Germany Rapidly Burns Through Gas Reserve… Shortage Fears…

Peter Caddle 20 Dec 2022

Discussion of fears over possible gas shortages has returned to the German media, with the cold European winter seeing the country burn through its saved-up supply far faster than expected.

After a period of absence due to an abnormally warm late fall and early winter, the issue of possible gas shortages appears to have well and truly returned to the German media sphere, with the country reportedly consuming far more of its gas reserves than expected as a result of a cold snap that has hit northern Europe..............To Read More...

My Take - So....does this mean that going green is a failure?  Yes, it does, and no matter how they twist it going green will always be a failure because these green misfits will find every form of energy production, even ones they promote, will turn out to be "evil".   To be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective.  Why is that so hard to get?  

As for Germany and the rest of the EU....schadenfreude!

 

Europe now has a natural gas oversupply (if you count ships waiting to unload).

John Sexton October 24, 2022

We all know how this has played out. This summer Russia started monkeying with the natural gas supply to Germany and the rest of Europe, claiming there was some technical problem that required maintenance. Then they cut the gas off completely and not long after that someone blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. The result of all this has been a huge spike in energy prices in Europe and concern that there might not be enough gas to heat homes this winter......To Read More...

China Is Aggressively reselling Russian Gas To Europe

By Tyler Durden Wednesday, Aug 31, 2022

One month ago, we were surprised to read how, despite a suppressed appetite for energy amid its housing crash and economic downturn (for which "zero covid" has emerged as a convenient scapegoat for emperor Xi), China has been soaking up more Russian natural gas so far this year, while imports from most other sources declined.

In July, the SCMP reported that according to Chinese customs data, in the first six months of the year, China bought a total of 2.35 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) – valued at US$2.16 billion. The import volume increased by 28.7% year on year, with the value surging by 182%. It meant Russia has surpassed Indonesia and the United States to become China’s fourth-largest supplier of LNG so far this year!............To Read More....

 My Take - Europe is now a third world continent totally dependent on those who hate them, and their stupid policies are killing them, and at the same time their citizens arrogantly continue down the road to their destruction on energy, green initiatives and immigration.  Europe is doomed. 

Biden Energy Policies: Incoherent, Incompetent, Intolerable

They raise energy prices, hurt living standards, and impair our future as a law-abiding nation

Paul Driessen                                                                                 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA is truly a landmark ruling. It decisively rejected the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to use vague, “previously little-used” language in the Clean Air Act to shutter America’s remaining coal-fired power plants and force the nation to switch to pseudo-renewable energy, in the name of ending the “manmade climate crisis.”

But the decision goes much further. The Court made it clear that federal agencies may not impose “major federal actions,” decide “major questions” or implement “transformative expansions” of their regulatory authority without specific statutory authority clearly conferred by Congress.

In other words, federal agencies do not have the power or right to take unilateral actions that effectively transform or undermine major sections of America’s energy, economic or agricultural systems, its industries or its living standards, unless Congress has given them explicit authority to do so.

Such enormously “transformational powers” belong to the American people, acting through legislators they elect to represent them – not to bureaucrats who are not elected and cannot easily be removed from office or otherwise disciplined and held accountable. The intolerable regulatory overreach exhibited by EPA (and too many other federal agencies) violates our Constitution, its “separation of powers” doctrine, and any rational understanding of “legislative intent.”

Many Americans believe West Virginia v. EPA represents a great victory over the regulatory “Deep State.” However, the Court’s ruling will mean little if the Biden Administration refuses to acknowledge the decision and continues doing as it pleases, perhaps reflecting the “progressive” view that the Court has gone “rogue.”

To cite just one example, consider what’s happening with regard to pipeline policy – yet another choke point the Administration is utilizing to force America to terminate fossil fuel use.

Richard Glick, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s radically left chairman, claims the ruling doesn’t apply to him. He insists that several federal district courts – two tiers below the Supreme Court – previously held that the EPA could regulate coal into oblivion. Therefore, he claims, the energy-killing regulations he wants to impose on pipelines can remain in place, or even be made more onerous, unless the Supreme Court specifically overrules him and FERC on that specific matter.

