Energy

In recent years, we have seen an overwhelming spending binge for energy. In 2010 alone, we saw $16.3 billion in tax expenditures, primarily benefiting the nebulous, politically favored “green technologies,” allowing Washington to pick winners and losers in energy.  Now, we’re running the risk of such high levels of spending becoming the “new normal,” with predictable camps in Washington bemoaning any cuts that keep them from picking winners.

The House Energy Action Team (HEAT) is ready to bring their Domestic Energy and Jobs Act to the floor tomorrow.  The package includes several pieces of popular legislation aiming to increase access to domestic fossil resources, streamline the permitting of exploration operations, steel the Strategic Petroleum Reserve against political exploitation, reign in the high costs of EPA regulations, and ultimately create high-paying jobs in a growing domestic industry.  In conjunction with other policies,

In our national debate over domestic oil production, too much time is spent discussing whether more production can lead to oil independence and too little time on the potential impact on liquidity in global oil markets. Lost in the back and forth is the fact that increasing domestic production by any amount increases spare capacity globally and lowers the risk premium.

In the world of commodities, hedging oil is the market equivalent of racing at Talladega. As one race car driver observed, "It's Talladega, short for 'We're going to crash, we just don't know when.' "

As a policy matter, don’t read much into the recent dip in oil and gasoline prices. Sure, dropping at the advent of the summer driving season bucks historic trends, but this is just one more episode of fluctuations in prices on the global market. To be sure, there’s no one to thank for this trend, either.

As summer driving season begins, low gas prices present an obvious benefit to struggling American families eager to load up the car and discover some summer fun.  But in D.C., low gas prices mean we can finally stop talking about energy policy as a game of scarcity.

TransCanada resubmitted its permit application to build the Keystone XL pipeline earlier today, a multi-billion dollar private investment that would create thousands of American jobs and improve our access to North American oil.  No brainer, huh?  After working with the government of Nebraska, TransCanada is now prepared to build the pipeline along a route that better protects sensitive ecosystems and water resources in the state. 

Senators John Barrasso and Orrin Hatch, as leaders of the Senate Western Caucus, introduced a piece of legislation today that would let the Senate vote on important pieces of job-creating legislation already passed by the House. Their Western Economic Security Today (WEST) Act will (1) end the Obama Administration’s defacto moratorium in the Gulf and Outer Continental Shelf, (2) streamline EPA permitting requirements and limit EPA regulations, and (3) protect agriculture by eliminating the threat of burdensome and erroneous regulations.

Looking to avoid the political perils of $4 gasoline, the White House is searching high and low for a chance to claim leadership on energy prices. That’s why one of their top allies in economics, Austan Goolsbee, took to the editorial pages last week to launch a clever — but too cute — argument to justify a politically motivated oil sale from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

House Republicans have their head in the game when it comes to finding solutions for the pain at the pump, while the administration continues to point fingers and place blame for problems they don’t know how to fix.  Today the President attacked market speculators, who he blamed for manipulating oil markets and “driving prices higher”.  His solution?  $52 million to increase oversight of energy markets, which are already regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

We’ve heard about it already, but last week EPA made it official: First ever greenhouse gas regulations for power plants hit the Federal Register.  EPA’s move is the next step in a process that started with the 2007 Supreme Court case Massachusetts vs.