The First GOP Challenges

++A little background information. The United States is now the number one producer of oil on the planet,edging out Saudi Arabia. That should hold until 2050 and beyond.

++Mitch McConnell's opening salvo will be the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will produce 35 permanent jobs,present enormous environmental challenges and will transport the dirtiest tar sands oil across America to the international market. The owners are two Canadian firms with large Chinese interests. With oil so low,tar sands production is already threatened because it needs about $85 per barrel to be worth producing. It looks like the bill now has 61 votes so will escape a filibuster.

++The Portman-Sheehan energy efficiency bill has large bipartisan support and will probably pass.

++Exporting natural gas. So far law prohibits the export of natural gas. The crisis in the Ukraine raised this issue to counter-balance Russia's gas strange hold on European markets. There have been LNG projects in mothballs for years to export the stuff. That may pass.

++Exporting oil. Here again,the United States hasn't been in the position to do that until recently. I understand that in the last month, President Obama has allowed for the export of oil. 

++The big fight after the Keystone XL Pipeline is the Senate attempt to stop the EPA's new rules on coal-fueled energy plants. Even though the biggest are in Red States,Gina McCarthy ,the head of the EPA, has claimed that the limits have been produced through negotiation and that President Obama will not back down. This is one of the most historic climate change actions by the President. I expect you will hear a lot of noise and see law cases about his use of the Clean Air Act.

++The most horrendous idea of the GOP is to open public lands to drilling. Where this exists,there is tremendous environmental damage and turns the landscape into an eyesore. 

++The Keystone XL is purely an ideological fight right now. The project itself is obsolete and isn't economically viable. It is a relic from the Cheney Energy Commission when he sought a way to "control" oil supplies to China.