2-8-13

Calgary Herald/Vancouver Sun by Gordon Hamilton.  The Canadian oil and gas industry is asking Ottawa for subsidies that could be worth $2 billion in tax savings to encourage the development of liquefied natural gas plants in British Columbia.

Executive Director, Jim Egan (NGP Photo), tells us that today’s Commonwealth North meeting at noon in Anchorage: 2525 C St., will feature Apache Alaska Corp General Manager, John Hendrix.

Fairbanks News Miner/AP.  A Senate panel said Thursday that Alaska’s oil tax system likely helped advance the decline of oil production in the state, but it expressed misgivings with Gov. Sean Parnell’s approach to addressing the issue.

A Tale of Two Secretaries

You Decide: How Could They Affect North America’s Energy Future?

Letter to Secretary Highlights Benefits of Project for Energy, National Security   HOUSTON, TX – Today, Consumer Energy Alliance transmitted a letter to the newly confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry in which the organization underscores the importance of the proposed Keystone XL  pipeline for economic and energy security. While the letter notes that the pending presidential permit for the pipeline is “among the most politically divisive issues that the Department of State will face this year,” the letter also outlines a series of arguments in support of the project. Of note, CEA believes the Keystone XL pipeline is part of a movement toward North American energy self-sufficiency, a transition which will strengthen the secretary’s position as a diplomat representing U.S. interests abroad. Consumer Energy Alliance President David Holt (NGP Photo) writes:   “Keystone XL is part of a broader transition toward North American energy self-sufficiency – a revolution that will have profound effects on U.S. foreign relations and global geopolitics. Increased supplies of North American oil and natural gas coupled with greater adoption of energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy can eliminate the need for foreign imports within this decade.

Wall Street Journal, by Kimberley A. Strassel (Photo).  In naming Sally Jewell as Interior secretary, President Obama lauded the REI boss as a woman who "knows the link between conservation and good jobs."                     …. 

The press is just wild about Sally, feting the president’s nominee as everything to everybody. She’s never held office. She’s the CEO of a successful outdoor retailer. She’s a woman. She started as an oil company engineer. She is a "committed conservationist." What’s not to love?

Far from a creative choice, Ms. Jewell is just the newest addition to Mr. Obama’s second-term team of loyal ideologues. It is in fact Ms. Jewell’s (relatively unknown) history on the environmental fringe, and her liberal policy prescriptions, that surely made this an easy Obama call. The president knows he can rely on Ms. Jewell to do for the federal government exactly what she’s done at an activist level: Lock up land, target industries, kill traditional jobs.

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