October 18, 2010

End of moratorium designed to help endangered incumbents

Re: "Salazar's sleight of hand on Gulf drilling," Editorial, Oct. 14

The Washington Examiner is correct to be skeptical over the measured lifting of the Gulf drilling ban shortly before the November elections. The political caveats against actual drilling and production are overwhelming.

This is simply a deceitful campaign gesture by the Obama administration to help fellow Democrats, primarily threatened incumbents. New regulations will be so onerous that they will inhibit most, if not all, offshore oil drilling, even in shallow waters.

The marching orders for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar are painfully clear: Halt and/or endlessly delay permits for exploration, drilling and production of oil, natural gas, and coal while you march ahead with any and all green energy projects no matter what they cost.

Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil

Authors: Jerome R. Corsi & Craig R. Smith

Publisher: WND Books, Incorporated

October 2005

Synopsis

Experts estimate that Americans consume more than 25 percent of the world's oil but have control over less than 3 percent of its proven oil supply. This unbalanced pattern of consumption makes it possible for foreign governments, corrupt political leaders, terrorist organizations, and oil conglomerates to hold the economy and the citizens of the United States in a virtual stranglehold. There is no greater proof of this than the direct relationship between skyrocketing gas prices and the explosion of wealth among those who control the world's supply of oil.

In Black Gold Stranglehold, Jerome Corsi and Craig Smith expose the fraudulent science that has made America so vulnerable: the belief that oil is a fossil fuel and that it is a finite resource. This book reveals the conclusions reached by Dr. Thomas Gold, a professor at Cornell University, in his seminal book The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels (Copernicus Books, 1998) and accepted by many in the scientific community that oil is not a product of fossils and prehistoric forests but rather the bio-product of a continuing biochemical reaction below the earth's surface that is brought to attainable depths by the centrifugal forces of the earth's rotation.

Jerome Corsi explores the international and domestic politics of oil production and consumption, including the wealth and power of major oil conglomerates, the manipulation of world economies by oil-producing nations and rogue terrorist regimes, and the shortsightedness of those who endorse expensive conservation efforts while rejecting the use of the oil reserves currently controlled by the U.S. government.

As an expert in tangible assets, Craig Smith provides an understanding of the history of America's dangerous dissociation of the dollar with precious-and truly scarce-metals such as gold and the devastation that would be inflicted on the U.S. economy if Middle Eastern countries are able to follow through with current plans to make the euro the standard currency for oil instead of U.S. dollars.

Black Gold Stranglehold is a thoughtful work that is certain to dramatically change the debate on oil consumption, oil dependence, and oil availability.

Biography

JEROME R. CORSI, Ph.D., is the author of Atomic Iran and the coauthor of the New York Times #1 bestseller Unfit for Command. The author of many articles and books, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and lives in New Jersey.

CRAIG R. SMITH is the chairman of the board of Swiss America Trading Corporation, one of the largest and most respected investment firms in the U.S. He is an author, commentator, and frequent radio and television guest. He and his family live in Arizona.

Riverside Press Enterprise
June 20, 2010

Expect energy mess

The Merchant Marine Act (Jones Act) of 1920 prohibits foreign ships from working in U.S. waters. That's why foreign oil spill cleanup ships are waiting to help with the BP Gulf disaster. Saudi Arabia used all available cleanup ships and equipment available worldwide to deal with an oil spill from the 1991 Gulf War.

The Jones Act was waived for Katrina. Why isn't President Obama waiving the act for all the help we can get? Could it be that he is bending to union pressure and wants this disaster to linger to advance his green energy program at big oil's expense, while Gulf drilling is cut off, Gulf states' economies wither, and gasoline prices rise?

Meanwhile, the Senate just authorized EPA enforcement -- global warming regulatory tyranny -- of carbon emissions and other environmental administrative laws against the U.S. economy and the American people. Taken together, it is an energy disaster in the making -- one which could boomerang on congressional Democrats in November and President Obama in 2012.

Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley, CA

Washington Times
June 22, 2010

Re: Obama's Gulf War - Editorial

O-blah-blah-blah-ma's green energy crusade

President Obama's Oval Office address to the nation was little more than what has become meaningless "O-blah,blah,blah-ma" talk -- this time promoting the administration's, "Never let a crisis go to waste" mantra to further his economy-busting green energy plan by telling us to alter our ways. Yet, he is exacerbating the Gulf oil leak crisis.

Obama said nothing about waiving the Jones Act to attract all the outside help we can get to clean up and control the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And nothing was said about using the underground nuclear option the Russians have used to seal similar uncontrolled gushers. The intention appears to be demonize BP and big oil, while riding-out the growing calamity on environmental rhetoric, and saddling the nation with energy legislation and the regulatory whip of the EPA.

If the president and Congress blindly pursue green energy at the expense of suppressed domestic oil production and refineries, our reliance on imported oil -- and the price of gas -- will continue to increase, just as it doubled from 30% in 1972 to the current 60%. Indeed, instead of calling on the nation to alter its ways, President Obama must alter his, lest we all suffer the long-term consequences.

Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley, Calif.

Regarding President Obama's Oval Office address to the nation about the Gulf Coast oil leak

By:Vince Haley
Vice President for Policy
American Solutions

June 16, 2010

Fifty seven days after an oil rig explosion triggered an uncontrolled deep water oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama addressed the nation last night about his administration's efforts to address the crisis.

After offering two short paragraphs to explain what is actually being done to stop the oil leak, President Obama devoted most of his speech to explaining why the oil leak means now is the time to dramatically and permanently raise the cost of gas, diesel, and electricity for every American.

Jay Leno gave voice to the widespread puzzlement people have with Obama's misplaced focus last night: "President Obama said today he is going to use the Gulf disaster to immediately push a new energy bill through Congress. I got an idea ... How about first using the Gulf disaster to fix the Gulf disaster?"

Good question, but we think we know why President Obama is not focused on plugging the oil leak and is instead focused on plugging new energy taxes.

President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, said at the start of the Obama presidency that "you never let a crisis go to waste," which we now know means that the Obama team never lets a crisis go without out more borrowing, more taxing, and more spending in support of their political allies. We saw this with the $862 billion stimulus law that didn't create jobs, the ObamaCare law that won't bend the health cost curve down, and now with ObamaEnergy that won't lower energy costs and won't increase energy supplies.

Using the present crisis as pretext, President Obama is now urging the Senate to pass cap and trade energy taxes. Even though this has nothing to do with plugging the hole, Obama and his liberal allies in Congress want the power to spend billions in new tax revenues through a massive redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to green energy company shareholders.

The Senate is reportedly going to take up a cap and trade energy tax bill shortly after it returns on July 12th. If it passes the Senate, the House will vote on and approve that new tax in a lame duck session after the November elections.

Our opportunity to stop this new energy tax is now, and the next two months will be absolutely critical. These new energy taxes will hurt you and your family with higher gas and electricity costs. They will kill hundreds of thousands of jobs, prevent small business growth, and ship jobs overseas to China and India.

We cannot afford to pass a massive energy tax in this economic recession, but President Obama is more concerned with redistributing wealth than he is in growing new wealth, even if that means destroying jobs in the process. Cutting up a shrinking pie is apparently not a problem if you're the one wielding the knife and giving away the pieces. It's the rest of us that have to worry about the consequences.

Meanwhile, the oil continues to gush under the Gulf waters. Like Jay Leno, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, summed up well this President's misplaced priorities: "The climate bill isn't going to stop the oil leak...The first thing you have to do is stop the oil leak."

The President should listen to his friend Senator Feinstein and plug holes, not taxes.

President Obama's offshore drilling moratorium
June 4, 2010

President's Obama's 6-month offshore drilling moratorium in the Gulf is little more than a "Do something" knee-jerk reaction to the BP oil leak disaster, that will hurt, not help the overall situation. Indeed, the moratorium will likely become permanent to advance the president's agenda for green energy, even though we are facing a government-caused energy crisis of monumental proportions.

