We're en route from Ecuador to Alaska.  Here are relevant Consumer Energy Alliance clips

Townhall: The Russian Bear and the American Pipeline *Michael Whatley Op-Ed
If there were any doubt about the importance of pipelines to national security, it ought to have been erased by recent events in Crimea and Ukraine as the Russian Bear has pawed away the former from the latter. Europe is vulnerable because 16% of its natural gas comes through Ukraine. It is a powerful reminder of why the Keystone XL Pipeline is critical to our own national security.

 
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The shale economy 
Late last year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court made headlines with a 4-2 decision to strike down several key provisions of the Keystone State’s Marcellus Shale gas development law, known as Act 13. Washington County’s Robinson Township recently announced that it intends to withdraw from a joint lawsuit against Act 13, which prompted Supreme Court action in the first place.

Consumer Energy Alliance’s The Energy Voice: Jacksonville Can Benefit from Natural Gas Renaissance
CEA President David Holt discussed the future of natural gas development in Florida with the Jacksonville Florida Chamber of Commerce.
 
BuildKXLNow.org: Middle East Oil Imports Reduced by 40%
The U.S. reliance on overseas energy has long been a national security concern. Writing at TownHall.com, CEA’s Michael Whatley breaks down why it is so important for the United States to move ahead with building the Keystone XL Pipeline.
 
Canada Free Press: U.S. Now World’s Top Energy Producer – China Now Top Energy Consumer
Not long ago the United States was labeled as being the world’s greatest energy hog and the accompanying criticism from our world neighbors was we weren’t producing enough for our own needs let alone any production for export to other energy needy countries.
 
Investor's Business Daily:  Fracking is making the U.S.
Fracking is making the U.S. an energy leader again as natural gas and oil thought unrecoverable are tapped. A new Census Bureau report shows it's also altering where Americans live. Oil and gas-rich areas near the Great Plains and states like Texas, La. and Miss. along the Gulf Coast were among the fastest-growing regions last year, the report said.
 
Wall Street Journal: Winter Cold Takes Toll on Fracking
The European Central Bank goes into a policy meeting Thursday faced with a decision whether to take interest rates into negative territory because of the warning signs of deflation – most recently seen in Wednesday’s producer prices index report.
 
Investor's Business Daily: U.S. Should Produce And Export More Petroleum Products
America's crude petroleum export ban is an antiquated byproduct of the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Repeal is long overdue. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has sent U.S. oil, natural gas and propane production soaring. Natural gas output is up 36% since 2005. Oil output is expected to increase another 780,000 barrels per day in 2014 and reach 9.6 million daily by 2019. The U.S. is now importing half of what it did in 2005.
 
Wall Street Journal: Oil Boomtown Williston, N.D., Looks for a Stable Future
This oil boomtown, known for its brawling roughnecks and their spare living conditions, is starting to smooth off its rough edges. But not all of them. Muddy pickup trucks still jam the streets, but they drive past recent additions to town, including more than a dozen new restaurants like Buffalo Wild Wings. Subdivisions are springing up along the hills and a $73 million recreation center opened last weekend.
 
The Hill: GOP seeks to tie Keystone, gas exports to jobless benefits bill
Senate Republicans want the Keystone XL pipeline and natural gas exports to ride the coattails of unemployment benefits. Republican Sens. John Hoeven (N.D.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) on Tuesday proposed an amendment to the jobless aid bill that finds a path forward for Keystone and expedites natural gas export applications.
 
Reporter-Herald: Fracking vote has council support
That's the timeline that the Loveland City Council gave Tuesday in directing city staff to move forward in the special election process, while also supporting potential negotiations with advocates and opponents of a fracking moratorium ballot initiative. The proposed ordinance submitted by advocacy group Protect Our Loveland would ask voters whether or not to impose a two-year moratorium of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, within city limits while impacts of the process of human health and property values are studied.
 
CBS Denver: Gardner Challenges Udall On Fracking
Republican Rep. Cory Gardner is challenging Democratic Sen. Mark Udall to disavow efforts to rein in the controversial procedure known as “fracking.” Gardner is running against Udall. The congressman’s campaign demanded Tuesday that Udall oppose efforts to ban fracking in Colorado.
 
Greeley Tribune: Energy Pipeline: Fracking debate bubbles to the political surface
While two cities in northern Colorado face lawsuits over fracking bans and moratoriums that voters passed last fall, an even larger debate over fracking is beginning to brew at the state level. In the last three months, two groups have announced intentions to gather signatures to put anti-fracking measures on the state ballot in November. One would give cities and towns more control over oil and gas drilling inside their borders. The other would give local governments the power to restrict oil and gas as well as other industrial activity now permitted by state law.
 