Under this “novel” interpretation, federal agencies can ignore or defy the Supreme Court on any regulations they want to implement – even regulations with major national implications, even rules that could leave people freezing jobless in the dark and perhaps dying from hypothermia – unless and until the Supremes render a decision specifically against those agencies and rules.

Or perhaps even until the Court has mustered its own army or sent an FBI or IRS SWAT team to kick in agency doors and enforce its decisions.

Chairman Glick wants FERC to revive its proposed rule requiring pipeline companies to account for all greenhouse gas emissions from construction or operation of their pipelines – even if it means many states and cities could find themselves without natural gas to electrify, heat and air condition homes, operate restaurants, hospitals and schools, power factories, or provide backup electricity during emergencies.

Major regions of America depend on pipelines carrying natural gas to generate electricity or provide direct fuel for furnaces, water heaters, ovens, ranges and backup generators. They already face threats of gas shortages and electricity blackouts during winter months and when weather conditions don’t cooperate with government-mandated wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations.

Pipeline companies say they would have to abandon many markets if the FERC rule is imposed, because it is hugely expensive, impossible to follow and likely to bankrupt them.

When Democrat and Republican members of Congress learned about the proposed rule, they urged FERC to rescind it. The Commission ultimately did suspend further consideration of the measure, but Mr. Glick’s recent remarks suggest he may try to unilaterally lift the suspension.

Perhaps his position is so at odds with the Supreme Court because the White House told him to disregard the ruling. President Biden repeatedly said on the campaign trail and since his inauguration that he is little concerned about high energy prices. He promised to end fossil fuel use in the USA and intends to do so, regardless of any impacts that might have on families, jobs and global geopolitical realities.

President Biden promptly canceled the Keystone Pipeline, increased regulations, suspended federal permitting processes, designated large areas as “national monuments” to restrict exploration and production, and directed all federal agencies to base all decisions on theoretical effects on Earth’s climate.

Those actions clearly signaled that he was willing to sacrifice our nation’s hard-won energy independence and once-strong economy on the altar of extreme green ideologies.

When food and gasoline prices more than doubled and inflation shot to a 40-year high, his approval ratings sank to lows never endured by any American president, Mr. Biden was reduced to begging Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Iran to produce more oil. Perhaps he thinks their fossil fuels don’t emit “carbon.”

With a deciding vote by Vice President Kamala Harris, Congress passed the fraudulently named Inflation Reduction Act, which slaps $370-billion in taxes on middle class families to pay for electric vehicle, solar panel and wind turbine tax credits – and further enrich Democrat allies.

The wealthy will buy expensive electric cars that will be charged with pricey, intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar power. Middle classes will see their jobs and living standards plunge further.

Meanwhile, China, India, a hundred other developing countries and a newly refocused Europe are all burning more fossil fuels, to improve and safeguard people’s living standards and lives – and provide the “renewable” energy materials and technologies the United States cannot or will not produce itself.  

The United States could totally eliminate coal, oil and natural gas – and it wouldn’t improve Earth’s climate or weather one iota, even if greenhouse gas emissions actually drive climate change, including the Ice Ages, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, Little Ice Age, Mayan drought and Dust Bowl.

Even more interesting, incoherent, incompetent and intolerable, White House and FERC actions to base all federal decisions on computer-conjured effects on Earth’s global climate obstinately and deliberately ignore the widespread harmful effects of Biden Administration fossil-fuel-eradication policies.

Those policies pay little or no attention to slave and child labor, wildlife habitat destruction, toxic air and water pollution, or even carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from the vast overseas mining, materials processing and manufacturing operations required to make the countless wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles and backup batteries needed to replace the fossil fuels Mr. Biden detests.

Moreover, the fact that Mr. Glick’s boss has an anti-fossil-fuel agenda does not mean FERC’s chairman can ignore and defy America’s highest court. He swore to respect our Constitution and the separation of powers enshrined in it. He has no right or authority to advance the ideological whims of political officeholders, even a President.

Chairman Glick’s past comments show he already understands this. If he pushes his pipeline rule now on climate grounds, it will spell trouble – for American families, and for our Constitution, judicial system, regulatory state, respect for the rule of law, and survival as a united nation.

