In the Pipeline: 6/4/13

Let’s talk about energy subsidies (on Friday). Join us with the National Review for lunch and a “High Noon Debate” to talk about the energy subsidy experiment. 

Greenpeace has given you permission to not feel guilty about climate change. You see, oil companies are using your honorable sense of personal responsibility as a weapon against your consciousness. (Heads up: this is a spoiler alert for the sequel to Inception, starring guilt-free-carbon-guzzler Leo DiCaprio). LA Times (6/2/13) reports: “Maybe it’s time for us to remove the guilt. Yes, I drive a car that runs on gasoline. I fly for work when necessary and occasionally for vacation. But doing these things is not the same as admitting they are inevitable. Five years ago I flew more; now I use Skype. Bike lanes have been newly painted in my neighborhood, so I cycle to the store. In a couple of years, electric cars might come into my price range. In the meantime, I refuse to feel guilty… In the battle against climate change, we should not be waging guilt trips on one another. Rather, we should take the fight to those who use our sense of personal responsibility against us. Climate change is a problem, and we must fix it. But it’s certainly not our fault.”

If you can’t show them the light, make ’em feel the heat. Red State (5/31/13) reports: “At a critical Friday meeting in Vienna, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will set production policy. For the first time, they will be grappling with the challenges of shale oil, even none of the member states are major shale oil producers… The shale boom began in the U.S. as a ripple in North Dakota and Texas. Some thought its impact would be limited and regional, not global. Now that uptick on our domestic production curve has triggered a tsunami with geopolitical implications.”

Listen up – our man in Houston has an ear to the ground on these things… Forbes (6/3/13) reports: “But if Obama was really attuned to job creation, he should have been shaking hands and pumping his fist at the annual Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston where hundreds of oil and natural gas firms from around the world were sharing their latest technology—and looking for workers. Attendance of 105,000 was a 30-year high… The buzz at OPC was about ‘subsea factories,’ ‘a global bonanza,’ and ‘thousands of new technologies.’ ‘We have to innovate at a faster pace,’ said technologist Gregory Powers of Halliburton, which has been rushing to keep up with consumer demand since 2010.”

I thought the only thing you needed on your resume to drill for oil was “evil”? Rig Zone (6/3/13) reports: “Everybody’s recruiting,” said James Bradley, permanent hire recruitment manager with NES Global Talent, at the sidelines of AAPG’s annual meeting… Demand is particularly keen for drilling and well completions engineers, subsurface geologists, geophysicists and geochemists, Bradley said, adding that there are not enough specialists with direct experience developing a shale gas play. As a result, operators are wooing candidates with conventional onshore oil and gas experience ‘who can jump right into shale work,’ he noted. He acknowledged this is often easier said than done.”

Despite all the headache and red tape here at home, be thankful that we avoid these in the Federal Register: Rind(Cow) fleisch(meat) etikettierungs(carbon emission label) überwachungs(monitoring) aufgaben(duties) übertragungs(transmission) gesetz(law). The Telegraph (6/3/13) reports: “Germany’s longest word – Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz –  a 63-letter long title of a law regulating the testing of beef, has officially ceased to exist.”