North Dakota Oil: Reality Beginning to Settle In?

Just one of the many things that gives tea party Republicans away is their smugness over North Dakota's considerable oil play. The tea party people seem to believe that North Dakota proves some point that puts Democrats at a disadvantage. That's curious, because I cheer the fact that the extra oil helps our economy. In fact, it might help us switch to alternative energy a little sooner. Switching to alternative energy is expensive but necessary. The fortunate side effect of alternative energy is that it will create a considerable number of new jobs. And in the meantime, buying less oil from other countries because of North Dakota can help our economy and make it easier to pay for new energy projects, ones that will be sustainable and that won't fuel global warming. Of course, as recent events have shown, tea party Republicans are not rational.

If a majority of today's Republican politicians were rational instead of off in never never land trying to recreate the 1920s, they would agree that we face major issues.

They would agree that the first priority of Americans in 2011 is the creation of new jobs. They would also agree that global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels are also major issues that cannot be ignored.

They would not fantasize, as some business people do, that someone will invent the way out of our problems at any moment using a trickle of narrowly focused corporate research dollars (the situation is so bad that in the last six years, scam artists have played on such beliefs with gullible business investors willing to put their money in new types of energy projects, except the schemes turn out to be bogus or produce only a very small amount of energy gain).

A Republican Party controlled by rational pragmatists would see that major research dollars are needed for our society to move forward. They would see that we are running out of time to make a difference. We need major, intensive research now to dig our way out of our problems. Rational Republicans, if there were enough around, would be joining with Democrats to find a way to fund those research dollars in today's troubled economy. They would know that delay is not an option, for things can only get worse if we wait.

Rational Republicans would see the oil play in North Dakota as a bit of luck that is buying us time (and jobs to boot) to get our act together. They would not fantasize as so many radical Republicans do that global warming is somehow a left wing conspiracy and that the oil and gas projects around the country are going to save our energy future.

Democrats like me have no serious problem with the North Dakota oil play. I admit I'm unhappy with the problems associated with fracking but 80% of all energy technologies in use today are problematic. That's an additional reason we need a major research initiative in this country. But we need to be able to fund that initiative while there is still time. I'm a realist about North Dakota and the other oil and gas plays. These projects are not a game changer as some conservatives so desperately want to believe (they would object to the word 'desperately,' but they have little idea just how much in denial they have become). But as we transition to alternative energy, I would far rather see gas and oil burned than coal. Nearly everything we burn produces CO2, but no fossil fuel produces as much carbon dioxide than coal. Coal is the planet killer. Make no mistake, every green energy project is a step in the right direction, and the faster we can transition, the better. But I'm a realist, as I said. It is going to take time.

U.S. oil production is way off from what it was back in the 1970s. We were fortunate, in a way, that we had oil from the North Slope of Alaska to mitigate the fall in US oil production. There was even a brief upward blip from that production, though we came nowhere close to the maximum production we reached in the early 1970s. Since the North Slope reached its maximum production in the late 1980s, total American oil production has continued to decline in most years. The maximum production of oil in Alaska was 2.2 million barrels a day.

In North Dakota, using the new fracking method, oil production has been increasing dramatically since early 2008. Despite the good news, there's a small problem: production may be on the edge of leveling off. We don't know yet. In May, 2009, oil wells in North Dakota produced 205,995 barrels of oil per day. By May, 2010, the number of barrels produced per day increased to 298,975 barrels of oil, an increase of 93,000 barrels. Oil production has continued to rise. In May, 2011, 361,438 barrels a day were produced. Not bad, though nowhere close to the North Slope. Some argue that production will continue to rise. No doubt it will, but it will not surpass or even approach the maximum production from the North Slope. Unfortunately, there's that worrisome difference to note from the figures above: the increase in May production from 2010 to 2011 was only 63,000 barrels a day.

All along, there has been strong suggestive evidence all along that North Dakota is not going to be a replay of Alaskan oil. It's a help, but already the falling increase suggests a leveling off of oil production. It's entirely feasible that oil production will be much greater next year, but the production of individual oil wells in North Dakota tend to fall off rapidly after the first year. The long-term prospects are not good, though the Bakken oilfield in North Dakota will remain an important source of oil for some time to come.

