The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (see WiseEnergy.org for more).

For public education, every three weeks at MasterResource we offer this newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters.

There is very positive news this cycle:

1- The best news in a long time is about the 12± year brawl to stop the ridiculous Cape Wind project. It finally seems to be fatally wounded, due to a combination of economic, legal and political matters. Kudos to those warriors who stuck with the fight, through thick and thin.

2- Also sensational news is the almost unanimous vote by the West Virginia state legislature to kill their RPS — the first state to actually do this.…

“Using standard IPCC models, we take 181 mmtCO2/year and divide it by 1,767,250 mmtCO2/°C. And we get 0.0001°C/yr, that is, one ten thousandths of a degree Celsius of temperature rise from the Canadian tar sands oil delivered by the Keystone XL pipeline each year.”

It’s hard to come up with things to say about the Keystone XL pipeline that haven’t been said many times before. Consequently, everyone from the President on down to the protestors, with industry, analysts and Congress in between, keeps on repeating the same things.

The facts haven’t changed in the six plus years that TransCanada’s proposal to build a pipeline to transport Alberta tar sands to refineries in the Gulf Coast was first officially proposed to the U.S. Department of State. The impact on permanent (not temporary!)…

Beginning with the holiday season, American consumers have received an unexpected gift.

Mine came this morning when I filled up my car with gas. I paid $2.13 per gallon. This felt like luxury. It seems surprising, implausible, even wonderful. I asked around. Some people are paying even less, even $2. All the pressure is down. Down — despite everything.

Looking at the history, I found the following chart from the U.S. Energy Administration, already a bit out of date — the forecast doesn’t anticipate the extent of the fall– but it shows that gas prices are settling back to 1990’s levels and lower today in real terms than they were 40 years ago. Have a look.

That’s just amazing. Why? If all you followed were the policies and the headlines, you would think prices would be ten times what they are.…

Editor note: Yesterday’s post summarized The American Energy Renaissance Act of 2014, introduced by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx) and Representative  Jim Bridenstine (R-Ok) last year. Today’s post summarizes a model bill authored by the Institute for Energy Research/American Energy Alliance several years ago. The logic of free-market policy does not change but becomes stronger with time and change. But judge for yourself–and add (in comments) any suggestions you might have.

The Obama Administration has been implementing an anti-energy agenda since becoming President. For the last six years, Obama’s “dream ‘green’ team” has worked to increase the cost of traditional energy to reduce usage and try to make uneconomic consumer-rejected energy (wind, solar, ethanol, electric vehicles) more economic.

Even before Obama, multiple-hundred-page interventionist legislation has been signed time and again by Republican presidents.…