We can only hope he ultimately musters the courage, common sense and recognition of his oath of office to do what is constitutional, as opposed to what’s momentarily convenient, albeit incomprehensible.

Keep this destructive Biden agenda in mind when you head to the polls November 8.

Paul Driessen is a lawyer, senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), and author of books and articles on energy, environmental, legal and human rights issues.

 

Manhattan Contrarian Announces The Arrival Of "Peak Oil-Hysteria"

November 03, 2021/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

Do you remember the “peak oil” scare? That was the claim, heard everywhere in the early 2000s, that nearly all the world’s discoverable oil had already been found, and we would shortly enter a time of inexorably declining production and rapidly escalating prices. This 2018 article in Forbes by Michael Lynch traces the “modern” version of the “peak oil” scare to a 1997 piece in the Oil & Gas Journal by a guy named Colin Campbell. Campbell argued that oil reserves were “rapidly depleting,” that there was “comparatively little left to find,” and that “the world's economic and political stability, which relies on an abundant supply of cheap oil, is in serious jeopardy.”

Campbell was joined in ensuing years by a chorus of assenting voices. Among many others quoted by Lynch are Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress in 2009 (“I have blogged endlessly on the painfully obvious reality that we are at or near the peak”) and Rex Wehler of Greenpeace in 2012 (“Oil company cheerleaders proclaiming huge supplies of oil are dead wrong. Peak oil is as real as rain, and it is here now. Not 2050. Not 2020. Now.”)

And, of course, the usual: “[T]hose who disagreed were treated with derision.”

Then came the fracking revolution. By 2014 prices for oil (and gas as well) were plummeting. The “peak oil” scare quietly faded away, never to be mentioned again — although I haven’t noticed any of the promoters of the scare publicly admitting that they were wrong.

Oil production isn’t at a peak, and never was. But here’s something closely related that really is at or near a peak from which rapid decline should be expected: Oil-Hysteria. Oil-Hysteria is the delirium that holds that the production and use of oil (and for that matter other fossil fuels) for the benefit and happiness of humanity are grave sins and are destroying the planet. Lately that hysteria and delirium have reached a fevered pitch, untethered to reality and reminiscent of great stock market bubbles and tulip manias.

And thus today, after reviewing the evidence, the Manhattan Contrarian has announced the arrival of “Peak Oil-Hysteria.” It is here. Not 2050. Not 2030. Now.

The evidence is far too profuse to cover all of it in one blog post. But consider if you will a few data points:

• President Joe Biden came into office on a crusade against against the fossil fuel industry. Executive Orders issued in his first few days in office essentially did everything within the President’s power, absent new legislation, to restrict and hinder fossil fuel production. This included blocking new pipeline construction, ending fracking and drilling on federal lands, and ordering up various other regulations to make production more difficult and expensive. By August, with retail gas prices up about 30% since inauguration, Biden began urging OPEC members to increase production. On Saturday, at the G20 meeting in Rome — with retail gas prices up yet another 10% or so since August — Biden again urged major producing countries to ramp up supply. From Reuters, October 30: “U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday urged major G20 energy producing countries [including Russia and Saudi Arabia] with spare capacity to boost production to ensure a stronger global economic recovery as part of a broad effort to pressure OPEC and its partners to increase oil supply.”

• While in Rome, Biden ridiculously conjured himself up a motorcade of some 85 of the biggest armored gas guzzlers ever known to man. Here is a picture of the extravaganza from the New York Post:

Do you think that Joe’s people rented all those specialized armored vehicles from Hertz? I haven’t been able to find confirmation, but I think it’s a completely safe bet that all of the vehicles got flown over from the U.S. on giant military transport planes. This has to be a Guinness Book of World Records occasion for carbon footprint for one guy’s trip to anywhere. On November 2 Senator John Barrasso sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm demanding details on Biden’s expenses and carbon impact for this trip to Rome and Glasgow. The letter notes the “tone of insincerity” on carbon emissions set by Biden’s ridiculously extravagant travel entourage. That’s an extremely gentle way of putting it.

• The opening of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow was accompanied, as these things always are, by enormous backups of private jets trying to fly into the local airports. The Daily Mail noted a “huge traffic jam” of some 400 private aircraft.

