OWOE Staff: This month, the American Petroleum Institute (API) presented its “5 Point Policy Roadmap to Secure American Energy Leadership and Help Reduce Inflation” to President-elect Donald Trump and the 119th US Congress. Given that the API is an organization that was created by the oil industry, is supported by the oil industry, and is funded by the oil industry, it is no surprise that it is a blatantly self-serving plan whose primary purpose is to ensure income and maintain shareholder value for the fossil fuel industry. However, OWOE has reviewed the plan and concluded that it is a not unreasonable plan in many ways. With that in mind, OWOE has done some minor editing to address several serious problems that will negatively impact our planet over the long term and hereby presents its own “5 Point Policy Roadmap to Secure American Energy Leadership and Ensure the Planet is Protected for Future Generations”.

Please note that OWOE has reordered the actions to move tax policy from #5 to #1 given that it is by far the most important of the five actions required to meet the plan’s goals.

OWOE changes/comments are in bold.

Action 1: Advance Sensible Tax Policy

• Retain the 21% corporate tax rate to ensure global competitiveness. Ok.
• Implement a comprehensive carbon tax that accurately accounts for all health and environmental costs associated with global warming due to greenhouse gas (CO2 and methane) emissions. All tax breaks associated with both O&G and clean energy industries shall be repealed to put both on the same playing field. (OWOE has addressed the carbon tax issue a number of times in the past, including July 2018, February 2021, and  May 2023.)
• Preserve crucial international tax provisions. Ok, with the understanding that such provisions shall apply to investments in any energy activity, not just oil and gas.

Action 2: Protect Consumer Choice

• Repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) tailpipe rules. Ok.
• Repeal the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Ok. 
• Deny/Rescind EPA’s Waiver for California’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACCII) rule. Ok.

Assuming Action 1 is taken, these recommendations will become irrelevant. Once the true cost of greenhouse gas emissions associated with oil and gas extraction, transportation, and burning is factored into the cost of vehicles and fuel, transportation options for the consumer will be placed on level footing. There will be no need for government mandates to transition to electric vehicles (EVs); it will be demand driven. (See OWOE: Why Can’t  Someone Calculate the True Price of Gasoline?)

Action 3: Bolster Geopolitical Strength

• Lift the Department of Energy’s (DOE) LNG permitting pause. Ok, but note that with a robust carbon tax LNG demand could change when the true costs are factored into its international price. (See The Guardian.)
• Swiftly process all pending export applications now languishing at DOE. Ok.
• Ensure the open access of American energy to global markets. OK, but limit investment in energy firms and projects based in allied countries, or countries with shared values of democracy and free enterprise.
• New – Rapidly implement the North American Energy Alliance as proposed by OWOE in 2021 to leverage energy  resources in both the US and Canada to meet worldwide demand and maximize both the financial and strategic value of those resources, including  oil and gas, nuclear, geothermal, hydro and renewable energy and associated technologies.

Action 4: Leverage Our Natural Resources

• Issue a new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) five-year offshore leasing program. Ok, but include both oil and wind leases on equal footing.
• Repeal restrictive onshore leasing rules, starting with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Conservation and Landscape Health Rule. Maybe, but as a minimum apply similar rules to all energy developments.
• Work with Congress to repeal EPA’s methane fee. Ok, but recognize that the methane fee will be superfluous once the comprehensive carbon tax is implemented.

Action 5: Reform Our Permitting System

• Work with Congress to pass Comprehensive Permitting Reform. Ok.
• Repeal the Biden-era NEPA rules. OWOE is supportive of any effort to streamline the permitting process and make rules consistent; however, any such rules must include environmental impacts that aren’t expressly accounted for using the new comprehensive carbon tax.

It should be pointed out that API states that the oil and gas industry supports 11 million jobs in the US. There is no reference to the basis for this number; therefore, OWOE would like to direct readers to the most recent US Department of Energy “United States Energy & Employment Report 2023“. which identifies a total of 8.1 million jobs at the end of 2022 in the much broader energy sector. Of that, over 40% are in the clean energy sector. Regardless of the source or how the numbers are counted, the bottom line is that a significant number of jobs related to energy are associated with clean energy, and no energy policy should be put forth without considering the broader impacts of the policy.

Note: please visit Our World of Energy to see all the new and updated content.

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: When it comes to energy matters, as in all matters that affect our health or fiscal wellbeing, we tend to be our own worst enemies. There are two components to the global warming surge:  greenhouse gases, which insulate the planet and prevent heat energy from radiating into space, and heat exhaust generated by human activity. The latter is often overlooked and forgotten by most people but is just as critical a factor in global warming. We wrote a blog a few years back highlighting the thermal inefficiency of internal combustion engines (ICEs) which on aggregate pump out a heck of a lot of waste thermal energy compared to their transport energy use (Throwing Away 3 of every 4 Gallons of Gasoline Bought). This is one area in which electric vehicles (EVs) crush ICEs:  EVs use a much greater proportion of their energy to move people and stuff and emit far, far less waste thermal energy. Point to EVs. But there is a myriad of other personal choices that people can make today, without switching to EVs, that will on aggregate reduce the rate of global warming.

