Haven’t had a post about the Bakken Formation in a while, that vast and already proven layer of sweet crude in the Upper Midwest and Prairie Provinces, accessible via horizontal drilling and hydrofrac technology. And there are interesting things going on with clean coal out there, too.

From Bismarck Tribune, “Oil leases still vigorous in Mountrail, McKenzie“:

While far off the all-time highs, bids for oil and gas acres in North Dakota brought top dollar at the quarterly Bureau of Land Management auction Tuesday.

A Kansas company bid $3.5 million for a 10-year lease on 1,358 acres in Mountrail County, making the highest total bid of the sale, said BLM spokesman Greg Albright.

From the Oil and Gas Journal, “Final EIA figures show US oil reserves grew 2% in 2007“:

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 28 — Proved US oil reserves rose by 345 million bbl, or 2%, during 2007 to 21.32 billion bbl from 20.97 billion bbl at the beginning of the year, reported the US Energy Information Administration on Jan. 28.

The increase was a contrast to the rapid decrease in domestic crude reserves that began in 1970 but which have moderated in the past decade, EIA said as it released final yearend numbers for 2007. The federal energy research and statistical service will begin gathering 2008 numbers in February when it distributes proved reserves data survey forms to more than 1,400 US well operators…[snip]

EIA said Alaska, Texas, and North Dakota accounted for a majority of the year’s new reserves with a combined 605 million bbl of net additions. Eight other states showed relatively small increases while 13 states and the Gulf of Mexico reported declines, it said.

As for coal, “5 coal-fired power plants studying carbon capture“:

Five coal-fired power plants in the U.S. and Canada, including one in central North Dakota, are studying the feasibility of retrofits to capture and store carbon dioxide, a nonprofit industry research group says.

Electric Power Research Institute said studies are being done at Great River Energy’s Coal Creek Station near Underwood, and at plants in Illinois, Utah, Ohio and Nova Scotia. The group said the research could help guide development of future power plants and how they deal with carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.

Which makes this Economist story all the more timely, “North Dakota is one of many states waiting for an energy policy from Washington.”

P.S. Crambe!

From the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the Department of Commerce (news release and tables):

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to advance estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP decreased 0.5 percent.

The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter “advance” estimates are based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4). The fourth quarter “preliminary” estimates, based on more comprehensive data, will be released on February 27, 2009.

The decrease in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from exports, personal consumption expenditures, equipment and software, and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by positive contributions from private inventory investment and federal government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.

Most of the major components contributed to the much larger decrease in real GDP in the fourth quarter than in the third. The largest contributors were a downturn in exports and a much larger decrease in equipment and software. The most notable offset was a much larger decrease in imports.

Interesting that Marketplace Morning Report earlier today observed, “In the last three months of 2008, the American economy slammed into reverse. Most analysts expect that the country’s GDP actually shrank at an annual rate of more than 5 percent. If they’re right, that will make this the deepest economic downturn in this country in more than 25 years.”

And if they’re wrong?

In any case, bad enough…

The NAM’s President and CEO, John Engler, was in NYC Wednesday for business and included several meetings with the media in his day. Here are two video interviews with Roger Parloff, senior editor of Fortune.

• Stimulus hazards*
• Wall Street’s confidence crisis*

From “Stimulus hazards”:  

We think in the package, the stimulus package, the infrastructure investments are solid, could be more of them. They need to be focused on what will work to improve America’s competitiveness long term. We certainly think some of the tax cuts are helpful; they should be permanent and send a real positive signal about our intent to compete.

There’s a lot of spending in there that I would say is suspect. When you get $800-billion-plus in one spot, a lot of people are going to be reaching their hands in, hoping for a share of that. What we’ve got to be focused on, is with the long-term debt that we’ve got in the entitlement programs, with the deficit in the national budget and the deficits in the state level, the money we spend better be targeted well.

Man of the people, Woody Guthrie invoking, blue collar guitar hero Bruce Springsteen is playing the halftime show at the Super Bowl and has an exclusive marketing deal to sell his greatest hits collection through Walmart. Not since Metallica’s James Hetfield went shopping at Armani has reality so clashed with marketing-derived image.

The video is Patrick Hulne, complaining: “At the risk of sounding like a repetitive jerk, I’m the Boss, get back to work.” And here’s another video, not satire, Springsteen rehearsing for the “Dancing in the Dark” video.

In other Bruce commentary, Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times — and the excellent Sound Opinions radio program — reviews Springsteen’s latest, “Working on a Dream.” Jim is not a Springsteen fan.

Ah, well: We all know that as with every Rolling Stones album released in the last 30 years, “Working on a Dream” essentially is just the prelude to the next Springsteen tour, which is where the money’s really at. (The 2007-2008 “Magic” tour took in more than $230 million at the box office, according to Billboard.) And if you doubt that this album is merely just hype for the next jaunt through America’s enormodomes, let’s just count how many of these new songs the Boss plays at the Super Bowl.

P.S. Saw the Darkness tour in Portland, December 19th, 1978, and it was a great show. Many shows since. And yes, he’s stimulating the economy — especially the electric utilities — but boy, is the shtick tired.

Not only is organized labor getting its way, it’s leaking on the President. Bad form, fellows.

From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to overturn four Bush-era executive orders that organized labor opposed.

A labor official tells The Associated Press that Obama will reverse one order that allowed unionized companies to post signs informing workers that they were allowed to decertify the union. Critics said the order was unfair because nonunion businesses were not required to post signs letting workers know they were legally allowed to vote for a union.

The official says the other three orders address similar administrative rules for labor groups. The official disclosed the plans on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to pre-empt the White House’s plans.

Our emphasis. And anonymous pre-empting is so much more diplomatic.

Back in November we anticipated this action. In a post, “Executive Orders, Where to Look and Note the Labor Angle” we noted the four labor-related executive orders President Bush made early in his Administration, February 21, 2001:

Our observation at the time: “We’d guess organized labor has already demanded the revocation of the February 21, 2001, orders.”

Demanded and gotten, evidently.

UPDATE (5:46 p.m.): The links to the Executive Orders are defunct. Try these, courtesy archive.org:

Statement by the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Orders�
 Executive Order on Notification of Employee Rights Concerning Payment of Union Dues or Fees�
 Executive Order: Revocation of Executive Order on Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers under Certain Contracts�
 Executive Order and Presidential Memorandum Concerning Labor-Management Partnerships�
 Executive Order on Preservation of Open Competition and Government Neutrality Towards Government Contractors' Labor Relations on Federal and Federally Funded Construction Projects 

We link to and often quote the Examiner newspapers, mostly the D.C. Examiner but occasionally to the Baltimore paper, as well. The editorial philosophy of the free-distribution tabloids is pro-markets, competition and freedom, as you might expect from newspapers owned by Philip Anschutz (whose many ventures also include manufacturing and energy businesses).

So we read with regret the news that the Baltimore Examiner is closing up shop the middle of February, having failed to develop the necessary advertising base over the past three years to keep going. Baltimore and Washington, D.C., really are two separate, very distinct markets so the shared advertising goals didn’t come off.

The Sun is a good newspaper, albeit much thinner than it used to be, but competition always keeps you sharp.

And what about the D.C. paper? Good news there. From a memo to staff from Ryan McKibben, CEO of Clarity Media, the parent company, who reports the paper is doing well and gaining profile and respect.

This has given us the confidence to make new, major investments in the Washington Examiner. We are increasing our “news hole” to accommodate these improvements:

* An expanded “Commentary” section with additional op-ed contributors with strong and original voices …
* A daily page devoted to “Politics”…
* A weekly page on “national security” — and the addition of two contributing columnists who will write about defense issues …
* A weekly page on K Street that will examine lobbying and the role of special interests …
* The addition of talented columnists and contributors — including two new columnists who will each write twice a week for the Politics page and a lobbying columnist/reporter who will write a column for the new K Street page …
* We’ve hired acclaimed columnist Timothy P. Carney to produce a weekly op-ed column …
* The strengthening the Examiner’s investigative journalism by adding two investigative writers who will delve into issues of national importance for our Opinion pages …
* Finally, we’ve invested in the future of the Washington Examiner by making substantial upgrades to its website — including a new design and vastly improved functionality that will be launched at the end of March 2009.

So that’s positive news for the D.C. paper and metro D.C. readers. And to Baltimore…good-bye.

Manufacturers, retailers and trade association members of the NAM’s CPSC Coalition petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission yesterday, asking for a delay in the effective date of the lead content limits in Section 101 of the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

The law would require companies by Feb. 10 to issue certificates that newly manufactured or imported products are in compliance with the new law’s lead content requirements. The NAM/industry petition requests shifting the effective date to Aug. 14, 2009, noting that “compliance with these new lead content requirements will be a practical impossibility for thousands of manufacturers, distributors and retailers” because the CPSC has failed to complete pending rulemakings or give guidance on compliance.

A copy of the coalition’s petition is here. As a petition, the document gets into quite a bit of detail about process and problems, such as:

The chaotic application of yet-to-be established legal requirements to current inventories at retail potentially threatens to render obsolete billions of dollars of legally produced products already introduced into interstate commerce. In addition, the threatened wholesale destruction on February 11, 2009 of inventory which cannot be verified as complying with newly established requirements could inflict additional damage to the U.S. economy and threatens the ability of small American manufacturers and retailers to remain in business. The environmental impact of widespread destruction of unverifiable merchandise should also be considered. Further, companies have reported that the testing for CPSIA lead levels is different from the testing required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Thus, in addition to destroying merchandise that may in fact be CPSIA compliant but is unverifiable, companies are also incurring costs to determine how to properly destroy that merchandise.

