Gas Prices Too High? Shell Cancels Drilling After Denied Permits

The EPA is at it again. So, where is a sensible approach to our energy needs?

From: YID With LID

Obama Continues War Against Oil. EPA Rules Force Shell to Abandon Drilling Plans in Alaska

The Obama administration continued war against oil drilling as the Shell Oil company threw its hands up in the air and scraped efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. The reason? EPA regulations.

The needed air permits were approved, but after a challenge by an environmental group, the board changed it's mind. Here's the "fun" part. The reason the EPA refused to grant the permit was the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. This is a very remote section of Alaska, the town of Kaktovik is the nearest community to the drilling site, its 70 miles away, occupies one square mile and has a population of 245. There is very little chance for Kaktovik to be affected by the drilling.

Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”

EPA official: JOBS DON'T MATTER

From: The Blog Prof

From The Detroit Free Press: Clean energy race falls to states, private sector as Congress puts up roadblocks. That roadbloack? Not passing cap-and-trade:

The race to build a clean energy economy in the U.S. has run into roadblocks on Capitol Hill, leaving states and the private sector with little federal support as they try to transform this vision into reality.

To the dismay of environmentalists, efforts to pass new energy policies that would spur investments in wind, solar and other renewable sources of power have been stymied in Washington.

More recently, the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions has come under attack in Congress.

EPA official says jobs don’t matter

From: The Daily Caller

The Obama administration has repeatedly said job creation is a top priority, but apparently the memo seems to have missed the bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

This became evident when EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus testified Thursday before an Environment and Energy subcommittee hearing that his agency does not take jobs into account when it issues new regulations.



“We have not directly taken a look at jobs in the proposal,” Stanislaus said, referring to a regulation that would govern industries that recycle coal ash and other fossil fuel byproducts.

Coal ash is commonly used to make concrete stronger and longer lasting, make wallboard more durable and improve the quality of roofing shingles.

Stanislaus made his comments in response to questioning by Colorado GOP Rep. Cory Gardner looking into whether the EPA is complying with a recent presidential executive order and considering jobs in its regulatory regime. The EPA issued a April 30, 2010 statement in the appendix of its regulatory impact analysis for proposed regulation under the Resources and Recovery Act (RCRA) of coal ash.

That statement said: “The [regulatory impact assessment] does not include either qualitative or quantitative estimation of the potential effects of the proposed rule on economic productivity, economic growth, employment, job creation or international economic competitiveness.”

The statement contradicts Executive Order 13563, which President Obama signed in January requiring rules to take job creation into account when federal agencies issue new rules.

Gardner pressed Stanislaus as to whether or not EPA had done a direct economic analysis on how the rule would affect jobs, to which Stanislaus replied saying that EPA had not included jobs in its cost-benefit analysis of the rule.