Free Republic

The Department of Energy announced this week that it’s withdrawing the Obama administration’s energy-rationing mandate for certain lightbulbs. Opponents criticized the rule change, arguing that the move would be bad for consumers and the climate. The reality, however, is that families and businesses will be better off, and the change will have a negligible impact on the environment. The Energy Department’s decision to withdraw energy-efficiency standards for candle-shaped, globe-shaped, three-way and reflector lightbulbs is a victory for consumer choice. Whether it’s buying a lightbulb or a new car, families have different preferences and needs. They consider the various trade-offs in...

New Mexico’s oil and gas industry is expected to keep growing at a record pace, resulting in more revenue for the state and billions of dollars in new infrastructure investments to get the commodities to market, according to a study commissioned by industry trade groups. The predictions were outlined in a report presented to state lawmakers during a meeting Tuesday in Roswell. The report, compiled by a national consulting group, was commissioned by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and the American Petroleum Institute. Analysts estimate it will take $174 billion of new infrastructure to keep pace with expected...

U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), negligible just three years ago, now amount to 10% of the global market and at 22 million tonnes so far this year are equal to the total volumes pumped out in 2018, Refinitiv data showed. The data, comprised of tracked individual journeys made by LNG tankers from supply source to destination, also showed LNG production hit an all-time high last month of 31 million tonnes. As global volumes grow, Qatar, for years the world’s largest LNG supplier, lost market share to Australia, which exported more LNG than any other country in the past...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo doubled down last week on his blame-the-messenger approach to New York’s growing shortage of natural-gas supplies by ordering the Department of Public Service to “broaden its investigation” of National Grid and threatening to “find another franchisee.” Anything, rather than admit that his own policies are at fault. The utility has stopped taking new gas customers in parts of Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens where it can’t handle the new demand — because Team Cuomo vetoed the proposed Williams pipeline to bring in supplies from New Jersey. (Jersey is also blocking the pipeline, since Gov. Phil Murphy is...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Southeast New Mexico businesswoman Claire Chase has become the third Republican in the 2nd Congressional District race. She announced her candidacy Tuesday, joining former state Rep. Yvette Herrell and Las Cruces businessman Chris Mathys in bids to challenge Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small in November 2020. “Our state is ranked worst in the nation for education and 50th in child well-being because liberal, career politicians are pushing radical policies that support open borders, undermine the industries that power our economy, and threaten our way of life,” Chase said in a release. “We need a businesswoman, a mother,...

RED RIVER — For the second straight year, New Mexico lawmakers will likely have a mountain of money available for spending on public schools, roads, health care and other programs. The state will have an estimated $907 million in “new” money available in the coming budget year due primarily to unprecedented oil production levels and related economic growth in southeast New Mexico, according to new revenue figures released Wednesday by legislative and executive economists. Overall, the state is on track to spend more than $7 billion in year-over-year spending this budget year, while revenues are expected to reach an all-time...

If the official definitions of renewable energy were logical, renewable energy would be defined as energy that does not emit CO2 and that is not using a resource in danger of running out anytime soon. But the definitions written into the laws of many states are not logical. Hydroelectric energy is mostly banned because the environmental movement hates dams. Nuclear is banned ... Both nuclear and hydro don't emit CO2. Hydro doesn't need fuel. Nuclear fuel is cheap and plentiful. A large number of prominent global warming activists, such as James Hansen, Michael Shellenberger, and Stewart Brand have declared that...

Increased energy trade has important economic and strategic significance for the United States and Mexico. Mexico’s energy-market reforms that opened access and improved natural gas trade between American producers and Mexican consumers have been beneficial for citizens in both countries. President López Obrador’s desire to return to energy nationalism threatens those gains. Both the U.S. and Mexico should commit to policies and regulations that continue to open access to markets, improve transparency, and expand opportunities for investment. Doing so will benefit both Americans and Mexicans.

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) - Trying to hold support in the manufacturing towns that helped him win the White House in 2016, President Donald Trump is showcasing growing efforts to capitalize on western Pennsylvania's natural gas deposits by turning gas into plastics. Trump will be in Monaca, about 40 minutes north of Pittsburgh, on Tuesday to tour Shell's soon-to-be completed Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex. The facility, which critics claim will become the largest air polluter in western Pennsylvania, is being built in an area hungry for investment. The focus is part of a continued push by the Trump administration to increase...

United States carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the power sector and the broader economy have declined 61 percent between 2006 and 2014, mainly from "switching from coal-to-gas-powered generation," according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Second Installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review, January 2017.  These environmentally sound numbers from higher use of natural gas can also be translated globally to help with pollution in countries such as China, India, and the entire continent of Africa. The U.S. now uses natural gas converted to liquid natural gas (LNG) from shale deposits in states such as Texas, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania to...

