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Kerry Has Investments in Companies Accused of Violating Iran Sanctions Daniel Halper December 21, 2012 12:59 PM John Kerry, who will be nominated later today to be the next secretary of state, is the richest member of the U.S. Senate. His estimated net worth is, at minimum, $198.65 million, according to disclosure forms. Kerry's disclosure forms also reveal that he has invested in companies accused of doing business with Iran. One of the companies Kerry is invested in is called Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras (Petrobras), it's a Brazilian-based oil and gas corporation. Disclosure forms reveal that Kerry has between $150,000...

PJM EXCLUSIVE: Louisiana's GOP senator on how the cover-up to trump sound science in favor of political ideology keeps growing with each chapter. Here’s the book-jacket teaser: A major U.S. environmental disaster strikes. As Coast Guard and other heroes struggle to contain the unprecedented damage, a different scene unfolds in a dimly lit conference room in Washington. A small group of high-ranking political hacks and overzealous ideologues see an opportunity to manipulate the situation to advance their agenda. They doctor a key report on the disaster by experts in order to justify shutting down all exploration and new production. They...

While the Obama administration was taking a victory lap last week after the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to uphold the president’s signature legislative accomplishment, Obamacare, the Interior Department was using the media black hole to release a much-awaited five-year plan for offshore drilling. That plan reinstitutes a 30-year moratorium on offshore energy exploration that will keep our most promising resources locked away until long after President Obama begins plans for his presidential library. (snip) In the past three years, the government has collected more than 250 times less revenue from offshore lease sales than it did during the last year...

File this one under While You Were Out: the Obama Administration unveiled its new five-year energy plan on Thursday, when the rest of us were conveniently preoccupied with SCOTUS and the Holder contempt vote. Real smooth. Of course, it's pretty clear why they wanted this to fly under the radar: as Hot Air's Erika Johnsen noted on Saturday, the plan is just not good. She points out that it opens up a miniscule percentage of our offshore resources, but not nearly enough to make a dent in our energy use, and what's more, by constraining the number of jobs that...

An investigator for the Interior Department’s Inspector General claims the White House hindered an investigation into a report on the BP oil spill by blocking access to a key official and email records, the New Orleans Times-Picayune is reporting. The investigator was trying to determine whether the White House intentionally edited the report to create the false impression that outside experts supported the administration's call for a moratorium on offshore drilling. The White House had said the editing was a mistake, and the Inspector General’s final report concluded it was. But the investigator, in a series of emails obtained by...

Yesterday the Obama administration announced a delaying tactic which will put off the possibility of new offshore oil drilling on the Atlantic coast for at least five years: The announcement by the Interior Department sets into motion what will be at least a five year environmental survey to determine whether and where oil production might occur.

Yesterday the Obama administration announced a delaying tactic which will put off the possibility of new offshore oil drilling on the Atlantic coast for at least five years: The announcement by the Interior Department sets into motion what will be at least a five year environmental survey to determine whether and where oil production might occur. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell notes that a planned lease sale, which the administration cancelled last year, will now be put off until at least 2018. As you might expect, Republicans were not impressed with the decision: "The president's actions have closed an entire new...

There is a revolution going on in America. But it is not part of the Tea Party or the loud Occupy Wall Street protests. Instead, massive new reserves of gas, oil, and coal are being discovered almost everywhere in the United States, due to revolutionary methods of exploration and exploitation such as fracking and horizontal drilling. Current prices of over $100 a barrel make even complex efforts at recovery enormously profitable. There were always known to be additional untapped reserves of oil and gas in the petroleum-rich Gulf of Mexico, off America’s shores, and in the American West and Alaska....

First it was Keystone, now it’s coast-to-coast. Scared to affront his base in an election year, Obama has imposed a five-year drilling ban on a majority of offshore areas. This is particularly disappointing given America’s persistent unemployment. Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise. Obama’s recent decision to punt on Keystone may have effectively killed the project, and the thousands of jobs needed to complete the pipeline. Like Keystone, the Department of Interior’s five year lease plan leaves hundreds of thousands of jobs on the table. The Institute for Energy Research’s Dan Simmons points out a few facts about offshore oil...

In campaign appearances, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hasner has repeatedly said he supports oil drilling off Florida's shores, and that he opposed then-Gov. Charlie Crist's attempt to impose an offshore drilling moratorium. In a speech before the Palm Beach County Tea Party's Boca Raton chapter on Oct. 4, Hasner adamantly asserted, "We rejected Charlie Crist's plan to block offshore drilling off of the coast of Florida." The implication in the statement, which you can watch Hasner make in the video posted below, is that he has always supported drilling off the coast of Florida, and that just isn't true.