FuelFix: Marcellus strategy paying off for gas producers
The Marcellus Shale is starting to prove that, given time, its proximity to the East Coast can make it profitable for those who got in early, according to a Moody’s report issuedTuesday. “Marcellus’ size and geographic location near the high-demand U.S. Northeast and Midwest markets give gas producers there a distinct advantage over their competitors elsewhere in the US,” Moody’s wrote.
 
San Francisco Bay Guardian: Billionaire helps poke holes in oil industry's argument for drilling Monterey Shale
“We’ve been told that there’s a great oil boom on the immediate horizon,” billionaire investor and Pac Heights resident Tom Steyer noted at the start of a March 27 talk in Sacramento. But Steyer (who has pledged to spend $100 million on ad campaigns for the 2014 election to promote action on climate change) wasn’t there to trumpet the oil industry’s high expectations. Instead, he introduced panelists who dismissed the buzz on drilling the Monterey Shale as pie-in-the-sky hype.
 
The Sacramento Bee: Refinery plans to ship 100 train cars of crude oil through Sacramento
A Bay Area refinery’s plan to run up to 100 train cars of highly flammable crude oil daily through Sacramento is prompting a late push by area leaders to protect cities on the rail line. Sacramento officials say they only recently learned that a proposed rail terminal at the Valero company’s refinery in Benicia could dramatically increase the number of trains carrying crude oil through the region, including through populated downtowns. They say they are scrambling to fashion a joint statement to Valero officials expressing concerns.
 
The Denver Post: Colorado legislative committee OKs oil and gas health impact study
A plan for a detailed analysis on the potential health impacts of oil and gas development on the Front Range was approved Tuesday by a state legislative committee. The analysis, to be done by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, will cover six Front Range counties and cost an estimated $700,000.
 
MLive: Lt. Gov. Brian Calley signs law offering incentives for enhanced oil recovery at Western Michigan University
With half a million linear feet of core samples as a backdrop, Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley signed a package of bills into law Tuesday that provides incentives for an oil recovery method that retrieves more oil and natural gas from existing wells while sequestering carbon dioxide deep underground. Western Michigan University's Michigan Geological Repository for Research and Education, where Public Act 82 was signed, is part of a regional partnership set up by the federal government to study carbon capture and sequestration. Since 2011, it also has been home to the Michigan Geological Survey.
 
The Robesonian: Energy companies want OK for natural gas pipeline to NC
Duke Energy Corp. and Piedmont Natural Gas Company Inc. said Tuesday they want to invest in a new natural gas pipeline into North Carolina that can deliver more of the cheap fuel to customers and especially to new power plants run by the country’s largest electricity company. The two Charlotte-based companies said they are shopping for proposals to build a pipeline that could start delivering fuel to Duke’s electric power plants and other businesses beginning in late 2018. The companies expect to select a proposal by late this year.
 
News-Journal.com: Texas produces 36 percent of U.S. crude
Texas is producing about 36 percent of the country’s crude oil — three times more than any other state, according to the latest monthly figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Texas pumped nearly 2.9 million barrels of crude daily of the 7.9 million barrels produced nationwide in January, the latest month for which figures are available. The Gulf of Mexico produced about 17 percent, the second-largest portion, followed by North Dakota with about 12 percent of the U.S. crude. California and Alaska rounded out the top five crude-producing areas, each home to about 7 percent of the nation’s oil.
 
Star-Telegram: Worker shortage endangers growth from gas boom
Chevron Phillips Chemical, preparing to break ground on the first U.S. ethylene plant since 2001, says a lack of skilled labor is the biggest threat to the manufacturing expansion spurred by cheap natural gas. Chevron Phillips’ ethylene and polyethylene plastics plants will cost $1 billion more than the original $5 billion estimate, primarily because of higher labor costs, Chief Executive Officer Peter Cella said Tuesday. The projects will need 10,000 construction workers and will create 400 permanent positions, he said.
 
Washington Examiner: EPA sends proposed emissions rule for existing power plants to White House
The Environmental Protection Agency sent an anticipated greenhouse gas emission rule for existing power plants to the White House for federal review Tuesday, a move that would round out a cornerstone of the president's climate agenda. The EPA sent the rule to the Office of Management and Budget for review. The agency plans to finish the rule by June 2015.
 
Natural Resources Defense Council (blog):  New Study: Overlooked Low-Carbon Fuel Standard Benefits Put Money in Californians' Pockets
Despite the foot-dragging and dire predictions from California’s oil lobby, the state’s groundbreaking Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) is reducing carbon pollution and will save consumers $837 million per year by 2020 as a result of increased diversification and competition of fuel suppliers, according to a study published this week.