Free Republic

The Trump administration recently proposed the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule. The proposed rule offers modifications to Obama-era Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards with a “preferred alternative” for model years 2021 through 2026. Without a doubt, the Trump administration’s proposed revision is a welcome victory for consumers’ wallets and for consumer choice. The Obama administration implemented fuel-efficiency mandates that would force auto manufacturers to have a fleetwide fuel-economy average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The new rule’s “preferred” change would maintain the existing fuel-economy mandate through 2020 (increasing to 37 mpg) and keep the level at...

Venezuela is doing something completely unprecedented. Some even say illegal. As part of an attempt to stop skyrocketing inflation, the country is issuing a new fiat currency called the "sovereign bolivar," which will be backed by a cryptocurrency. But that cryptocurrency, called the "petro," does not trade, and Venezuela's own parliament says it's being illegally used to mortgage the nation's cash-strapped oil reserves. "This is a smoke-and-mirrors operation typical of Venezuela — I'll believe it when I see it," said Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and one of the world's leading experts on hyperinflation. "The...

A Ukraine court has found former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of authority for signing gas contracts with Russia and sentenced her Tuesday to seven years in prison. Authorities deployed hundreds of police officers around the court to keep order, state media reported. Dozens of angry Tymoshenko supporters took to the streets of Kiev in August when she was taken into custody. "Dear friends, I just want to say that I disagree with this verdict and I am saying that the year 1937 is back again," Tymoshenko said in the courtroom on Tuesday, making a reference to Josef...

Self-described "ass-kicking, motorcycle-riding, Texas Democrat" MJ Hegar, a candidate for Texas’ deep-red 31st district, has a novel approach to environmental politics: she doesn’t care if her supporters believe in man-made climate change, but says it's hard to deny the corrupting effects of petroleum dependence on American foreign policy. "Our dependence on foreign oil is just so damaging to our country on so many levels," Hegar told ABC News in a June interview. "I respect other people’s freedom to be discerning and to make their own decisions. But they can’t deny that the U.S. military pays the price for our dependence...

A Chinese space force in Argentina, Russian control of Venezuelan gas and South American armies equipped with the latest Chinese and Russian hardware. Until recently, it might have sounded like the plot of a geopolitical thriller in a region once considered America’s backyard. But this is what Defense Secretary James N. Mattis faced on his visit this week to several South American nations, where economic and military posturing by Beijing and Moscow has been on the rise for the past decade. Analysts say Chinese loans in recent years have allowed authoritarian leaders to consolidate power in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua,...

Cruel: A spokesman for a prominent Native American tribe is blasting uber-Left-wing politicians in deep blue coastal states for using onerous EPA regulations to deny his people the opportunity to coal, gas, and other forms of energy. The Daily Caller reports that officials in a small number of coastal states led by Washington are essentially denying Crow Tribal members the opportunity to earn a much better living. CJ Stewart, a Crow Tribal member and co-founder of the National Tribe Energy Association, told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Thursday that his people are dependent on producing energy to...

NEW ORLEANS—Sterling Burnett doesn’t always want to sit next to someone he doesn’t know on a train, plane, or bus. But he’s willing to fight for the freedom of those same strangers when it comes time for them to purchase a motor vehicle. “What I care about is … your freedom to choose the vehicle of your choice,” Burnett, an environmental policy expert for the Heartland Institute, said during a panel discussion at the free-market think tank’s America First Energy Conference that took a critical look at fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. “I don’t think government should be in...

Map of the planned Turkish Stream (Wikipedia). Russia’s Gazprom has begun constructing the first stage of the Turkish Stream pipeline that will run gas from southern Russia across the Black Sea to Turkey, Reuters reported on Sunday.Switzerland’s Allseas Group S.A has begun laying pipes on the Russian shore of Black Sea. The pipeline will when completed by the end of 2019 allow the state-owned Gazprom company to send gas direct to southern Europe through the Turkish Stream while bypassing Ukraine.The Turkish Stream intergovernmental agreement was signed in October 2016 after having been halted for almost a year following the shootdown...

Classic Trump! President Trump speaking at a GOP Event in New York touted his administration's great success in unleashing American Energy, specifically citing the increased production of Clean Coal. He mocked former President Obama's dependence on "windmills," pointing out how windmills are dependent on the wind blowing and how easy it would be for enemies to knock windmills out. He called it "a killing field" for birds under the windmills too! . . . .

President Donald Trump ridiculed windmills as a source of energy on Monday, professing his appreciation for coal instead. The president spoke about energy during a fundraiser in New York, pointing out that coal was an “indestructible” form of energy, but it was easy to destroy a windmill. Why Windmills are the Worst — by @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/t5WqMu9hSe — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) August 13, 2018 “Bing, that’s the end of that windmill,” Trump said, imitating someone shooting a windmill. The president pointed out that windmills also kill birds. “They kill so many birds, you look underneath some of those windmills, it’s like...

