petroleum

Regulations to reduce fuel consumption and to increase vehicle mileage were born during the oil shock of the 1970s. But within the last decade, the fracking revolution reestablished the United States as the world’s energy superpower.

Efforts to block and sabotage pipelines hurt jobs, economic growth, middle class, human safety.

It is one of the many, many reasons our nation’s Founding Fathers profoundly limited government. They trusted businessmen much more than they trusted government bureaucrats.

At the end of September, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) surprised the markets by agreeing to a production cut.

Separating reality from ideology and political agendas is difficult, but essential, if we are to revitalize our economy and help the world’s poorest families take their rightful places among Earth’s prosperous people. Energy reality is certainly in our favor. But ideological forces are powerful and persistent.

For years, water, or, more accurately, its scarcity, has been predicted to be the next doomsday scenario. In 1994, the American Philosophical Society published a book bearing the title: Is water our next crisis? In 2007, NBC featured: Crisis feared as U.S. water supplies dry up. More recently, in 2011, NPR did a story on Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization—a new book in which the author posits: “water is surpassing oil as the world’s scarcest critical resource.” This year, a Business Insider (BI) report called “water scarcity problems” a “looming national issue.” In September, the Associated Press declared: “The water crisis is already here.”

I would like to thank Crain’s Chicago Business for the opportunity to respond to the article published on September 10th: “Is U.S. commitment to renewable fuels waning?” Frankly, the article was either poorly researched or intellectually dishonest to an incredible degree. Contrary to the author’s claims, the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) has been a failure in almost every respect. Rather than mandating more ethanol be used, we should realize ethanol is a corncob pipedream, and do away with RFS, also known as the ethanol mandate, once and for all.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Institute Daily Podcast, Research Fellow Isaac Orr speaks with Jessica Sena. Sena is the communications director at the Montana Petroleum Association. In this podcast, Sena gives listeners an inside look at what is happening in the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana.

Talk about the Norfolk terrier tail wagging the Great Dane. If they are to have any hope of winning their party’s nomination, Republican presidential hopefuls better support ethanol mandates, Hawkeye State politicos told potential candidates at the recent Iowa Agricultural Summit in Des Moines.

OPEC’s Secretary General Abdulla al-Badri made headlines when he announced that the oil price may have bottomed out—indeed, we had four straight days of increase—and predicted “you will see more than $200 when it comes to future oil prices.”

Earlier this month, Representatives Jared Polis (D Colorado), Ben Ray Luján (D New Mexico), and Ann Kuster (D New Hampshire) introduced the National Renewable Electricity Act of 2013 (RES Act) into the US House of Representatives. If the law is passed, it will raise electricity prices for Americans for questionable environmental gains.

Our schools need to end the “green” indoctrination and ensure that students are presented with and taught to ponder and debate all sides of important and complex questions. Parents need to make sure they do so.