backward."

"This isn't a recipe for energy independence," Smith said. "It's just another irresponsible scheme to help line the pockets of big oil while allowing the U.S to fall behind and cede the clean energy sector to China."

The president told donors in New York Wednesday night that under his administration, dependence on foreign oil has gone below 50 percent for the first time in 13 years.

"Oil production is up. Natural gas is up. But we're also doubling the energy that we get from wind and solar. That is clean, it's renewable, it's homegrown, it's creating jobs all across America," Obama said.

Obama has called for a one-third reduction in U.S. oil imports by 2025. The president's proposal for boosting domestic oil production relies in part on offering incentives to companies that hold leases for offshore and onshore drilling to speed up recovery; increasing the use of biofuels and natural gas; and making vehicles more energy-efficient.


LOL

The President calls for a 1/3 reduction in US oil imports by 2025....well as long as he calls for it then its got to happen. And that wind and solar are going to get us there along with Chu's battery in 5 years. Speed up recovery? Now that's a new one...oil and gas companies are delaying production? LOL

The party of science :hopelessness:

[okie52]

The Obama green jobs myth:


Analysis: Obama's "green jobs" have been slow to sprout


By Andy Sullivan
Fri Apr 13, 2012 1:06am EDT
(Reuters) - Three weeks ago, President Barack Obama stood in front of a sea of gleaming solar panels in Boulder City, Nevada, to celebrate his administration's efforts to promote "green energy."

Stretching row upon row into the desert, the Copper Mountain Solar Project not far from Las Vegas provided an impressive backdrop for the president.

Built on public land, the facility is the largest of its kind in the United States. Its 1 million solar panels provide enough energy to power 17,000 homes.

And it employs just 10 people.

Three years after Obama launched a push to build a job-creating "green" economy, the White House can say that more than 1 million drafty homes have been retrofitted to lower heating and cooling costs, while energy generation from renewable sources such as wind and solar has nearly doubled since 2008.

But the millions of "green jobs" Obama promised have been slow to sprout, disappointing many who had hoped that the $90 billion earmarked for clean-energy efforts in the recession-fighting federal stimulus package would ease unemployment - still above 8 percent in March.

Supporters say the administration over-promised on the jobs front and worry that a backlash could undermine support for clean-energy policies in general.

"All of this stuff is extraordinarily worthy for driving long-term economic transformation but extremely inappropriate to sell as a short-term job program," said Mark Muro, a clean-energy specialist at the Brookings Institution.

Others say the green-jobs push has crowded out less fashionable efforts that would have put people back to work quickly.

"From my perspective it makes more sense for us to arm our clients with the basic skills, rather than saying, 'By golly, you will do something in the green economy or you won't work,'" said Janet Blumen, the head of the Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow, a Las Vegas job-training organization that has seen positions in trucking and accounting go unfilled because training money had been earmarked for green efforts.

A $500 million job-training program has so far helped fewer than 20,000 people find work, far short of its goal.

Republicans, meanwhile, have seized on the failure of solar panel maker Solyndra, which received a $535 million loan guarantee, to argue that White House allies have been the only ones who have benefited from the green jobs push.

"He handed out tens of billions of dollars to green energy companies, including his friends and campaign contributors at companies like Solyndra that are now bankrupt," Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on April 4.

VARYING ESTIMATES

Backers of the notion of a "green collar" work force argue that earth-friendly energy is a promising growth sector that could create a bounty of stable, middle-class jobs and fill the gap left by manufacturing work that has moved overseas.

On the campaign trail in 2008, Obama promised that a $150 billion investment would generate 5 million jobs over 10 years.

Obama included $90 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to weatherize drafty buildings, fund electric-car makers and encourage other clean-energy efforts.

"We'll put nearly half a million people to work building wind turbines and solar panels, constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings, and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to new jobs," he said at a wind-turbine plant in Ohio the day before he took office.

In December 2009, Vice President Joe Biden said the effort would create 722,000 green jobs.