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: As is usual every spring, many large entities ranging from super major oil producers to large Wall Street firms and global organizations release annual energy statistics, reports and forecasts about the world’s energy state. Invariably discussed are subjects like energy mix, demand or supply projections. Often these entities will venture into discussing oil prices and associated forecasts. All those entities have big research budgets and teams of analysts, statisticians and economists pouring over mountains of data. However, even with all those highly paid personnel, and I suspect some added AI, those big entities are at best equal to the analysis undertaken by OWOE staffers, but more often than not, much worse. Apparently, nobody can beat curiosity, whisky and voodoo.

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: OK, another inciteful blog but that’s the OWOE writing team’s style, gleefully stoking controversy.

The term “fossil fuels” is one of the greatest marketing triumphs that the environmentalists ever adopted. “Fossil” suggests old and outdated, coming from some pre-historic, ancient, way-back, long-ago-dead biologic entities. The uses for fossil fuels also reflect “old” technologies, cooking, training and steam shipping (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Using Fossil Fuels from Ancient (left) to Modern Times (right)

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: The U.S. Federal Government is a huge organization that is staffed by some very bright people. There are also nearly 1,000 advisory committees in Washington, comprising leaders from industry, science and the arts. For the most part, the advisory committees concern themselves with publicly available information and have public meetings, but there are a few which require security clearance and concern themselves with confidential matters of state. These advisory committees are a valuable resource upon which the Federal Government can call to review policies and assist with formulating strategies.

Guest blog by Manny Topiques Here are some interesting and somewhat offbeat energy stories that haven’t gotten much media attention over the past year.

Is coal the new future for clean energy? In an amazing new discovery just announced by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the Perseverance Rover discovered an outcropping of high quality space coal not far from the spacecraft’s 2021 landing site. Using its rotary percussive coring drill, the rover was able to penetrate approximate 6 meters below the planet’s surface to confirm that this outcropping was the surface exposure of a large deposit of anthracite space coal. Further exploration on future missions will be required to determine if this deposit is native to Mars or the remains of a meteor that impacted the surface in the distant past.

Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: Change is inevitable unless you’re well established. There is a reason why empires are lost to history, governments are overthrown, businesses collapse, and academia becomes irrelevant. The established organizations or systems could not change fast enough to respond to imminent threats, emerging technologies or changes in consumer habits.  When faced with such challenges established systems, especially governments, harden themselves. In extreme cases you end up with kingdoms such as North Korea. But in most cases, you end up with economically declining and socially irrelevant states like Canada. It is a problem of ossification of thought, of edicts being churned out ever more frequently with worse effects. It applies to everything from healthcare and education to defense and energy policy.

T’was the night before separation when all through the Land
The Liberals were dancing, excessive tax revenues in hand.
While the stockings of residents, homeless or not
Were filled with inflation and expenses that came from dumb Liberal thought.

The homeless were nestled where they put their heads
While visions of affordable housing danced in their heads.
And Granny in Cape Breton, her home heated not,
Cursed feebly at Ottawa for the heat pump they brought.

OWOE has pointed out similarities between today’s Big Oil and last millennium’s Big Tobacco several times over the years. In September 2022 we published “Don’t Blame the Suppliers, Unless They Are Big Oil” where we shared articles documenting the efforts of the fossil fuel companies to engage in a public relations campaign to sow doubt in the science of climate change by following the playbook of the tobacco industry. And in August 2023 we published “Big Oil Stuns Again” where we addressed the greenwashing that the oil companies are currently engaged in and speculated that Big Oil’s lack of civic responsibility might become legal liabilities in the future, similar to what happened with the tobacco industry. Recent events have made it even more clear that, yes, Big Oil is following in the footsteps of Big Tobacco and is likely to meet a similar fate.

Bill Luyties, OWOE Technical Editor: There is no doubt that the world needs oil and will continue to need it for some time while the transition to renewable energy plays out. There is also little doubt that that burning of fossil fuels and associated carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere have contributed greatly to the current crisis that is global warming (see 97% of active climate scientists agree). Examples of the impact on the world’s climate are all around us – from the record-breaking temperatures around the world, to the forest fires in Canada, California, Spain, Greece, and Hawaii, to the melting glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic and rapidly rising sea levels. So, where does Big Oil fit into this ongoing transition? The last several years have seen Big Oil, which has been the source of much of the public misinformation about climate change, pushing the narrative that they will be part of the solution. How is that going?