President Nixon was the first to call for independence from oil imports when we were importing 30 percent of our oil. Now, 40 years later, we are importing 65 percent of our oil because the layers of regulations and government policy have essentially stopped the development and production of new domestic oil resources, refineries, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy.

What we have here is tantamount to environmental regulatory tyranny, which coupled with massive debt and entitlement growth in a disabled economy, will destine us to free fall decline.

Daniel B. Jeffs

Founder, DDC

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/letters/drill_spill_in_the_gulf_oily_an swer_MNaN0X4IeGEGPjYSIcv8BO
The New York Post
May 5, 2010

Drill spill in the Gulf: O's oily 'answer'

Obama and his progressive congressional Democrats will undoubtedly use the coal mine deaths and Gulf of Mexico oil spill to permanently eliminate all new natural gas and oil exploration and drilling and increase the big squeeze against coal energy.

With that, and the high cost of green energy being imposed, we can surely expect an escalation in gas and electric-power prices, which translates to inflation, an overall increase in the cost of living and the loss of more jobs.

If the progressive political and corporate elite are able to finish their insidious cultural, political and economic transformation, most of the American people will be transformed into a giant underclass.

San Bernardino Sun
April 13, 2010

Empty gestures

President Obama's offshore drilling plans for oil and natural gas are surely empty gestures - replete with deceit - which is far from comforting to those of us who are suffering from years of rising electric bills and pain at the pump.

Interior Secretary Salazar has already reduced on- and offshore drilling leases to near nothing, along with more limitations on coal resources. And, of course, the West Coast will be exempt from new drilling, as will the potentially most productive resources in Alaska.

Surely, if our energy resources had been opened up over 20 years ago, we would not have been forced into this unconscionable mess and a fast track to ruin.

Coupled with relentless tyranny of environmental extremists, energy costs will skyrocket by the thrust of solar and wind, our economic engines will run out of gas, and our country will go into free-fall from the weight of lies, fear mongering, insurmountable public debt and irresponsible government.

Indeed, it is well known and understood that energy companies, businesses and the people are going to be increasingly squeezed by President Obama and the power of his Interior Department, Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency - to the last drop of our collective economic blood.

San Francisco Chronicle
December 9, 2009
EPA's ruling just political extortion

The EPA ruling that greenhouse gases feed global warming and therefore
threaten public health ("EPA finds greenhouse gases pose health risk" (Dec.
8), giving the Obama administration power to regulate smokestack and
tailpipe emissions, is little more than a blatant act of political extortion
against Congress to quickly pass cap-and-trade legislation.

Moreover, it sends a message to the international climate change conference
in Copenhagen, telling other nations that President Obama can control U. S.
emissions whether or not Congress acts to do so.

The real threat here is the arrogance of power directed against the real
target: coal-, oil- and natural gas-burning power plants and industry. It
doesn't seem to matter that coal power plants supply over half of the
country's electric energy.

Or that the increase in electricity rates will be overwhelming to us and our
economy, which is already in shreds.

Or that the whole greenhouse gases/global warming thing is a fraud based on
alarmist junk science.

(Last paragraph edited out) There is a real alarm, however. Washington has
turned into a political gangland, and godfather Obama just ordered another
hit, this time by his hit woman administrator of the EPA. Does dictatorship
and tyranny come to mind? How about the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor,
December 7, 1941?

Economic Strangulation: The Environmentalist / Democrat War Against Energy
By Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson
(Economist and resident scholar at The Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College)
May 15, 2009

The "greens" must be thrilled with the new Obama/Pelosi/Reid (OPR) troika in charge of the federal government. Three times already, the troika has blocked the development of domestic oil resources.

