It’s been three decades since a brand new oil refinery has been built in the United States due to regulatory restrictions, the power of NIMBY-inspired litigation, and already low margins for the refinery business. New domestic capacity has been added to existing refineries through upgrades and expansions, but it’s more common for companies to build new refineries outside the United States.

The brightest prospect for a new refinery has been in South Dakota, where the Dallas-based Hyperion Energy Company plans to build a $10 billion facility in Union County between Sioux Falls, S.D., and Sioux City, Iowa. That’s a lot of investment and jobs. As the PrairieBiz magazine reports, “During construction alone, Hyperion would employ approximately 4,500 workers in the four years that it will take to build. At full production, 1,800 full-time jobs would be available at the plant.”

But all for naught if Congress enacts a low-carbon fuels standard. As we wrote earlier in the week, supporters of the standard claim an environmental imperative, but the proposal would make the U.S. even more dependent on Middle Eastern or Venezuelan oil. And as for the Hyperion project (earlier posts here), the Sioux City Journal reports, “Industry group: Low carbon proposal threatens Hyperion refinery“:

New environmental regulations for transportation fuels being considered in Congress would deal a “devastating” blow to U.S. projects like the proposed Hyperion Energy Center in Union County, according to a coalition of business groups.

Some majority Democrats back legislation that would lower carbon emissions in U.S. vehicles. The so-called Low-Carbon Fuel Standards, or LCFS, would unfairly penalize heavier, dirtier oil such as the crude from the Alberta, Canadian oil sands that Hyperion plans to process.

Last month, Hyperion secured a state air quality permit for its $10 billion refinery, which would process of 400,000 barrels per day.

“No permit in the world is going to save this project if LCFS is put in place,” said Chris Tucker, a spokesman for the Consumer Energy Alliance, a 125-member group that includes oil companies, retailers, trucking and transportation groups and business organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Consumer Energy Alliance (which the NAM is a member of) has launched a new website on the low-carbon standards at SecureOurFuels.com, which includes a blog.

Good site. Good jobs.

Best single place to keep track of Hurricane’s Ike impact is the Weather Nerd blog from Brendan Loy at Pajama’s Media.  Good compendium of resources and informed commentary, including worrisome observations like:

Even if Ike’s winds were to unexpectedly weaken to Cat. 1 force (or, heck, to tropical storm force), Ike would still be a “major hurricane” in terms of its massive storm surge. The surge, not the category, is the story! This is because of the sheer volume of water Ike is pushing across the Gulf, as I discussed at length yesterday. And that water is already in motion, inexorably bearing down on the gently sloping Texas coast. If coastal residents are taking this storm less seriously than they might because it’s “only” a Category 2, they are making a serious mistake. Eric Berger has an excellent post this morning about the predicted surge, with an updated SLOSH map.

And for the impact on energy, Bloomberg’s story is good:

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil and gasoline rose as Hurricane Ike headed toward the Texas coast, home to 23 percent of U.S. refining capacity, shutting almost all Gulf of Mexico oil production as it passes.

About 19 percent of U.S. oil processing capacity has been shut before Ike makes landfall today. More than a quarter of U.S. crude production is based in the Gulf Coast region. Evacuations have halted 97 percent of Gulf oil output, the Minerals Management Service said yesterday.

“The big concern is about the products because the refineries aren’t running,” said Tom Bentz, senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas in New York. “It remains to be seen how much damage will occur, but nobody wants to take chances.”

The concentration of energy-producing infrastructure on the Gulf Coast is detrimental to U.S. economic resilience. We need more redundancy and geographically dispersed production and refining capacity — as in a new refinery in South Dakota by Hyperion and an expansion at ConocoPhillips’ Wood River Refinery in southern Illinois. Yes, more of that kind of thing, and less of this:

Oregon and 11 other states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries.

The suit, led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, charges that the EPA violated the federal Clean Air Act by refusing to issue standards, known as new source performance standards, for controlling global warming pollution emissions from oil refineries.