• President Biden was photographed having fallen asleep at the conference listening to some functionary drone on.

• Lots of heads of state showed up, but not the most important ones. Xi Jinping of China — the largest consumer of fossil fuel energy — was a no show. So were Vladimir Putin of Russia and Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia — the two largest producers of fossil fuel energy other than the U.S. China made no new pledges about cutting emissions, and instead reiterated its supposed pledge to reach “net zero” emissions by 2060. The year 2060 is obviously calculated to be well after the demise of every current world leader, and thus sufficiently far away that China will never be held to account for its completely phony non-commitment. But India (third largest emitter of GHGs after China and the U.S.) whose leader Narendra Modi did at least show up, went even one better: India said it would reach “net zero” by 2070! Oh, but India did say that it would build a slew of solar and wind facilities, but only if Western countries chipped in $1 trillion to pay for them!

• According to today’s Wall Street Journal, Biden remarked that Russia and China had made a mistake by not showing up, and they would “cede influence” in climate discussions. OK, we already knew this guy was dumb. Russia and China may have their problems, but clearly their leaders are smart enough to realize that the right strategy is to sit back and let the West commit suicide.

• Biden himself was of course empty-handed at the conference, having failed to move his multi-trillion dollar spendapalooza in Congress. Even if it all gets passed it would never make a noticeable difference in world emissions. As an example, completely missing from Biden’s multi-trillions is anything towards India’s latest trillion dollar demand. And don’t even ask about Africa.

• So in the absence of anything even remotely meaningful, the Wall Street Journal reports today that the delegates turned their attention to something still more peripheral — methane emissions: “Global leaders at the Glasgow climate summit pledged Tuesday to sharply curtail methane emissions, with President Biden saying the U.S. would tighten regulations on oil and natural-gas production to reduce leaks of the potent greenhouse gas.  The effort spotlighted growing concerns about the environmental harms of methane, a byproduct of drilling. . . .” Once more, it’s the attack of the journalist English majors, who have no idea that methane, which is the main component of natural gas, is not a “byproduct” of drilling, but rather the whole point.

• On October 24 Iran’s Fars new agency reported that China is buying on the order of 1 million barrels of oil per day from Iran.

• And suddenly, some members of Congress are finding it politically advantageous to get on the sane side of the climate craziness. If you haven’t watched it, check out Representative Byron Donalds of Florida at the Congressional hearing on October 28 called by Representative Carolyn Maloney (of Manhattan) to try to embarrass the CEOs of the oil majors. Excerpt:

   "Somebody needs to go and call Merrick Garland, tell him to get in here and watch the intimidation that came from this very panel today," Donalds said. "Because this is not about defending big oil, or defending big anything. It’s about defending the ability of people in our country to be free: say what they want, think what they want, spend their money how they choose. And if we are not going to be any better than the Chinese, how do we ever expect to beat them on the world stage when we’re cutting our neck when it comes to energy production while they are burning more coal, burning more oil, they’re increasing their emissions and they’re not showing up in Scotland. . . . [T]hey’re interested in building an economy."

Note that I’m not saying that the whole climate scam is going to collapse tomorrow. Just that the hysteria has reached a peak beyond which it has nowhere to go. From here it will have to be a long decline. The portion of the climate coalition that was only on board as a convenient excuse to impose the Marxist vision on the world, will move on to the next such convenient excuse — Critical Race Theory maybe? — leaving the committed environmental zealots to scream at each other and maybe block traffic here and there.

GOP Rep. Waltz: We’re Funding ‘Existential Threat’ from China, Time to Boycott China… Green Policies Return the World to Coal

October 10, 2021 By Clarice Feldman

There’s scarcely a place in the modern world which will not be feeling the high cost and discomfort of a shortage of energy supplies and their increasingly soaring prices. Lebanon already is. Due to a shortage of oil, the two power plants that supply 40% of that country’s electricity shut down. There is no electricity in Lebanon and will not be any for some days.

