Public support for building the Keystone XL pipeline is consistent.  The Pew Research Center released the most recent polling on Sept. 26th.

Pew Research:

Most Americans (65%) continue to favor building the Keystone XL pipeline, perhaps the most politically contentious energy issue in Barack Obama’s second term. Yet when it comes to another issue making headlines – a proposal to tighten greenhouse gas emissions from power plants – the public favors stricter limits, by exactly the same margin as the Keystone pipeline (65% to 30%).

….

Keystone XL Support Remains Broad

Support for the Keystone XL pipeline has remained fairly stable during the past six months (65% today, 66% in March), though opposition has risen from 23% to 30%.

During this period, the Obama administration has continued to weigh whether to allow completion of the pipeline, which would transport oil from Canada’s oil sands through the Midwest to refineries in Texas. Because the pipeline would cross an international border, the northern leg requires federal approval. The southern portion does not, and much of it has been constructed.

In June, President Obama for the first time linked the pipeline debate to climate change, saying he would approve the project only if it would not “significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

Republicans overwhelmingly support constructing the pipeline. Eight-in-ten conservative Republicans (84%) and 76% of GOP moderates and liberals favor building the pipeline. As was the case in March, Democrats are internally divided: By 58% to 41%, conservative and moderate Democrats favor construction of the pipeline. Liberal Democrats oppose the proposal, by 54% to 41%.

While majorities across all age groups back the Keystone XL pipeline, there is less support among young people. Among those younger than 30, 55% favor building the Keystone XL pipeline while 39% are opposed. People 30 and older favor it by more than two-to-one (67% to 28%).

The balance of opinion favoring the pipeline is roughly the same in the six states it would pass through as in other parts of the country. In the six states the pipeline would traverse – Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas – 69% support its construction while 28% are opposed. Those in other states support it by a margin of 64% to 31%

Electricity Rates Should Be Fair and Affordable For All: Why Arizona Consumers Should Support Net Metering Updates

Background:

Solar energy is a core component of Arizona’s energy future. Arizona already has the most solar power per capita in the nation, due in large part to the state’s abundance of sunshine.

A number of years ago, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) instituted a net-metering program as a way to further incentivize homeowners to install rooftop solar panels. Net metering is a billing mechanism that credits rooftop solar customers for the excess electricity they generate and sell to an electric company using the grid.

The net metering policies that the ACC established at the time, as well as tax credits and a variety of other incentives, helped to launch the rooftop solar market in Arizona. Now that the solar industry has matured, the ACC is reviewing the need for continuing the level subsidies created by net metering policies.

The Issue:

Arizona customers with rooftop solar panels are credited for the power they sell to the local utility at the full retail electricity rate. This rate includes all of the fixed costs of the infrastructure that makes the electric grid safe, reliable, and able to accommodate rooftop solar panels. Through the credit they receive, net-metered solar customers in Arizona effectively are avoiding paying these costs for the grid. Yet, rooftop solar customers rely on the grid more than non-solar customers, as they use it both to buy and to sell electricity.

In simple terms, this means that consumers who cannot afford or do not want rooftop panels are paying to subsidize their neighbors who have them. This is a fundamental issue of fairness.

What Can Be Done?

The ACC is currently considering changes to the state’s net metering policies. Consumers should contact the ACC and urge commissioners to update Arizona’s net metering policies to require rooftop solar customers to pay for their fair share of fixed costs of the grid.

It is vital that Arizona have a diverse supply of safe and reliable electricity and that electric rates should be fair and affordable for all customers. Low- and middle-income families who cannot afford rooftop solar should not have to pay higher electricity prices to subsidize those who can.

ACT NOW:  Submit your comments to the ACC now. Time is running out!

KTRH Radio (Houston, TX) 

Michael Whatley of Consumer Energy Alliance sees cheaper prices on the horizon, too. But he tells KTRH there is a catch.

“There’s a tipping point at which we’ll see lower prices. But that’s all a big if because we’re not allowed to move forward with expanding drilling in the Gulf of Mexico,” Whatley explained.

And why will the prices continue to move in a downward direction?

“The U.S. fuel supply is growing. We are more reliant on our own fuel,” Laskoski said.

Whatley says we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing in recent years in order to make sure the prices continue to go down.

“The more North American energy we bring online the further we’re going to be able to insulate ourselves from the world impacts, in terms of what’s going on in the Middle East,” Whatley explained.

Whatley and Laskoski both say the reason prices have been falling lately is because of more domestic oil production. If you can’t wait for the prices to fall, there are ways to take advantage. Many grocery stores offer rewards plans. The more you buy the bigger discount you get at the gas stations they are partnered up with.

Read more:

By David Holt | Real Clear Policy

U.S. economic competitiveness has always been inexorably tied to technological advancements, innovation, and our enterprising spirit. For a contemporary example, examine the nation’s current energy boom.

