“The President has bragged that ‘we produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years.’ Indeed domestic production rose from 5.6 to 6.4 million daily barrels in 2012 from the year before (12.5%). However, production from federal onshore and offshore areas has fallen significantly under his watch – and 96% of the above production increase was on state and private lands.”

President Obama insists he is determined to create jobs in America. He recently announced the creation of “promise zones” for five communities around the nation and a “manufacturing institute” aimed at fostering more high-paying jobs in energy efficiency.

He’s also said he has “a pen and a phone” to “sign executive orders and take executive actions that move the ball,” where Congress has failed to implement policies he believes are needed.…

[Editor note: This post is taken from a new policy brief, The Latest Unanticipated Consequence in the Ethanol Fiasco, released by the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy at Texas A&M University. Professor Griffin, who directs the Mosbacher Institute, is also author of U.S. Ethanol Policy: Time to Reconsider? in The Energy Journal (Fall 2013).]

Executive Summary

1. The 2007 mandates to steadily increase ethanol content in gasoline have hit yet another roadblock.
2. Falling — instead of rising — gasoline consumption means that fuel blenders can no longer absorb the mandated ethanol quantities and still produce gasoline with no more than 10% ethanol content.
3. Auto manufacturers strongly object to raising the ethanol content above 10%.
4. Now, the EPA has proposed a one-time, one year waiver relaxing the 2014 mandate.

“Pauses as long as 15 years are rare in the simulations, and ‘we expect that [real-world] warming will resume in the next few years,’ the Hadley Centre group writes…. Researchers … agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer.”

– Richard Kerr, Science (2009)

That’s Richard A. Kerr, the longtime, award-winning climate-change scribe for Science magazine, the flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The article, “What Happened to Global Warming? Scientists Say Just Wait a Bit,” was published October 1, 2009.

The article is important in the history of climate thought because it captures neatly the (over)confidence of the scientists who turn to models to justify their faith that past overestimation will soon be reversed. Judith Curry’s recent discovery of F.…

At the dawn of a new year, it is appropriate to take stock of America’s ever-giving oil and natural gas bounty—and realize that much more of a good thing is in store given market incentives to produce and consume.

Oil and natural gas are the energies of our lives. No hyperbole there. Oil and natural gas are the source of energy-intense fuels for transportation as well as warmth in the winter and cooling in the summer.

They’re also the building blocks for a number of products we use every day, making our lives more modern, more comfortable and safer. Every day 143 U.S. refineries convert an average of 15 million barrels of crude oil for these uses and more.     

For 9.8 million Americans, the oil and natural gas industry supports their employment – directly, indirectly in supporting industries and across our economy in jobs that wouldn’t exist without oil and natural gas development.…