It’s an extreme case, but even the United Kingdom, the EU, the U.S., and China are running up against diminishing ability to obtain the necessary energy supplies to keep things running smoothly. Some of the shortages are due to accidents, like the cutting of an undersea cable to the UK, but most are due to green policies and stupid political choices, ironically shutting down oil and gas-fired power plants and fossil fuel exploitation and transport at the demand of the greens, who grossly overestimate both global warming and the ability of air, sun and water to take their place. Ironically, this means coal -- the dirtiest possible fuel -- is back in huge demand,

Despite an import ban on Australian coal, China relented and has begun unloading Australian coal because of an extreme power crunch. Coal is now in demand in Europe as gas prices soar and the EU’s energy policies are in large responsible: ...............To Read More....

 

Can There Be Any Doubt That Hillary Was Behind The Trump/Russia Collusion Hoax?

September 28, 2021 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian  13 Comments

I feel that I should comment on the indictment of lawyer Michael Sussman by Special Counsel John Durham while the issue is still current. Very likely you have already read extensively about Durham’s indictment of Sussman, which came down on September 16. Sussman was one of the lawyers, although not the head lawyer, at the firm of Perkins Coie, who worked for the DNC and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016.

This indictment is another instance by which we are learning step by step how the Democratic powers and their press side-kicks, through strict control of a “narrative,” think that they can get a critical mass of the American people to believe literally anything, no matter how preposterous. And to a remarkable extent, they are right.

From mid-2016 to mid-2019, we had about three years of non-stop Russia! Russia! Russia! obsession from the Democratic Party and its media adjunct. The stories advancing the narrative numbered in the thousands, and ultimately turned into nothing when Special Counsel Robert Mueller finally issued his report at the end of that period. But how did this whole thing get going and continued for such a long period of time?

On its face, the Sussman indictment appears to be a very odd bird, and by itself not a particularly significant one. The charge is a single count of “lying to the FBI” (18 U.S.C. Section 1001). This statute is a favorite of the feds because almost anyone dumb enough to talk to the FBI can be tripped up on something. The defendant is a relatively small fish in the school of barracudas who had to have been involved in orchestrating the “Trump/Russia collusion” hoax in the 2016 election and thereafter. The “lie” in question is on the seemingly peripheral issue of whether Sussman was working for a client, i.e., the Clinton campaign, or just reporting to the FBI as a public-spirited citizen. Could the FBI really have been fooled about that? And is this really the best they’ve got?

On the flip side, there are some serious indications — although we can’t know for sure — that there is more coming. The indictment gives a substantial narrative of the facts constituting the alleged crime, which is unusual and unnecessary for this sort of indictment. Those facts give plenty of support for a potential inference that the communication to the FBI was part of an orchestrated Clinton campaign initiative to get an easily-compliant press to report the beginning of a federal investigation against Trump. The press wouldn’t just report some unsubstantiated made-up story from the campaign, but if the FBI was investigating, now that would be a story. So the FBI needed to be enlisted, for the benefit of one campaign against the other.

Could that really have occurred without the candidate’s knowledge and approval?

And then separately, we have the previously-little-noticed matter of the departure of Marc Elias from Perkins Coie on August 22, just three weeks before the Sussman indictment. Here is Perkins Coie’s announcement of the Elias departure. Elias was the lead lawyer for the Clinton campaign and DNC in the 2016 cycle. Supposedly, the reason for the departure was to give Elias “the independence to broaden [his] advocacy and types of matters on which [he] works.” In other words, we are supposed to believe that, while at Perkins Coie, Elias had sufficient independence to do political work up to and including representing the DNC and the Clinton presidential campaign, but now he needs to leave to do some other and presumably more important election law work that just can’t be done at Perkins Coie? Not likely. More probably, Elias is in negotiations with Durham; and Perkins Coie didn’t want to see one of its current partners indicted, let alone plead guilty to something.

In case you need any reminding, Hillary was very personally and actively involved in publicly promoting the idea, both at the time of the 2016 campaign and thereafter, that Trump was somehow working with or for Putin and Russia. The earliest accusation by Hillary herself on the subject that I can find appeared in the New York Times on September 5, 2016, about two months before the election. In July of that year, there had been a release of a collection of DNC emails, which had showed the DNC co-ordinating with the Clinton campaign to disadvantage Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary season. The DNC email release was often attributed in the press to a Russian hack, although I have never seen any proof of that, and I’ve always thought that the better theory was a leak by an unhappy (and probably Bernie-supporting) DNC insider. Anyway, here’s Hillary in July 2016:

“It’s almost unthinkable,” Mrs. Clinton said on Monday, referring to what she called recent “credible reports about Russian interference in our elections.” . . . “We’ve never had the nominee of one of our major parties urging the Russians to hack,” Mrs. Clinton said in a news conference. . . . The comments, Mrs. Clinton’s most extensive yet on one of the more unusual subplots of the presidential campaign. . . .