The White House said in November 2010 that its clean-energy efforts had generated work for 225,000 people and would ultimately create a total of 827,000 "job years" - implying average annual employment of around 200,000 over the four years of Obama's presidential term.

White House officials stand by that estimate and say job creation is only one aspect of the clean-energy push.

"We have a record of success that has created tens of thousands of jobs and is ensuring that America is not ceding these industries to countries like China," White House spokesman Clark Stevens said. "Thanks to the investments we've made, these industries will continue to grow, along with the jobs they create."

One problem is that, unlike other elements of the Recovery Act that injected money into the economy quickly, efforts to develop high-speed rail or electric-car batteries Obama also promoted could take a decade or longer to yield dividends.

Gains in the sector don't necessarily lead to wider employment.

The wind industry, for example, has shed 10,000 jobs since 2009 even as the energy capacity of wind farms has nearly doubled, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry has added 75,000 jobs since Obama took office, according to Labor Department statistics.

Federal agencies also have struggled to get stimulus money out the door in a timely manner, even for prosaic efforts that help local governments reduce energy costs.

The rush of funding encouraged private-sector participants to inflate their job-creation projections as they angled for a piece of the action, insiders say.

"They were obviously just guessing," said Robert Pollin, a University of Massachusetts professor and green-energy supporter who helped the Energy Department sort through loan applications. "If an undergraduate gave me a paper of that quality I would have probably given them a C or a C-plus."

SLOW PROGRESS

The high-profile failures of companies that have benefited from federal backing, such as Solyndra and Beacon Power Corp., have given ammunition to Republicans who paint the effort as a costly boondoggle.

They also have targeted the $500 job-training program that aims to train workers for skills they would need in a new "green economy."

The program's initial results were so poor that the Labor Department's inspector general recommended last fall that the agency should return the $327 million that remained unspent.

The numbers have improved somewhat since then, but the department remains far short of its goal of placing 80,000 workers into green jobs by 2013.

By the end of 2011, some 16,092 participants had found new work in a "green" field, according to the Labor Department - roughly one-fifth of its target. The program also helped employed workers upgrade their skills.

Republican Senator Charles Grassley said the program had reached too few workers to be deemed a success.

"The green jobs-training program just didn't work. It was a poor investment of tax dollars," Grassley said in a prepared statement.

SHADES OF GREEN

The effort has been complicated by confusion over what exactly constitutes a green job.

In March, the Labor Department estimated there were 3.1 million green jobs in the United States as of 2010, using a broad definition that included everything from nuclear power-plant workers to regulators, lobbyists and park rangers.

The Recovery Act used a narrower definition, focusing on wind, solar and other renewable-energy industries and energy-efficiency efforts aimed at reducing consumption.

Using a definition similar to the Labor Department's, the Brookings Institution estimated that the Las Vegas region that includes the vast solar fields sprouting around Boulder City supported 9,797 "clean jobs" in 2010, accounting for 1.2 percent of the region's employment.

Local officials don't expect that figure to grow much.

"Will it add a significant number of jobs, enough to make a real dent in our unemployment? No, I don't see that happening," said Darren Divine, vice president for academics at the College of Southern Nevada.

The fields of healthcare, education and technology are likely to provide the best employment prospects in the years to come, he said.

PLUGGING THE GAPS

The much-touted home weatherization program has upgraded more than 1 million houses and provided work for about 20,000 people, as well as generating business for suppliers, according to the White House.

But here as well, supply has outpaced demand. While government spending has kept contractors busy upgrading low-income houses and public buildings, homeowners have been less eager to spend their own money in a tumbling real estate market.

Contractors have fared better than the construction industry as a whole but have not found as much work as hoped, said Greg Thomas, the chairman of the trade group Efficiency First.

Les Lazareck, the head of Home Energy Connection in Las Vegas, estimated that fewer than one in four people he has trained through a Recovery Act program now earn most of their income through weatherization work.

"There's definitely not enough demand," he said. "The private market has been very slow."

(Editing by David Lindsey and Philip Barbara)