They stayed at home in front of their gas fireplaces: A national activist group – which used Tom Steyer’s Colorado political firm to lobby the state’s oil and gas task force – cancelled an anti-fracking rally today after just one person RSVPed. The decision to abandon the rally followed very low turnout at a protest yesterday outside the Colorado Convention Center, where the task force has been meeting the past two days.

From the Sierra Club website;

But we have another, even more potent ally in the fight: the House of Saud. Rather than cutting back production in order to stabilize oil prices, the world’s largest oil producer is keeping its petroleum taps wide open, hoping to drown upstart competitors in Canada, North Dakota, and Russia in a sea of cheap oil.

Washington Free Beacon;

A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president of a London-based investment firm whose president until recently chaired the board of the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft.

The WaPo did its Pinnochios; now at the National Interest:

How the Elvis Presley Doctrine Blocked Keystone XL

…
What has become increasingly clear is that White House statements about the Keystone XL pipeline project have become further detached from reality on the ground…
How can the Obama White House remain impervious to facts about Keystone XL? Call it the Elvis Doctrine: Canada has its show, and Washington has its.
For Obama, the show is all about his presidential legacy–from Cuba to Russia, from middle-class families who want a break on gas prices to environmentalists who campaign against fossil fuels, it is all about being on the perceived right side of history and his political base…

Reuters: Nebraska Supreme Court backs Keystone XL pipeline route

Just now @GloriaBorger reports @SenatorShaheen told her POTUS will veto keystone. First bill likely to hit his desk

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) January 6, 2015

A detailed examination of OPEC vs US Shale: Who blinks first?

Ouch: A barrel of Texas Intermediate crude was at $67.17 Friday afternoon Eastern Time — a whopping 8.9% drop. Related data crunching from Euan Mearns

Bloomberg;

“In 2016, when OPEC completes this objective of cleaning up the American marginal market, the oil price will start growing again,” said Fedun, who’s made a fortune of more than $4 billion in the oil business, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “The shale boom is on a par with the dot-com boom. The strong players will remain, the weak ones will vanish.”
Oil futures in New York plunged as much as 3.8 percent to $70.87 a barrel today, the lowest since August 2010.
At the moment, some U.S. producers are surviving because they managed to hedge the prices they get for their oil at about $90 a barrel, Fedun said. When those arrangements expire, life will become much more difficult, he said.

Upon further reflection, I believe it’s time for Canada to institute a “human rights tariff” on foreign oil from corrupt and repressive states – a 25% surcharge on Saudi imports would kick things off nicely.

Ezra Levant;

That is the face of the environmentalist movement today. It’s un-Canadian.
Not just that their tactics are shocking and violent and undemocratic. But that they are literally directed and funded by non-Canadian bosses. All of the leading anti-oilsands groups in Canada are financed, to varying degrees, by foreign interests.
Two of the most visible organizers, Tzeporah Berman and Ben West, work for a United States-based lobby group called Forest Ethics, financed by the Tides Foundation. Real Canadians believe in the rule of law, and accepting the result of elections. But American campaign managers have other goals.

The Appalling Truth About Energy Subsidies

From the useful site Energy Matters. Bookmark it.