• New York Times, “Drilling Boom Revives Hopes for Natural Gas “: “HOUSTON — American natural gas production is rising at a clip not seen in half a century, pushing down prices of the fuel and reversing conventional wisdom that domestic gas fields were in irreversible decline.”

• Reuters, “First mass U.S. crossing for hydrogen cars completed“: “LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hydrogen fuel cell cars from nine automakers completed a 13-day cross-country trip this weekend, in the first such mass U.S. crossing for vehicles powered by a zero-emission technology still in its infancy.” The vehicles were trucked between Rolla, Mo., and Albuquerque because of the lack of hydrogen filling stations.

• Wall Street Journal, Washington Wire Blog, “Pelosi on Natural Gas: Fossil Fuel or Not?“: “On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, the speaker twice seemed to suggest that natural gas – an energy source she favors – is not a fossil fuel. …”I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” she said at one point. Natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels,” she said at another.

• Wall Street Journal, Environmental Capital Blog, “Texas Breeze: Landowners Call Wind Turbines Ugly; Court Says Too Bad“: “For now, wind power’s triumphant march in the U.S. can count on another legal smackdown of “NIMBYism,” after a Texas appeals court yesterday dismissed a suit by landowners upset with a big wind farm built by FPL Energy. Landowners decried the turbines’ noise and their spoiled sunsets—which the court agreed was a pity—but the appeals court couldn’t find grounds to rule against the power company.”

• Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, “ANWR Option“: “Sean Parnell, lieutenant governor and a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, proposed a land swap as a way of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. ‘I propose a land swap of 2,000 acres of state land to the federal government in exchange for 2,000 acres of the coastal plain in ANWR into state hands,’ Parnell said at a press conference Tuesday in Fairbanks.”

 
• George Will, “Obama’s Economic Fairytale“: “Obama has also promised that “we will get 1 million 150-mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrids on our roads within six years.” What a tranquilizing verb “get” is. This senator, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, is going to get a huge, complex industry to produce, and is going to get a million consumers to buy, these cars. How? Almost certainly by federal financial incentives for both — billions of dollars of tax subsidies for automakers, and billions more to bribe customers to buy these cars they otherwise would spurn.”

From today’s Washington Post, an editorial, “No Drilling, No Vote“:

WHY NOT have a vote on offshore drilling? There’s a serious debate to be had over whether Congress should lift the ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in place since 1981. Unfortunately, you won’t be hearing it in the House of Representatives — certainly, you won’t find lawmakers voting on it — anytime soon.

The editorial chides Speaker Pelosi for blocking votes, quoting a very confused rationale that fails to justify the political machinations in the House.

The Post also makes an obvious observation that still triggered a thought: “There are legitimate concerns about the environmental impact of such drilling — environmental concerns that, we would note, exist in other regions whose oil Americans are perfectly happy to consume. But have technological improvements made such drilling less risky? Why not have that debate?”

Here’s a piece of a map from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.

Of course, unlike the Americans, the Norwegians don’t care about protecting their coastal beauty.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) in a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

I write to you today regarding Select Committee on Energy Independence Chairman Ed Markey’s (D-MA) introduction of his long-awaited legislation aimed at reducing the level of carbon in the air by imposing new taxes on emitting it.  Based on his comments last week, Chairman Markey’s legislation is expected to be much more far-reaching – and much more costly – than the legislation the Senate is debating this week.  Make no mistake: House Republicans support responsible climate change policies that will protect our environment, advance our energy security, and create more American jobs.  But in both cases, Chairman Markey’s bill and the Senate bill amount to large tax increases that would impact virtually the entire economy and would saddle consumers with even higher energy costs.  I believe this approach is not only inadvisable; it is reckless and inappropriate…

While I disagree fervently with the logic of raising energy costs while consumers already face astronomical prices for gasoline, I respect your prerogative as Speaker to follow through on your promise and schedule a vote on the bill.  And frankly, I welcome the debate.  At a time when families are reconsidering their summer travel plans because of the record-high gas prices, I believe there is no clearer distinction between the two parties in Congress than on this issue.

Boehner’s full letter is here. 

We hadn’t looked at Chairman Markey’s proposal since the influence of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming’s is in inverse proportion to the length of its name — the longest committee name in the House. But it’s quite the proposal, “revolutionary,” as Markey calls it. We can’t make out in the plan just where the proletariat seize the means of production, but they sure wind up with all the proceeds.

It would be a very illuminating debate.