edberry.com

this is the tagline

Archives for August 2013

North America: an oil and gas powerhouse

by Marita Noon

Perhaps you read the USA Today editorial on August 19 that concludes with: “the most important gains could come from radical shifts that are as unanticipated as was North America’s emergence as an oil and gas powerhouse.”

It points out “that free enterprise has a way of solving problems that is beyond the capabilities of government.” And continues:

“The surge in domestic oil and gas production—spurred on by such new techniques as hydraulic fracturing (or ‘fracking’) did not come about as the result of government energy polices, but largely in spite of them.” [Read more…]

Keystone XL: not just a pipeline, a life-line

by Marita Noon

The final State Department report on the Keystone XL pipeline’s environmental impact is expected in a matter of weeks. Yet, the administration continues to send mixed messages as to which direction it is leaning. If the government announced it would make no sense to rebuild the World Trade Center in New York because when finished it would create only 50 jobs for maintenance people, you would laugh yourself silly.

Yet that’s the line of argument President Obama used recently while talking about the Keystone XL pipeline project that, to appease environmental activists, he has blocked for the past five years.

“They keep on talking about this—an oil pipeline coming down from Canada that’s estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs—that’s not a jobs plan,” he said.

By Obama’s calculus, the 5,000 to 6,000 jobs a year created in the construction of the pipeline (State Department estimate) or the “approximately 42,100 average annual jobs across the United States over a one-to-two-year period” with wages totaling $2 billion the project would support (also State Department) are to be dismissed. These jobs include the manufacture of steel, the people making the pipe, and the waitresses and hotel workers. [Read more…]

Environmentalists want you powerless

by Marita Noon

The power plant closures are coming; the power plant closures are coming; the power plant closures are coming; and while no one is riding through town to announce the news, the results to America could be nearly as dire as the coming of the Redcoats.

Despite millions already spent on modifications, fully functional coal-fueled power plants are being shut down—not because they are not needed but due to ideology. In fact, the Energy Information Administration predicts that electricity demand will continue to grow 0.9 percent per year until 2040 as we plug in to electricity that is becoming increasingly expensive.

One such example is the San Juan Generating Station in New Mexico’s Four Corners area that provides about 60 percent of PNM’s (New Mexico’s primary electricity provider) total electric generation in the state. The coal-fueled plant has four generating units—two of which are being shut down due to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. [Read more…]

Atlanta Tea Party goes fracking Liberal

by Marita Noon

 

MaritaNoon150Regular readers of my weekly column may be shocked at my suggestion: “please don’t frack.” But, bear with me. The terms “frack,” “fracking,” or “frack job” have become a part of the vernacular. “Frack” is short for “fracturing.” It generally refers to the process used in drilling for oil and gas known as hydraulic fracturing—a process where pressure is applied to crack rock.

Fracking is responsible for America’s new-found abundance of oil and natural gas—hence, the opposition from environmentalists. As the Sierra Club’s Beyond Natural Gas website states, this abundance “displaces the market for clean energy.”

Displacing the market for renewables is bad news for the Obama administration—which has allocated nearly 100 billion taxpayer dollars for so-called green energy projects. Obama’s EPA—under the direction of Lisa Jackson—has repeatedly, unsuccessfully, attempted to tie fracking to water contamination. If fracking can be found to be unsafe, and therefore banned, America’s domestic oil and gas will be kept in the ground, jobs will be lost, energy costs will soar—and renewables can come in as the solution with newfound cost parity. [Read more…]

What Can the People Do to Restore Liberty, Part 7 (Constitutional Convention)

by Tim Baldwin, Liberty Defense League

TimBaldwinA200America’s Declaration of Independence declares,

the people have a right “to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Essential to this power is the people’s right to call a constitutional convention, where the people from various political societies send delegates to meet with other delegates for the purpose establishing a new constitution. As our history well shows, liberty can be restored through this power, although such an act is, in reality, an act of revolution because the Constitution does not provide for States to call a constitutional convention to create a new constitution. [Read more…]