Exxon Mobil Corp. is fighting with the U.S. government to keep control of one of its biggest oil discoveries ever, in a showdown where billions of dollars hang in the balance for both sides. The massive Gulf of Mexico discovery contains an estimated one billion barrels of recoverable oil, the company says. The Interior Department, which regulates offshore drilling, says Exxon's leases have expired and the company hasn't met the requirements for an extension. Exxon has sued to retain the leases. The court battle is playing out at a time in

U.S. Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner introduced legislation Wednesday that would speed up the timetable for natural gas and oil exploration off Virginia's coast and expand the state's share of offshore territory. The bill also would require that half of future government revenues from offshore drilling be allocated directly to the state government or spent by federal officials on conservation efforts, transportation improvements and alternative energy projects in Virginia. The two Democrats' proposal goes further in seeking a larger share for Virginia from offshore resources than a House measure co-sponsored by two Hampton Roads congressmen. However, the plan will...

LAKE WORTH Upwards of 5,000 people joined hands across Florida beaches at noon Saturday to protest offshore oil drilling and promote clean energy. The state's annual 'Hands Across the Sand' event coincided with similar gatherings around the country to raise awareness about the dangers of offshore drilling and to call on elected leaders to end America's dependence on oil. At least 100 people linked up at each of more than 50 locations around the state. Ana Campos of the Clean Energy Coalition of South Florida co-organized the event on Fort Lauderdale's beach and was thrilled by the large turnout. "We...

Energy: As the House passes a bill to open up offshore drilling, the Senate holds another show trial of oil executives showing why people blame them, not the administration, for high gas prices. Last week they fought back. Summoned for what Sen. Orrin Hatch labeled a dog-and-pony show, executives of Exxon Mobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, BP America and Chevron appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday and, in often-heated exchanges, indicated their days as whipping boys are over. The hearing was called ostensibly to support the Democrats' Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act, a bill with no chance of passage....

Drilling regulators from a dozen countries on Thursday agreed to take steps toward uniform standards for oil and gas exploration in oceans around the world. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar suggested the idea ... Representatives from the European Union, the United States and 11 other countries, including the Russian Federation, Brazil and ... One notable absence in the planned collaboration and at Thursday's summit is Cuba, which expects five wells to be drilled off its coast in the next two years. Salazar said the United States was concerned about the potential drilling 60 miles off the coast of Florida, within...

Complete title: More Drilling in U.S. is ‘A Problem, Not A Solution’ to Creating Jobs, Says Democrat Member of House Labor Subcommittee (CNSNews.com) -- Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) said that increasing oil drilling “off the coast” is “a problem, not a solution” to creating jobs in the United States. Andrews recommended that House Republicans bring legislation to the floor if they think more drilling will create jobs. VIDEO 2:25 minutes Appearing at a press conference with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on job creation, Rep. Andrews said, “I agree with my colleague and friend that drilling for oil off the...

We are living lives of self-imposed impoverishment. it will reach $130bbl, there is little reason to expect gasoline prices to do anything other than climb higher in the near future.One of the problems we face right now is the uncertainty in Libya, an OPEC nation that has cut its normal daily output of 1.6 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) to just over 700,000, amid the political tensions surrounding Muammar Gaddafi. What this means for humanity as a whole is that there is now less oil on the worldÂ’s market to meet the demand around the globe. What this...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that U.S. regulators would not bow to political pressure to restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico before they are certain the oil-and-gas industry is capable of containing an oil spill like the one that followed last BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. Salazar and Michael Bromwich--the head of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which oversees offshore drilling--were in Houston Friday to meet with oil industry executives to assess the spill-containment systems they have developed in the wake of nation's worst-ever marine oil spill. Bromwich said he was "quite confident that...

<p>The worst of the explosions gutted the Deepwater Horizon stem to stern.</p> <p>Crew members were cut down by shrapnel, hurled across rooms and buried under smoking wreckage. Some were swallowed by fireballs that raced through the oil rig’s shattered interior. Dazed and battered survivors, half-naked and dripping in highly combustible gas, crawled inch by inch in pitch darkness, willing themselves to the lifeboat deck.</p>

Hmm: The Obama administration's decision to maintain a ban on oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is a mistake, according to a University of Illinois expert who wrote a six-volume book series on marine pollution. "It's a ridiculous decision on the part of the Interior Department," said John W. Kindt, a professor of business and legal policy at Illinois. "The previous 180-day moratorium really hurt a lot of businesses. Well, a seven-year ban is going to sting even more."