Appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) argued that budget talks should not include the reduction of oil and gas subsidies. Kyl, who abandoned budget negotiations with the White House this week, claimed that eliminating $2 billion in annual subsidies for the richest oil companies — instead of slashing programs that feed the poor and protect the middle class — would “hurt the American consumer”:

First of all, if you want gas prices to rise and pay more than $4 at the pump, go ahead and do this. That is not what we should be about right now. That kind of tax increase is going to flow right to the consumer. Everybody knows that. Secondly, you are picking out one industry in the United States, an industry that employs almost 10 million people, represents 7.5% of the Gross Domestic Product. You’re saying to them you are not going to get the same tax treatment that all other manufacturing corporations get in the United States. So we’re going to punish you, because you make a lot of money. It’s also true with those big profits, they have enormous costs of investment. Of course, you covered the issue of how much it costs to put one of those platforms out in the middle of Gulf of Mexico. Billions of dollars. Big money all the way around. You’ll hurt the American consumer if you impose more taxes on them.

Watch it:

Kyl is not telling the truth about oil and gas subsidies:

Eliminating Oil Subsidies Won’t Raise Gas Prices. Eliminating Big Oil’s subsidies would have very little effect on gas prices. The subsidies have little to no influence on the investment decisions oil companies make, especially with the price of oil around $100 a barrel. Instead, the tax breaks simply pad oil profits, and are funneled into “obscene” executive pay schemes and shareholder payoffs. Even the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes cutting the subsidies, has admitted that eliminating subsidies wouldn’t affect gas prices.

The Oil And Gas Industry Employs About 700,000 Americans, Not “Almost 10 Million”. A report prepared for the American Petroleum Institute in 2009 estimated the the oil and gas industry involves only 2.1 million direct jobs with 7.1 million indirect and induced jobs. But even the 2.1 million jobs figure is grossly inflated. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, oil and gas drilling — the industries directly affected by most of these subsidies — only employed 63,012 jobs in September 2009, the most recent reporting period. U.S. Department of Labor 2007 statistics indicate the drilling and production of oil and natural gas, plus support activities directly account for 425,025 jobs. If sectors such as oil refineries and natural gas distribution are included, even though they are unaffected by drilling subsidies, the total increases to 743,825 jobs. According to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data from 2009, the drilling and production of oil and natural gas directly generates 799,100 jobs.

Taxes aren’t dollars that disappear, and the payment of taxes isn’t a punishment for successful businesses, like the oil industry that gets over $7 billion in subsidies a year, far more than the Obama administration has proposed cutting. Taxes paid go back into the American economy, supporting the long-term investments that make the United States the richest nation on earth.

For example, taxes support public universities like Arizona State, where Kyl earned his bachelor’s and law degree. Taxes pay for the electoral system that Kyl joined as a member of Congress in 1986, where he has been taxpayer-funded ever since. Then again, Kyl has also directly received $333,332 from the oil and gas industry in political contributions over his career. Maybe he is just concerned about protecting his own personal oil and gas subsidies, which he receives on top of his taxpayer salary.

The lead story in the New York Times today is a detailed bubble bursting of the much vaunted boom in unconventional natural gas.

Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States.

But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.

The NYT has gained access to some amazing, must-read e-mails that “suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles.”

“The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work,” an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company, wrote in an e-mail on Aug. 28, 2009.

If this were just one or two e-mails  from people outside of the industry, they might be easier to dismiss.  But  as the headline states, “Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush”:

“Money is pouring in” from investors even though shale gas is “inherently unprofitable,” an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. “Reminds you of dot-coms.”

… “And now these corporate giants are having an Enron moment,” a retired geologist from a major oil and gas company wrote in a February e-mail about other companies invested in shale gas. “They want to bend light to hide the truth.”

The article raises three serious concerns about the new gas boom:

1. Are most wells going to deplete much faster than people expect?
2. Will the price of natural gas have to be much higher than people thought to make the economics work?
3. Will this all mean more fracking — with all of the potentially dangerous side effects, including leakage of methane, which boosts the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of  shale gas?

Let’s start with the first.

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The Washington Post can no longer be mistaken for a serious newspaper focused on informing its readers about the nation’s pressing problems.   Exhibit A is today’s major ‘investigative’ front page report, “Obama’s focus on visiting clean-tech companies raises questions.”

I use the phrase “loses touch with reality” because the three (!) reporters who put together this 2600-word (!!) piece on the evils of Obama promoting clean energy never discuss a single one of the myriad major national problems the administration is trying to address by promoting clean energy:

1. No mention of the billion dollars a day we spend on foreign oil
2. No mention of urban air pollution
3. No mention of the much larger push that many of our major trade competitors are making because they know the transition to clean energy is inevitable
4. No mention of national security
5. No mention whatsoever of global warming, climate change, or greenhouse gases

Seriously.   It would be like attacking the administration for spending taxpayer dollars on its new cigarette labels without ever mentioning cancer or lung disease or even public health.

Remember, just two months ago, the paper ran a blistering piece by Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, “The GOPs climate-change denial may be its most harmful delusion.” But if the GOP’s most harmful delusion is denying climate change, then surely the WashPost‘s decision here to completely ignore the harmful nature of GHGs from our current use of fossil fuels is also a harmful delusion.

The point is we must transition to clean energy to avoid the harm of global warming. It would be the height of irresponsibility if the president didn’t make clean energy a top priority by the Post’s own standards!

Instead of focusing on the reality of the many problems that clean energy addresses simultaneously, the Post focuses on, what else, the politics:

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The UK Guardian explains how you can, “Discover the key people and organisations you should be following on Twitter if you’re interested in climate change and the environment.”

They have broken down what they call the top 50 twitter climate accounts by category.  Blogging is inherently solipsistic, so we start with their recommendations for “Bloggers” to follow:

1. Climate Progress

Thoughts and re-tweets on climate science and politics.

2. Grist

News and retweets by this US-centric green news and comment blog.

3. TreeHugger

Chat and thoughtful tweets from the grandaddy of the green blogosphere.

4. Julian L. Wong

Useful links for anyone interested in China and climate change.

5. Kate Sheppard

A prolific US blogger at Mother Jones who re-tweets interesting content on energy and climate change.

Here are some more of their  recommendations:

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