U.S. Rep. Don Young (NGP Photo) writes in the Washington Times (8/9), “American energy Don Young on 4-14-09 by Dave Harbourmarvels such as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) are the real drivers of the American economy. TAPS didn’t require a government mandate; it required the federal government to get out of the way. This pipeline would never be built today. TAPS was successful only because of the oil embargo and, more significantly, because the legislation curtailed the ability of environmentalists to file lawsuits to block the project — an effort in which, unfortunately, they have become well versed.   *     USA Today (8/11) reports, “It will cost nearly $8 billion over the next decade to pay for the expanded federal bureaucracy needed to combat global warming under a bill passed by the House of Representatives, a report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says.    *     Platts’ Inside Energy (8/10) reports, “Energy Secretary Steven Chu suggested last week that the House-passed climate bill was not aggressive enough in cutting industrial greenhouse emissions, but he said the US could take a more forceful approach down the road when new, low-carbon energy technologies are developed.     *     IER Founder Rob Bradley blogs (8/12) onMasterResource.org, “President-elect Obama’s new science advisor, John Holdren, was concerned about global cooling too. In Ecoscience: Population, Resources, and Environment (1977: p. 686), Paul Ehrlich, Anne Ehrlich, and Holdren stated: “Many observers have speculated that the cooling could be the beginning of a long and persistent trend in that direction—that is, an inevitable departure from an abnormally warm period in climatic history.” The Ehlrichs and Holdren also gave voice to cooling alarmist Reid Bryson, who said this in his essay in their edited book of essays published in 1971, Global Ecology: “I believe that increasing global air pollution, through its effect on the reflectivity of the earth, is currently dominant and is responsible for the temperature decline of the past decade or so.”     *     The Heritage Foundation blogs (8/10) over at The Foundry, “The goal of cap and trade is to force energy prices to rise so high that people use less of it. And boy do they. Even under the most generous assumptions the Heritage analysis found: Gas prices will rise 58 percent. Gas prices are expected to increase in the future even without cap and trade. Waxman-Markey would add an additional $1.38 to that increase. Electricity prices will rise 90 percent. In total, a family of four can expect per-year energy costs to rise $1,241 by 2035. A family of four will also reduce its consumption of goods and services by up to $3,000 per year, as its income and savings fall; Over the 2012-2035 time frame, the years in which we modeled the bill, aggregate GDP losses will be $9.4 trillion; in other words, we will be $9.4 trillion poorer with cap and trade than without. The government will collect $5.7 trillion in energy tax revenue. By 2035, job losses will be nearly 2.5 million.     *     Cache Valley (Colo.) Daily (8/10) reports, “A new health reform bill was not the only legislation left unfinished when Congress adjourned for its August recess. The so-called cap-and-trade bill has already passed the house but Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, says the sponsor of the Senate bill, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has put her legislation on hold. Bennett said he believes the primary stumbling block is the cost. "If the House bill passed as currently constituted it would increase the utility bills of very American by a very substantial amount," Bennett said.     *     E&E News (8/10) reports, “Al Gore, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other Democratic leaders talked up the virtues of natural gas extracted from shale here today, saying it could reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and greenhouse gas emissions. Shale gas is a "global warming game changer," exclaimed John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress and the director of President Obama’s transition team. "Shale gas — newly available because of American know-how — can replace old coal-burning power plants," Podesta said. The Wall Street Journal (8/10) blogs, “John Podesta, the head of the think tank Center for American Progress, twice cited the potential of natural gas—not just any gas, but “shale gas” extracted from underground rocks—to replace “dirty coal.”     *     TheGlenwood Springs (Colo.) Post Independent (8/10) reports, “Kathy Hall, of the Western Slope Oil & Gas Association, told the board of county commissioners on Monday that the procedure known as hydraulic fracturing, or “frac’ing,” is “a very safe process,” and ended up in a short debate with commissioner Trési Houpt on a variety of frac’ing-related topics.       *     Associated Press (8/10) reports, “Hiring in the alternative energy industry will pick up in the next 12 months, though it will take more time before so-called green-jobs will become a bigger part of the U.S. job market, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Monday. Clinton said that lawmakers need to convince Americans that advancing on energy makes economic sense, and not stop short with programs that merely create a few thousand jobs over the next decade. The second National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, where Solis spoke with The Associated Press, drew a high-profile list of alternative energy backers, including former President Bill Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “It’s peanuts — we just lost 7 million jobs,” Clinton said.     *     Financial Times (8/10) reports, “Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, is expected to decide as early as this month whether to approve the Alberta Clipper, a 1,000-mile pipeline designed to carry up to 800,000 barrels a day of fuel from Canada’s vast oil sands. Enbridge is confident it will obtain the permit this month, enabling it to build. “We’re going to start construction at the end of this month,” the company said. “We believe we will have a successful outcome and look forward to completion by mid-2010. We’re not worried at all.” Amy Myers Jaffee, energy expert at the James A. Baker III Institute for public policy, said the place to take a stand on oil sands would not be in permit issuance but in bilateral talks with Canada ahead of the Copenhagen summit. “The Obama people have to think about the overall Canadian relationship,” she said.     *     Wall Street Journal (8/11) reports, “China’s resource majors have snapped up foreign oil and other assets recently, as the country seeks to lock in energy supplies. China Petrochemical Corp., the Chinese state-owned oil company known as Sinopec, in June acquired Switzerland-based oil explorer Addax Petroleum Corp. for $7.2 billion. In April, CNPC purchased Kazakh oil producer MangistauMunaiGas jointly with Kazakhstan’s state-owned KazMunaiGas for $3.3 billion. China’s state energy companies are also showing more teamwork in chasing foreign deals than previously. This year Sinopec and Cnooc have together struck deals for oil and natural-gas assets in Angola and the Caribbean. In July they agreed to buy jointly a 20% stake held by U.S. oil producer Marathon Oil Corp. in an oil block off Angola for $1.3 billion. Chinese oil companies have also signed oil-for-loans agreements with Russia and Brazil.