A progressive in (in)action:

No Fracking, We’re French
Once again, Hollande chooses ideology over prosperity.

Jo Nova;

Groups like Greenpeace and The Australian Conservation Foundation argue that really, Governments are helping fossil fuel companies far more than green ones. But while governments rewrite national economies to help “green” companies, about half of the help for fossil fuels is simply that the government didn’t take as much off them as it could. The net flow of money is still from Big-Fossil-Energy towards Big-Government. It takes a special kind of grand entitlement to call that a subsidy.

“Not showing up to riot …”

I GUESS FOLKS ON THE RIGHT ARE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE A CUE FROM THE LEFTIES IN TEXAS, and launch ethics attacks against researchers who publish results they don’t like. It’s a lot easier than attacking the actual research, and it should be a target-rich environment. . . .

IBD;

Today the Obama administration brags about its “all of the above” energy policy, but two years ago it temporarily banned oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill, a move that cut oil output and cost thousands of jobs.
At the time, the Interior Department report called its recommendations “peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” But that was not true. None of the seven advised a drilling ban then.
[..]
Interior’s estimate was that well closures temporarily cost 8,000-12,000 jobs and $1.2 billion in economic activity. Mason put job losses at 13,000-19,000, lost wages at $800 million and lost tax revenue at $200 million.
When Interior said the engineers backed the ban, the engineers were shocked. The idea of a moratorium never came up in their sessions and was not recommended, five of the seven told IBD. There was no need to stop other wells, they said.

Source: Financial Post

Vivian Krause;

Of the 30 U.S. grants that Suzuki’s foundation received for a total of US$9-million, 29 are earmarked for British Columbia. Forget the rest of Canada, the only place that U.S. foundations have heavily funded Suzuki’s work is on the strategic, north coast of B.C., right smack where oil tankers export bound for Asia would need to travel.
[…]
No tankers means no oil exports to Asia and that the U.S. gets to keep its virtual monopoly on Canadian oil.

Washington Examiner;

Barack Obama has set himself up for a high-profile defeat on one of the most important issues of the campaign.
The president has put his feet in cement in opposition to the Keystone oil pipeline. But on Capitol Hill, more and more Democrats are joining Republicans to force approval of the pipeline, whether Obama wants it or not.
The latest action happened Wednesday, when the House passed a measure to move the pipeline forward. Before the vote, Obama issued a veto threat. The House approved the pipeline anyway — by a veto-proof majority, 293 to 127. Sixty-nine Democrats abandoned the president to vote with Republicans. That’s a lot of defections.

Part of me cheers, while part of me hopes they don’t save his sorry ass from himself.

“What are they thinking?”

“Got that? A speculative ‘green’ energy project that in retrospect, once the rest of us saw the details, was obviously going to be a business disaster, and ended up costing the taxpayers over half a billion dollars, was approved after a ‘one-day review.’ Yet the president demanded that Keystone, a project with certain and vast energy output, be delayed for many more months so that it could be ‘adequately reviewed,’ despite the fact that it had already had years of review. And as a result our energy prices will now rise in the future, with no way of returning to the status quo. Just as the president told us he wanted them to when he ran four years ago.”

They’re thinking it’s all going according to plan, that’s what they’re thinking.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked about a variety of issues including a wide range of topics including U.S.-Canada relations, energy supplies and exports, immigration, and trade expansion. The Keystone XL pipeline was the focus of several questions posed to the Canadian leader.
Find out how Canada is being viewed on the world stage. Thing you will never hear from the CBC.
h/t Glenn in the comments

And that’s why I’m reinforcing the palisades. (h/t Jack)

I am so damned proud of Stephen Harper right now. (I apologize if this has already been posted. I’ve been in the air a lot of the day.)

A federal judge in Alaska has granted a preliminary injunction against Greenpeace USA which will remain in place until October 31st 2012, the end of Shell Oil’s ‘drilling window’ in Alaska. The injunction follows a temporary restraining order which expired on March 28th.

h/t Adrian

Atlantic Seismic Exploration Announcement an Empty Gesture

“The administration’s announcement does not put the U.S. on track to produce more of its own energy, and does not make up for three years of failed energy policy,” said Milito. “It continues the pattern of delaying U.S. oil and gas development and supplies until well into the future.”
Milito called the announcement political rhetoric and an attempt to make the Obama administration look like it is doing something on gas prices, “but in reality it is little more than an empty gesture.”
“Without an Atlantic coast lease sale in their five-year plan, the administration’s wishful thinking on seismic research has no ultimate purpose,” Milito commented. “The White house has banned lease sales in the Atlantic for at least the next five years, discouraging the investment and job creation, and ultimately production, which would make seismic exploration valuable.”

h/t Adrian

Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?