• "We have to realize that perhaps China isn't as strong as when we at first think. China is still figuring out also how to deal with this trade situation, how to ensure the stability of its domestic economy," said Curtis Chin, an Asia fellow at the Milken Institute. • Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box," Chin also "totally" disagreed with the view that U.S. President Donald Trump's policies are backfiring. China's power may have been overrated and the U.S. economy is staying strong, meaning that U.S. President Donald Trump has an advantage in the trade war, according to one expert....

Desperate times call for desperate measures. And for the cash-strapped Democratic National Committee, that means reversing a policy of not accepting money from people who are employed by fossil fuel companies. "We have to draw the line that we are indeed a party of a big tent where all working people are welcome," said DNC Chairman Tom Perez on Friday night. "We're not a party that punishes workers simply based on how they make ends meet." [Snip] Despite the DNC's change of heart and opening of wallets on fuel donations, Perez maintains that the party is committed to fighting climate...

Editor's Note: This column was co-written by Paul Driessen and David Wojick. Part 1 of a 3-part series. It’s obscene enough when the Multilateral anti-Development Banks do it. But Trump agencies?!? In a prime example of Deep State revanchism, despite the profound change in administrations, the US Agency for International Development is still funding and advancing anti-energy Obama-era climate change dogmas and policies for developing countries. USAID handles tens of billions of dollars a year, roughly half of all US foreign aid, so this climate alarmism puts literally millions of lives at risk.USAID calls its “flagship” program “low emissions development.” Emissions of course...

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Friday evening saying it welcomes donations from fossil fuel industry workers and “employers’ political action committees.” Critics of the newly passed resolution are calling it a reversal of the DNC’s recently adopted ban on accepting donations from fossil fuel companies’ political organizations. DNC Chairman Tom Perez sponsored Friday’s resolution that allows the committee to accept contributions from “workers, including those in energy and related industries, who organize and donate to Democratic candidates individually or through their unions’ or employers’ political action committees.” Perez, who served as Labor Secretary in the...

Ending a five-year moratorium, the Trump administration Wednesday took a first step toward opening 1.6 million acres of California public land to fracking and conventional oil drilling, triggering alarm bells among environmentalists. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said it’s considering new oil and natural gas leases on BLM-managed lands in Fresno, San Luis Obispo and six other San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast counties. Meanwhile, activists in San Luis Obispo are pushing a ballot measure this fall to ban fracking and new oil exploration in the county. If BLM goes ahead with the plan, it would mark the first...

It is ever so obvious that Barack Obama's heart is not in Libya, but like every President since Jefferson he has come to recognize the harsh contradictions as the nation's chief executive and campaigning for the office. His predicament is nothing new. Principle meets the real world. In the midst of the BP oil spill, I wrote that the President seemed "detached". This entire administration can now aptly described as "detached", but more importantly it can now be held accountable for gross contradiction in selectively determining "humanitarian" intervention. Obama dithered for three weeks on Libya, missing a window of opportunity...

U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) sent a letter to Bank of the West President and Chief Executive Officer Nandita Bakhshi pushing back on the bank’s decision to no longer conduct business with companies engaged in the exploration and production of coal, oil and natural gas. Bank of the West, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, has 23 branches with dedicated employees who work hard to serve communities and families across Wyoming. In his letter, Barrasso condemned the San Francisco headquarter’s attack on Wyoming’s communities and businesses that depend on fossil fuels for energy security, jobs and economic growth. “This misguided and...

Iran’s oil exports dropped by 7 percent to 2.32 million bpd in July—their lowest level in four months—as South Korea and Europe are slashing imports ahead of the return of the U.S. sanctions on Tehran... Analysts expect Iran’s oil exports to drop more noticeably beginning in September, and the rate of decline to accelerate.

Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards were devised back in 1975, amid anxiety over the OPEC oil embargo and supposedly imminent depletion of the world’s oil supplies. Of course, barely 15 years after Edwin Drake drilled the first successful oil well in 1859, a Pennsylvania geologist was saying the United States would run out of oil by 1878. In 1908, the US Geological Survey said we’d exhaust our domestic oil reserves by 1927; in 1939, it moved petroleum doomsday to 1952.Somehow, improved technology and geological acumen kept finding more oil. Then the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) revolution postponed the...

HAMBURG (Reuters) - China may have to start buying U.S. soybeans again in coming weeks despite the trade war between the two countries as other regions cannot supply enough soybeans to meet China’s needs, Hamburg-based oilseeds analysts Oil World said on Tuesday.