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DAILY ENERGY NEWS | 02/03/2022
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** Who is doing the vetting in The Oval?
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Wall Street Journal ([link removed]) (2/2/22) op-ed: "These are precarious times for the American economy. Inflation has reached generational highs while the stock market is experiencing its most significant pullback since March 2020. As it responds, the Federal Reserve is walking a financial tightrope: Raise interest rates too little and inflation gets worse; raise interest rates too much and the economy crashes. But while central bankers are trying to maintain their balance, President Biden is cutting the rope. Last month the president nominated Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Obama financial regulator, to serve as the Fed’s new vice chairman for supervision. The Federal Reserve’s mission, as outlined by Congress, is explicitly nonpolitical. Good monetary policy requires the Fed’s leaders to set partisanship and personal preferences aside. But judging by her
past public statements, Ms. Raskin would have a hard time doing that. A hallmark of Ms. Raskin’s career has been her vendetta against U.S. energy producers—a vendetta she likely plans to take with her to the Fed. Last summer she advocated using the Fed’s stress tests to penalize banks that serve fossil-fuel companies. She has also urged the Fed to use its risk-based capital standards to drive capital away from oil and natural-gas firms toward ''sustainable investments.' She has even gone so far as to suggest that the Fed should de-bank energy companies by establishing portfolio or concentration limits for banks on 'high-emission assets.'"
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** "Arnold’s ignorance and hypocrisy are difficult to overlook, for reasons summarized well by that noted philosopher and keen observer of the human condition, Dogbert: 'You can’t save the earth unless you’re willing to make other people sacrifice.' Truer words were never spoken. "
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–Benjamin Zycher, American Enterprise Institute ([link removed])

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There they go again. Democrats push policies that lead to high energy prices and then blame everybody else for high energy prices.

What could possibly go wrong?

** Washington Policy Center ([link removed])
(1/26/22) blog: "With the legislature and the governor focusing so much attention on climate change, legislators are considering a Road Usage Charge (RUC), also known as a mileage tax, that would end up punishing owners of fuel-efficient vehicles that get over 20 MPG. House Bill 2026 would charge drivers the greater of a gas tax or a RUC of 2.5 cents a mile, beginning with mandatory participation from those who own electric vehicles, and then expanding on a voluntary basis to those who own hybrids and all other vehicles. Drivers with vehicles of less than 20 MPG who volunteer to enroll would end up paying the gas tax. Drivers with vehicles that have greater than 20 MPG who volunteer to enroll would pay a RUC. Electric vehicle owners who would be mandated to enroll would pay a RUC capped at $225 per year, equivalent to the flat fee they currently owe on annual vehicle renewals. The ironic result is that this proposed RUC would act as a reverse tax at the very moment when Washington state
legislators have adopted a massive carbon tax and a low-carbon fuel standard to reduce the carbon-intensity of fuels. The first graph below illustrates the cost by MPG under the RUC and the existing gas tax of 49.4 cents per gallon assuming 10,000 miles driven in one year. The second graph illustrates cost by vehicle type."

Richard Tol reminds us that, like natural resources, wind and solar are also capital-intensive businesses.

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Our greatest strategic edge over China is energy independence. Makes you wonder why the greens and the Finks of the world are working so hard to destroy it.

** National Review ([link removed])
(2/2/22) op-ed: "Despite Xi Jinping’s guidance to China’s diplomatic corps in June 2021 to project “a credible, lovable, and respectable image,” his regime continues to alienate itself from other Asian states — indeed, from states that would seem critical if China is to be successful in achieving its aim of hemispheric hegemony. While Beijing has put Northeast Asia on edge with its ongoing aerial-intimidation campaign around Taiwan, it has simultaneously encroached upon the waters of Indonesia, interfering with lawful energy exploration...But why does Beijing continue to needle the countries it would appear to need in its camp if it is to establish itself as the region’s unquestioned titan? One answer is that it needs to secure resources in its near abroad to meet its exploding energy demands, and to protect itself against being cut off from Mideast oil at the Malacca Strait chokepoint. Gregory Poling, head of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, questions the focus on energy, however. 'The energy argument itself has really been a red herring in South China Sea discussions,' he suggested in 2021. 'The real implications for the United States and other nations are that China’s threats to the right of other nations to tap their own energy resources amounts to an unacceptable threat to international maritime law, and there are few American foreign policy interests as abiding as defending freedom of the seas.'"

Energy Markets


WTI Crude Oil: ↓ $87.63
Natural Gas: ↓ $4.90
Gasoline: ↑ $3.41

Diesel: ↑ $3.75
Heating Oil: ↓ $275.86
Brent Crude Oil: ↓ $88.76
** US Rig Count ([link removed])
: ↑ 720



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