During his first week in office, President Obama rescinded his predecessor's executive order permitting drilling on the continental shelf and in the Green River Formation. Both areas contain abundant oil-especially Green River (under Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah), which has recoverable shale-oil reserves three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Read the entire commentary at:
http://www.visandvals.org/Economic_Strangulation.php

April 8, 2009
Wall Street Journal
Environmental Capital
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/04/08/grid-lock-will-a-smart-grid-repel-or-open-doors-to-a-cyber-attack/

Grid Lock: Will a Smart Grid Repel or Open Doors to a Cyber Attack?

Is it a good idea to put the U.S. electricity system on the same footing as your spyware-addled computer?

April 8, 2009
Wall Street Jouranl
Technology

Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html

As momentum gathers for the creation of an Internet-like "smart grid" that will do for the electricity grid what the Internet did for home shopping, the WSJ reports the cyberspace wars have begun:

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official. "So have the Russians."

San Bernardino Sun
March 16, 2009

Deceit on coal power
According to a recent report, Congress has reduced its energy consumption of coal from 49 percent in 2007 to 35 percent by using more natural gas in the Capitol Power Plant. However, in light of the anti-coal demonstrations in Washington today, it seems that green environmentalists are not satisfied, and won't be until coal-burning power is eliminated.

Problem is, coal power supplies more than 50 percent of the nation's electricity, clean-coal technology is on the increase and our country contains one of, if not the, largest coal reserves. Obviously that doesn't matter to well-indoctrinated environmental zealots led by the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on a freezing day at Capitol Hill.

Nor does it matter that it has been proven that global temperatures have steadily fallen over the past decade, since their peak in 1998, or that a recent MIT analysis of the effects of carbon cap and trade taxes on the economy show that there will be a gasoline price increase of $1.27 per gallon, and increases in electricity rates of more than 60 percent. Democracy cannot be a one-way street of deceit.

DANIEL B. JEFFS
Apple Valley

Re: Utilities spending cuts raise red flags
USA TODAY Money Section, Feb. 23

Energy crisis worse than housing meltdown
By Daniel B. Jeffs, founder DDC
February 24, 2009

It's disturbing to see how the melting economy has caused utility companies -- who need to add, upgrade, expand and improve electric power plants and transmission lines -- to cut back spending because of lost revenue from business and industry customers.

Meanwhile, if the federal government and states like California keep dragging their unreasonably restrictive environmental feet, and/or increase restrictions on conventional power resources in favor of developing alternative energy, the already high cost to commercial and residential energy consumers will undoubtedly skyrocket.

Busting our entire economy is a real and present danger. If we don't get busy drilling for more domestic oil and natural gas, building more coal and nuclear power plants, upgrading and building more transmission lines, and building more gasoline refineries, the cost of fuel and energy will break our economic back.

If government doesn't break the unreasonable environmental stranglehold on our domestic energy resources, the energy crisis will certainly turn into a catastrophe. Indeed, if we had started moving on this 10 or 15 years ago, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Obama jobs plan and the energy crisis
By Daniel B. Jeffs, founder DDC
January 11, 2009

Most of the millions of jobs president-elect Obama is promising are green jobs to promote costly green energy and vehicles. There is a major problem with that. The need for alternative and renewable energy notwithstanding, we still have an immediate fuel and energy crisis that has been ignored by Congress. Have we learned nothing from dependence on foreign oil and high gas prices?

Obama's energy pipe dreams
By Daniel B. Jeffs, founder DDC
January 9, 2009

More than anything, I hope that president-elect Barack Obama is successful in helping to resolve our economic dilemma.

However, Obama's urgent request to put people to work building alternative energy sources and a new power grid are lofty goals, but hardly practical for business and residential power consumers who will have to pay for it with large increases in energy bills.

Meanwhile, we are faced with unstable fuel costs, fuel tax increases and other energy problems, which fuel the giant machine that drives our economy. Where are the moves to bridge the energy gap by drilling for oil, natural gas, and increasing nuclear and coal energy? For instance, Obama wants to put the government thumb on coal power plants, which produce over half of our energy.

Indeed, a bold course for dire times is one thing. But putting trust in another failed government energy policy is highly questionable. Obama's costly energy dreams are simply not practical for consumers without a reasonable, measured approach using domestic resources to carry us through the crisis. The dire consequences of not doing so is inevitable.