It’s a real mess, the result of legislation passed in an overheated political environment.

In related news, we see that The Hosiery Association (THA), in conjunction with The Hosiery Technology Center (HTC), has created the CPSC Legwear Coalition. Same issues.

President Obama’s first bill-signing ceremony was a celebratory affair with Ms. Ledbetter and top Congressional Democrats on hand. No point in reciting our arguments about why the new law will invite speculative litigation and discourage the hiring of new employees — it’s a done deal.

Save for one point: We see that the American Association for Justice, the national trial lawyers lobby, issued a statement from its president, Les Weisbrod, today, “Ledbetter Act Delivers Justice for Working Americans, Says AAJ.” It’s boilerplate.

Today marks the end of a long road for Lilly Ledbetter and the beginning of justice being served for countless workers who have been victims of pay discrimination. For too long big business has tried to sweep pay discrimination under the rug and justify unethical corporate practices as necessary to bolster the economy. Today’s victory shows that corporations will be held accountable for their actions and that even ordinary citizens can get justice when taking on the most powerful interests. In one stroke of a pen, the Obama administration has strengthened the role of the civil justice system and restored legal protections for all working Americans.

AAJ has been remarkably silent on the bill, we suspect because the trial lawyers did not want to provide any ammunition to opponents who argued that the legislation would really benefit litigators more than employees. But with the bill signed, they can now speak freely and take credit. Smart politics, really.

Also, we’re still waiting for a reporter to ask Ms. Ledbetter if she intends to reopen the litigation. The law’s effective date was clearly written to allow her to revive her legal claims against Goodyear Tire & Rubber.

The President’s statement upon the bill-signing ceremony is here. Washington Post story, “Obama Signs First Piece of Legislation.” For more background, see this post or just search for Ledbetter on the blog.

From Jay Nordlinger’s Davos Journal in National Review Online, excerpts from a speech by a leader of a major European power (with Jay’s parenthetical comments):

Although additional protectionism will prove inevitable during the crisis, all of us must display a sense of proportion. Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence is another possible mistake. [He has already mentioned others.] True, the state’s increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. [But,] instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent. The concentration of surplus assets in the hands of the state is a negative aspect of anti-crisis measures in virtually every nation.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.

Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.

And one more point: Anti-crisis measures should not escalate into financial populism and a refusal to implement responsible macroeconomic policies. The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.

Vladimir Putin.

This button comes from the good folks at Hassenpfeffer Inc., the team of Daniela and Chris Shelton who recycle used clothing and toys to make soft dolls and teddy bears and the like. The two are also part of an active, exercised group of craftsmen, toymakers and small-scale manufacturers who see their vocations threatened by the implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

As explained at the Hassenpfeffer Flickr site:

 As a reaction to the dangerous-toy scare last year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission created something called the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act. It requires all manufacturers of children’s goods to submit their products for testing for lead and phthalates.

While that’s good in the overall scheme, it has some potentially damaging side effects. The problem is that the average testing fee runs a few thousand dollars. Making matters worse, we would have to submit each and every toy for testing since no two are alike (she makes her stuff from salvaged materials like old wool coats and such). Naturally you can see what this version of the act would do to the handmade toy and craft industry (it’s more than macramé owls nowadays).

They link to a website and open letter from the Handmade Toy Alliance, which describes itself as “an alliance of toy stores, toymakers and children’s product manufacturers from across the country who want to preserve unique handmade toys, clothes, and all manner of children’s goods in the USA.”

Manufacturers, trade associations and many others raised many red flags during the Congressional consideration last year of H.R. 4040, warning that, good intentions notwithstanding, it represented a legislative overreaction to the scare over lead-contaminated toys. For their troubles, activists maligned thom as insensitive, money-grubbing, callous corporations.

It’s harder to engage in the same kind of political search-and-destroy mission against craftsmen and hobbyists turned small business owners, concerned about their livelihoods. More power to them, and let’s see if members of Congress will be able to stand up to the marching teddy bears.

……

We came to the Hassenpfeffer posts via Overlawyered, where Walter Olson has been diligently following the issue. Yesterday was CPSIA Blogging Day, as recounted by Walter on his blog.

• CPSIA Blog Day #1: Past CPSIA bloggers
• CPSIA Blog Day #2: Etsy’s Gallery of Unaffordability
• CPSIA Blog Day #3: Small businesses endangered
• CPSIA Blog Day #4: Groups that should care
• CPSIA Blog Day #5: “Laptop for every child” campaign
• CPSIA Blog Day #6: Wrap-up