The meeting between a Clinton campaign lawyer and the FBI set forth in the Sussman indictment took place on September 19, 2016. The story allegedly weaved by Sussman at the FBI meeting, about supposed communications between Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank, and an FBI investigation of same, became public in a story in Slate on October 31. But meanwhile, at the October 19 presidential debate Hillary used the occasion to make an explicit accusation against Trump of being a “puppet” of Vladimir Putin. That accusation was not specifically connected to the July 2016 DNC “hack.” From Reuters, October 19, 2016:

During Wednesday’s presidential debate, Trump said he did not know Putin but would likely get along better with the Russian leader than Clinton, a former secretary of state. . . . Clinton responded: ”Well that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”

After the election, and even more so after the inauguration in January 2017, the press started going crazy with the Trump/Russia collusion story. In a post on March 2 of that year, I noted that “the New York Times has easily had several dozen articles since the election about the supposedly nefarious relationship between President Trump and/or his team and Russian officials.” Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller was appointed in May of that year. And through it all, Hillary Clinton was very much personally involved in fanning the flames of the Trump/Russia collusion story. For example, from the Washington Post, September 12, 2017:

USA Today's Susan Page, in an interview published late Monday night, asked Clinton whether she thought Trump associates colluded with Russia. And Clinton broke with many in her party by offering a pretty unvarnished answer in the affirmative. “There certainly was communication, and there certainly was an understanding of some sort.” . . . .

And who can forget Hillary’s op-ed in The Washington Post on April 24, 2019, commenting on the Mueller Report shortly after its issuance:

[T]he president of the United States has proved himself unwilling to defend our nation from a clear and present danger. . . . This is . . . an administration that refuses to take even the most minimal, common-sense steps to prevent future attacks and counter ongoing threats to our nation. . . . [U]nless he’s held accountable, the president may show even more disregard for the laws of the land and the obligations of his office. He will likely redouble his efforts to advance Putin’s agenda . . .

So will the Durham investigation actually get to Hillary? After all, merely accusing the opposing campaign on no basis whatsoever of being in cahoots with Russia would not be a crime. Enlisting the FBI on false pretenses in advancing the accusation would be a crime. But of course, Hillary did not meet with the FBI herself. Reaching her will require the cooperating testimony of an Elias or a Sussman or both. Will they turn?

Meanwhile, as I commented repeatedly while it was going on, the idea that Russia was working to advance Trump as President over his Democratic rivals never made a bit of sense. From my post of February 25, 2020:

There is zero chance that Putin prefers President Trump over any of his potential Democratic opponents. The reason is simple. All of the Democratic candidates propose to hobble and cripple the U.S. fossil fuel industry. Trump supports the expansion of the U.S. fossil fuel industry. The U.S. fossil fuel industry is what has driven down the price of Russia’s oil and gas exports by about half in the last several years, costing Russia and Putin hundreds of billions of dollars, and severely restricting Russia’s ability to continue to be a player on the world stage.

And now that Vlad has a Democrat back in the White House, the suppression of the U.S. energy economy, to the benefit of Russia, is back in full swing. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Agency, Russia’s exports of oil and related products to the U.S. have surged during 2021, up to 847 thousand barrels/day in the latest reporting month of June, up from 453 barrels/day in February, immediately after Biden took office. Russia has moved into second place among nations who export oil to the U.S., behind only Canada and well ahead of any member of OPEC. ( Saudi Arabia is in a distand third place at 576 thousand barrels/day.)

Here is the EIA chart of U.S. imports from Russia of “crude oil and petroleum products” in thousands of barrels per day from 2004 through June 2021. You can make your own judgment on whom Putin would rather have in office.