The looming energy crisis
By Daniel B. Jeffs, founder DDC
December 6, 2008

No one should be lulled into a sense of long time relief from high gas prices with a looming energy crisis in the works -- yet ignored by the Democrat-controlled Congress who will do nothing but exacerbate the problem by pursuing their environmentalist agenda at any cost.

In the face of a prolonged economic recession, the new president and Congress are poised to ignore our immediate domestic nuclear, coal, oil and natural gas energy resource needs for the sake of costly alternative energy investments at taxpayer and consumer expense. Evidence of this clear and troubling.

Even now, for example, nearly all off shore drilling has been stalled, including Alaska. Pursuant to an outcry from conservationists and Barack Obama's transition team, the BLM has halted a vastly expanded federal plan to drill for oil and natural gas and in Utah. And Arizona Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva, a top candidate for interior secretary, attempted to stop uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.

If these irresponsible efforts to block vital energy needs increase and continue unabated, a national energy crisis will surely become a stark reality. Our national security will be compromised, and it will break the back of our over-encumbered government and severely weakened economy.

Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil
Authors: Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D. and Craig R. Smith

Experts estimate that Americans consume more than 25 percent of the world's oil but have control over less than 3 percent of its proven oil supply. This unbalanced pattern of consumption makes it possible for foreign governments, corrupt political leaders, terrorist organizations, and oil conglomerates to hold the economy and the citizens of the United States in a virtual stranglehold. There is no greater proof of this than the direct relationship between skyrocketing gas prices and the explosion of wealth among those who control the world's supply of oil.

In "Black Gold Stranglehold," Jerome Corsi and Craig Smith expose the fraudulent science that has made America so vulnerable: the belief that oil is a fossil fuel and that it is a finite resource. This book reveals the conclusions reached by Dr. Thomas Gold, a professor at Cornell University, in his seminal book "The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels" (Copernicus Books, 1998) and accepted by many in the scientific community that oil is not a product of fossils and prehistoric forests but rather the bio-product of a continuing biochemical reaction below the earth's surface that is brought to attainable depths by the centrifugal forces of the earth's rotation.

Jerome Corsi explores the international and domestic politics of oil production and consumption, including the wealth and power of major oil conglomerates, the manipulation of world economies by oil-producing nations and rogue terrorist regimes, and the shortsightedness of those who endorse expensive conservation efforts while rejecting the use of the oil reserves currently controlled by the U.S. government.

As an expert in tangible assets, Craig Smith provides an understanding of the history of America's dangerous dissociation of the dollar with precious-and truly scarce-metals such as gold and the devastation that would be inflicted on the U.S. economy if Middle Eastern countries are able to follow through with current plans to make the euro the standard currency for oil instead of U.S. dollars.

"Black Gold Stranglehold" is a thoughtful work that is certain to dramatically change the debate on oil consumption, oil dependence, and oil availability.

JEROME R. CORSI, Ph.D., is the author of "Atomic Iran" and the coauthor of the New York Times #1 bestseller "Unfit for Command." The author of many articles and books, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and lives in New Jersey.

CRAIG R. SMITH is the chairman of the board of Swiss America Trading Corporation, one of the largest and most respected investment firms in the U.S. He is an author, commentator, and frequent radio and television guest. He and his family live in Arizona.

Cool it: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
Author: Bjorn Lomborg
2008

Synopsis
A groundbreaking book that transforms the debate about global warming by offering a fresh perspective based on human needs as well as environmental concerns.

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world's temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply-which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime. He asks why the debate over climate change has stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent.

Lomborg presents us with a second generation of thinking on global warming that believes panic is neither warranted nor a constructive place from which to deal with any of humanity's problems, not just global warming. Cool It promises to be one of the most talked about and influential books of our time.

Biography Bjorn Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2004 and has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. He is presently an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and in 2004 he started the Copenhagen Consensus, a conference of top economists who come together to prioritize the best solutions for the world's greatest challenges.