The Berkeley, California, City Council is getting headlines for its decision last week to ban supposedly gendered language from its city code. “Manhole” and “manpower” are now out in favor of “maintenance hole” and “human effort.” Somewhere George Orwell is crying, but the city’s progressive lords were even more destructive when they also moved to ban natural gas from nearly all new buildings. The ordinance is due for a second reading this week and already has unanimous council support. Beginning Jan. 1, with few exceptions the city will deny developers permission to build a home, town house or small apartment...

From sanctuary cities to brutally high taxes, California is the undisputed center of gravity for today’s far-left. If you want to see how liberal policies would look on a national level, you don’t have to imagine it. You can just look at the thousands fleeing the once-great state. In the latest chapter of California’s descent into liberal madness, the city of Berkeley – a hotbed of radical liberalism – became the first city in America to ban natural gas from new homes and businesses, including restaurants that use natural gas for stoves. Environmentalists are reportedly hailing this development as a...

Berkeley became the first city nationwide to ban the use of natural gas in new low-rise residential buildings in a unanimous vote Tuesday by the City Council. The ordinance, introduced by Councilwoman Kate Harrison, goes into effect Jan. 1, 2020, and phases out the use of natural gas by requiring all new single-family homes, town homes and small apartment buildings to have electric infrastructure. After its passage, Harrison thanked the community and her colleagues “for making Berkeley the first city in California and the United States to prohibit natural gas infrastructure in new buildings.”

In the 1970s, Americans were told we were in a global cooling crisis and if something wasn’t done, we’d enter a new ice age. When that didn’t happen, a few decades later we were told that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend was not reversed by the year 2000. Despite the consistent failure of these apocalyptic warnings, that hasn’t stopped climate change alarmism. We’re now being told we only have 12 years to combat climate change, and the solution is to fundamentally dismantle the system of...

Bovanenkovo (Russie) (AFP) - Deep in the Russian Arctic anticipation runs high ahead of the launch of a natural gas pipeline that has emerged as a source of tensions pitting Moscow and Berlin against Washington. Gas sourced from the giant Bovanenkovo field on the remote Yamal Peninsula far above the Arctic Circle will feed the Nord Stream 2, a multi-billion-euro energy link between Russia and Germany. Critics of the Gazprom-led project -- in particular Washington and Kiev -- say the pipeline aims to increase Europe's reliance on Russian gas and isolate Ukraine, which it bypasses. US Secretary of Energy Rick...

This month’s announcement from Party City that it’s closing more than 40 stores as it grapples with new challenges, including diminishing helium supplies, likely came as unwelcome news to customers who count on the store for their balloon and event planning needs. But for scientists like Mark Elsesser, the announcement was something of a relief, inflating hopes that the public, and the government, might start paying closer attention. “When it comes to helium, we’re at a tipping point,” said Elsesser, who is the associate director of government affairs at the American Physical Society, a nonprofit association of physicists. “Party City...

U.S. natural gas production set an all-time world record last week despite prices hitting a new annual low and down 85 percent over the last 14 years. After dominating world natural gas production for 50 years, American production peaked in 1972 at about 21.7 trillion cubic feet.  As annual production slumped to about 18 trillion cubic feet for the next 33 years, prices rose from about $0.59 per thousand cubic feet (tcf) to a record high of $18.95 per tcf in September 2005. But thanks to 80-year-old George Mitchell, who pioneered modern hydraulic fracking techniques in the suburbs of Fort Worth...

Natural gas prices at the Waha hub in West Texas plummeted to record low negative levels on Wednesday, as pipeline constraints and problems at compressor stations at one pipeline stranded gas produced in the most prolific U.S. shale oil basin. Real-time or next-day prices at the Waha hub in Texas have stayed at negative levels since March 22, so drillers have had to pay companies with capacity to ship the gas via pipeline. On Wednesday, the spot Waha hub prices plunged to minus $3.38 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), from minus 2 cents for Tuesday, data from the Intercontinental...

Idiots who support bans on fracking and restrictions on new pipelines say it’s “unexpected” that New York has a shortage of natural gas One of the most simple and basic signs of intelligence is the understanding that actions lead to consequences.In New York, some people are showing a basic lack of understanding of this concept.In New York state, fracking is banned, and new pipelines have been prohibited in certain locations. The natural and logical outcome of these policies is that the state has a shortage of natural gas. Developers who had been planning to build new housing will not be allowed...

YONKERS -- Across the suburbs north of New York City, clusters of luxury towers are rising around commuter rail stations, designed to lure young workers seeking easy access to Manhattan. In all, 16,000 apartments and condominiums are in the works in more than a dozen towns, along with spaces for restaurants and shops. But the boom unfolding in Westchester County is under threat — not from any not-in-my-backyard opposition or a slumping real estate market. Instead, it is coming from something unexpected: a lack of natural gas. Con Edison, the region’s main utility, says its existing network of pipelines cannot...