Innovators employed hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, technologies developed in the 1960s and 1980s respectively, to help create the new era of energy abundance that’s fueling a jobs revolution and facilitating a reordering of global energy markets. Today, instead of discussing “peak oil” theories, policymakers are struggling to come to terms with the fact that in November 2012 the United States surpassed Saudi Arabia in oil production.

But oil and gas fields are depleted over time, and we will be reliant on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. (As the federal Energy Information Administration’s latest Annual Energy Outlook notes, fossil fuels will meet 78 percent of our energy needs through 2040.) So it’s reasonable to ask if our nation is taking the necessary steps to position itself for a continued abundance of energy.

A closer examination of our efforts to develop the world’s largest oil and natural-gas reserves — those in the Arctic — show we run the real risk of losing this abundance. As the United States continues to delay development in the next frontier of energy abundance, other nations are racing ahead.

It’s a common myth that oil and natural-gas development has never occurred in the Arctic. In fact, Arctic oil and natural-gas development began when Russia tapped the Tazovskeoye field in 1962. Shortly thereafter, following the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay Field in 1967, oil was produced in the United States Arctic as well. Canada also charged ahead with exploration in the Beaufort Sea Basin and the Arctic Islands in 1972. Following that, our northern neighbor drilled approximately 90 wells in the Beaufort and an additional 34 offshore wells in Nunavut’s High Arctic Islands. It goes without saying that the technology used in Canada’s drilling program was far less advanced than what exists today, and yet these efforts had little environmental impact.

Today, every Arctic nation with the exception of the United States has demonstrated enthusiastic support for expanded Arctic energy development. Of note, Russia has established a number of state programs to attract investment in infrastructure development along its Arctic coast, and its state-owned oil companies have partnered with international oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Statoil, and Eni, to develop offshore fields.

Even countries outside of the Arctic have joined the rush north. China has eagerly pursued stronger partnerships with Iceland and Greenland, understanding the significant value of the region’s natural resources and its shipping routes. When the Arctic Council granted China observer status this past May, it was front-page news in People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper.

The United States government, conversely, has failed to appropriate the necessary resources to develop stronger infrastructure in the region, including modern icebreakers and a deepwater port. Even worse, its sclerotic regulatory regime has delayed companies capable of tapping the Arctic’s vast oil and natural-gas resources from moving forward. As a recent Foreign Affairsessay aptly summarized, “Washington’s unhelpful attitude epitomizes its generally passive Arctic policy. While the rest of the world has already awoken to the region’s growing importance, the United States still seems fast asleep, leaving the playing field open to more competitive rivals.” Continued regulatory uncertainty will only further dissuade investment in the U.S. Arctic and leave the United States at a competitive disadvantage.

After all, delays do have consequences, and it’s worth remembering that other nations — namely Russia and China — are undertaking extensive efforts to exert their influence over vast portions of the Arctic, as well as the oil and gas deposits that lie beneath.

The stakes involved with Arctic development are high. Unlocking these resources will provide the next generation of secure, affordable sources of energy for millions of American consumers and will increase the nation’s energy security.

David Holt is president of the Consumer Energy Alliance.

Source: http://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/18/were_losing_the_race_for_arctic_oil_654.html

Is Tom Steyer so wrong with his facts it’s funny? According to USA Today, he claims in a new TV ad:

“As a businessman, I don’t devalue any job,” Steyer says in the commercial, “but 35 jobs maintaining a foreign oil pipeline, one that comes with real risks to the farms and towns and water supplies it would run through? That’s not going to grow our economy.”

You may want to ask Ron Kaminski, the Business Manager for the LiUNA Local 1140, whose members built the first Keystone pipeline through Nebraska – which is operating safely right now on “farms and towns” through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois. In testimony to the U.S. Congress last week Kaminiski refuted similar claims that there is a difference between construction jobs building a wind turbine and construction jobs building a pipeline:

“I find it quite amusing all these studies have taken place about jobs numbers. No one has ever contacted me about a survey or a study about how many jobs were created on the first Keystone line nor on the second one. These ideas that these are temporary jobs – every job in construction is temporary. We construct wind turbines, we construct ethanol plants, bio diesel plants. We can build one hundred and twenty wind turbines in about a quarter of the time we build this pipeline. To say that because it is an alternative source of energy it is not a temporary job is pretty funny to me.” (Source)

You might find just a hint of sarcasm in Mr. Kaminski’s testimony. The prospect of having the 42,100 jobs that Keystone XL is projected to support eliminated by President Obama if he rejects the pipeline is anything but funny – particularly in this economy.

Watch the U.S. House of Representative’s hearing marking the 5th anniversary of the Keystone XL pipeline application: