Hannelore Morton 20 mins · The Obama administration has just announced it will issue at least six new major rules directed at the oil and gas industry — an energy strategy that only the member nations of OPEC and Vladimir Putin could love. The rules would, among other things, curtail methane emissions from natural gas and oil, place new restrictions on fracking, impose further limits on Arctic drilling and impose new safety standards on rail tanker cars. Never mind that the oil and gas industry has to rely on rail to transport petroleum because Obama has blocked the far cleaner and more efficient alternative of moving oil and gas through pipelines. More important, these are the kinds of mindless regulations out of this White House that could trip up the economy just as its showing signs of new life. The oil and gas industry has carried the rest of the economy on its shoulders for the last six years. But with prices falling, drillers are struggling to keep operations running. Thanks to the boom in shale oil and gas, oil prices have dropped by nearly 50% since the summer. New drilling permits are falling and some marginal wells are already shutting down. The decline in energy prices is a windfall benefit for the U.S. economy of an estimated $150 billion a year. But drillers must try to tough it out, and somehow earn what are now razor-thin profits. Could there be a worse time for new EPA regulations to raise the cost of producing our domestic energy? Obviously, the answer is no, but this isnt collateral damage; its the very point of the regulatory onslaught. This is an administration that hates fossil fuels, so the endgame here is a slow death to the oil, gas and coal industries by regulatory strangulation. This will force-feed the nation to consume much more expensive green energy. The biggest beneficiaries from this lunacy will be many of Americas mortal enemies. By driving up the cost of domestic energy production, OPEC, the Saudi oil sheiks, the IS terrorist networks funded with petrodollars and Vladimir Putin come away big winners. The losers will be the hundreds of thousands of Americans employed by the oil and gas industry, anyone who drives a car, U.S. manufacturers who benefit from low energy costs and families who use natural gas to heat their homes or for electricity. It seems so economically traitorous that one wonders whether Obama can pull it off. But this is a transformational president who has already nationalized much of our health insurance industry, run the federal budget deficit through the roof, passed mind-numbingly complicated new financial services rules and defunded Americas military. Read More At Investors Business Daily: news.investors/…/010215-733082-obama-epa-issues-… Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 01:31:03 +0000
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