…it will be Thursday, when Obama is scheduled to appear in Cushing, Okla., known as the pipeline capital of the world, to take credit for the southern half of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project announced weeks ago by TransCanada, the Keystone builder.
It’s the section that doesn’t need presidential or State Department approval since it does not cross an international boundary.

Oh, darn.

In 2010, CNPC signed a deal to help Venezuela develop a major Orinoco oil field known as Junin 4, which includes the construction of a facility to convert heavy oil to a lighter crude that could be shipped to a refinery in Guangdong, China.
“Although the contract was signed in December 2010, not one barrel of oil has yet been produced, much less upgraded,” said Gustavo Coronel, a former PDVSA board member.
“So far, nothing much seems to be happening, except for the arrival of a large group of Chinese staff to the CNPC’s Caracas office,” he added, referring to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
“Apart from money, there seems to be little that China can offer Venezuela in the oil industry,” he said, adding that a “culture gap will make working with China very difficult for Venezuelan oil people, who were mostly trained in the U.S.”

h/t Adrian

Rex Murphy

Outside Fort McMurray, it is impossible to escape the furor over the Alberta oilsands. Its product is routinely described, lazily and slanderously, as the dirtiest on the planet. The Premier of Ontario, a province that owes much of its prosperity to its huge automobile industry shivers when he looks at Alberta, mutters about the dark forces of the “petro-dollar,” and implied (until he was scolded and half-recanted) that somehow Ontario’s fretful financial state is Alberta’s fault.
It’s almost a fantasy disconnect. Dalton Mcguinty can throw billions at General Motors and urge the feds to do the same, all to save the automobile industry. He ignores that four decades or more of Ontario’s prosperity wasn’t founded on windmills: It was based on gas-guzzling cars and trucks.
[…]
[H]ow easily we bite the hand that feeds us. “Environment” has become a narrow, bitterly focussed word turning exclusively on hurts or despoilations of nature, magnifying the slightest alteration or disturbance of “the natural” as an unspeakable sin.
There is another wider, larger, humane dimension to the environment — larger and more vital than any reference to landscape. That is the human and social element, the business of supplying reasonable support for workers and their families, towns and communities, and ultimately wealth for the entire nation. We owe something, it is true to the rocks and trees. We also owe something to human beings as well.

More than half of them are not cars–will our eco-oriented do-gooders notice? And what might they do, other than try to shove a Volt, stuffed with taxpayer money, down your throat?

Canadian sales of new cars and trucks opened the year on a resoundingly positive note, Statistics Canada suggested Wednesday.
The federal agency — which collects data on monthly retail sales in dollars and in the number of new vehicles sold in Canada — found a 15.4 per cent rise in vehicles sold in January to 153,623 units from 133,146 sold in December. That’s the fastest pace in more than 15 years, economist Robert Kavcic said Wednesday in a report by BMO Economics…
Among Statistics Canada’s other findings from January; passenger car sales rose 23.9 per cent to 71,539 units on increased sales of lower-cost vehicles…

Via Zerohedge;

There is cheap oil available in the United States. You just have to be able to transport the crude from Cushing to your personal refinery to take advantage of it.
One final element is making matters worse: Refineries are currently starting to shift to producing spring-summer gasoline blends, which are lighter and therefore usually cost about 10¢ more per gallon than fall-winter blends. And this year, the quick refinery shutdowns needed to enact the seasonal shift are creating slight supply gaps because some of the “swing” refineries that usually help bridge the gap are no longer operating. For example, the Hovensa refinery in the US Virgin Islands – a joint venture between Hess Corp. (NYSE.HES) and Petroleos de Venezuela – used to produce extra volume during the seasonal transition, but it was closed down a few weeks ago after losing $1.3 billion over the last three years.

Read it all.

Well, finally.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is suing in federal court more than a dozen environmental organizations that are likely to challenge its plans for drilling Alaska’s Arctic Ocean this summer, an unprecedented preemptive move aimed at avoiding potentially costly delays.

Rigzone;

No direct connection has been found between hydraulic fracturing and reports of groundwater contamination, according to a study released Thursday by the Energy Institute at The University of Texas of Austin.

Never fear. They’ll keep studying until they get it right.