 

Why Putin's pipeline is welcome in Germany

Pat Buchanan: Merkel obviously doesn't see Russia as the military threat it was in the Cold War

By Patrick J. Buchanan March 25, 2021 

During a joint interview with Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian secretary-general of NATO, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, fresh from his bout with the Chinese in Anchorage, took on Angela Merkel and the Germans.  Issue: Nord Stream 2, the Baltic Sea pipeline Vladimir Putin is building to complement his Nord Stream 1 and carry more natural gas from Russia to Germany, and from there to other NATO nations.  The original Nord Stream pipeline, also consisting of two strands of pipe along the Baltic Sea floor, was completed in 2011.

In his meeting with Stoltenberg in Brussels, Blinken warned that Western companies participating in building Nord Stream 2, which is 90% complete, would face sanctions mandated by Congress:

"President Biden has been very clear in saying that he believes the pipeline is a bad idea; it's bad for Europe, bad for the United States," said Blinken, adding, U.S. law "requires us to sanction companies participating in the efforts to complete the pipeline."

What is behind American opposition to Russian natural gas going to Germany, and from there to NATO Europe?...........To Read More.....

Energy Realities

Unleashing The North American Energy Colossus

By Kenneth P. Green

The narrative of energy scarcity is a fiction: North America is not only energy-wealthy, it is energy-wealthy beyond most people’s comprehension.   For decades now, the energy-narrative of North America, particularly the United States has been one of energy scarcity. We’ve been told, repeatedly, that the U.S. has surpassed “peak oil,” and 6 years ago, people were so worried about natural gas supplies that we were talking about importing liquified natural gas from abroad (More on that here).  But the narrative of energy scarcity in North America is a fiction: We are not only energy-wealthy, we are energy-wealthy beyond most people’s comprehension. Energy policy analyst Mark Mills spells out the energy potential of North America in a new report published by the Manhattan Institute.

Editor's note:  So why this?  RK

Sixteen House GOP Freshmen Forget Principles in Support of Wind Subsidies
By Myron Ebell

Eighteen freshmen Members of the House of Representatives sent a letter last week to House Republican leaders urging them to “take up an extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy as soon as possible.” Sixteen of the eighteen signers are Republicans. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also recently announced his support for extending the wind PTC, which is set to expire at the end of the year.
The signers of the letter were: Representatives Kristi Noem (R-SD), Rick Berg (R-ND), Tim Griffin (R-Ark.), David Rivera (R-Fla.), Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), Steve Womack (R-Ark.), Chris Gibson (R-NY), Robert Dold (R- Ill.), Jim Renacci (R-Ohio), Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Penna.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Charles Bass (R-NH), Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), Jon Runyan (R-NJ), John Carney (D-Del.), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), David Ciciline (D-RI), and Mark Amodei (R-Nev.).

Sen. Lamar Alexander’s Payoff

by William Yeatman

In mid-June, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) led the opposition against S. J. Res. 37, legislation that would have blocked EPA’s all pain, no gain Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) regulation. On the floor of the Senate, he explained that the Utility MACT would prevent out-of-state pollution from hurting business in Tennessee, but this claim is false. According to EPA data, Tennessee’s compliance with Clean Air Act regulations is not adversely affected by air pollution from neighboring States. In light of the evident falsity of his avowed rationale for protecting the Utility MACT, Sen. Alexander’s true motivations for opposing S. J. Res. 37 were inexplicable.  Last week, however, the mystery of Sen. Alexander’s support for the Utility MACT appears to have been solved. The Environmental Defense Action Fund announced on Tuesday that it will spend $200,000 on television advertisements in Tennessee thanking Senator Lamar Alexander for “protecting the children.”

EPA’s Folly; Refiners’ Punishment

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Renewable Identification Numbers, RINs, are causing the refining industry a lot of grief and the American public a lot of money.  If nothing changes, the grief and the money wasted could grow rapidly, damaging the economy and family budgets. RINs are a byproduct of the Renewable Fuels Standard that mandates a certain amount of biofuels (e.g. ethanol) to be produced and used by refiners each year. The purpose of RINs is to track biofuel sales. But, fake RINs have become a problem and refiners are caught in the middle. Refiners pay for the purchase of mandated biofuels via a RIN only to have it turn out fake and then be fined by EPA for not using the required amount of biofuels.

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