Again, North Dakota is a good oil play (though admittedly, the fracking problems are unsettling). But all the Bakken oilfield can do is buy us time. We need to use that time wisely. Instead, we have watched tea party Republicans waste an entire year that should have been spent creating jobs instead of destroying them. We need to create jobs where they matter most: alternative energy projects, major research projects to deal with global warming and energy issues, and modestly increasing the number of teachers instead of firing them. We need an educated and creative population, not a road map to third world status courtesy of tea party Tories.



S & P Rating Games: A Quick Mention

Let's just say I'm very skeptical about the S & P downgrading of US debt, particularly after the fiasco by the tea party Republicans where they got more than any other debt conscious group of politicians in history. Both Moody's and the S & P lost considerable credibility during the financial meltdown in 2008. Both rating firms were giving high ratings to banks and Wall Street firms that not only contributed to the financial meltldown but that were, in many cases, the explicit and gloriously crooked cause of it. When such institutions do not have the money to pay off on bad loans, why should they have such high ratings? Was the 2008 election part of the reason for the high ratings? I don't know.

It is a historical fact that in June of 2007, a frigid wind of reality blew through the banks of the world. Everybody in the financial sector knows what happened. Everybody discovered in that month that the complex diced and packaged financial instruments they were holding were probably worthless (banking executives should have known earlier but they were too busy counting their fat commissions and fat salaries to take the trouble to understand the financial fraud they were a part of; actually Moody's and the S & P should have known earlier). And yet, despite the discoveries, despite the enormous shudder that went through all the markets, the high ratings continued for more than a year. Are we seeing a replay of recklessness? And why now? Why the downgrading after rather than before the vote? I don't know. We'll see. But I remain skeptical.

Republican Fiasco: Choice Is Between Bad and Very Bad

The Republican pragmatists refuse to stand up. For all practical purposes, the pragmatists are politically dead in the Republican Party. By blackmailing the American people, the tea party Tories are about to give us either a bad deal (a compromise where Republican right wingers get most of what they want) or a very bad deal (where Republicans get almost everything they want). That's assuming the tea party zealots don't simply cause the US to go into default, in which case, it's anybody's guess what will happen next.

Even the wealthy billionaires who paid for the tea party movement are beginning to wonder what they have unleashed.

Healthy economic activity in the modern world depends on pragmatism and it depends on reasonable expectations. Do not expect the economy to do well if Republicans create chaos while also killing jobs and the economy.

Tea Party Tories vs. Republican Pragmatists

The Plain Dealer carries a Washington Post article that briefly mentions one of the most despicable acts I've ever seen by the U.S. House of Representatives:

The Republican-controlled House voted Tuesday night to slice federal spending by $6 trillion and require a constitutional balanced budget amendment to be sent to the states in exchange for averting a threatened Aug. 2 government default.

The 234-190 vote marked the power of deeply conservative first-term Republicans...

In Washington, there are very few Republican pragmatists left. Over the years, I have often disagreed with Republican pragmatists, but—this has to be said bluntly—at least they're not nuts like the tea party Tories. Of course, there are different kinds of Republican pragmatists. Some are moderates, some are conservative. But they're not totally nuts.

There were conservative pragmatists during the Reagan era who listened to the conservative radicals of the era but refused to throw millions of poor and middle class Americans under the bus. The conservative pragmatists did damage but at least the damage was limited.

There were moderate Republican pragmatists during the 1960s. Some of them were courageous. Despite putting rules in place for this and limitations on that, they helped pass important legislation of the era that ultimately benefited a large majority of Americans.

For those of us who were paying attention, there were certainly radical conservatives in the 1960s who were totally nuts. Some followed an angry George Wallace. Some were members of the ridiculous and much caricatured John Birch Society (I have previously written how John Birch members would hand out dimes on Halloween along with right wing leaflets for children to give their parents).

To repeat the above, on July 19th, 2011, the nuttiness of the tea party Tories manifested itself in a vote in the House to cut the US budget by $6,000,000,000,000. Pardon the zeroes, but to simplify, and repeat once more, that's $6 trillion dollars 'trimmed' from the US budget. Right wing Republicans in recent years have found all kinds of cute ways to make something unreasonable sound just fine. Cutting $6 trillion is not fine. There are two issues here. The first one, which is actually the more critical issue in the long run, is that such a budget cut would increase the power of the super wealthy and decrease the power and well being of everyone else. It would continue the erosion of democracy that we have seen in the last ten years.

The second issue is the one that hits home if voters bother to think about it. Cutting the budget that severely means putting a lot of people out of work.

If you don't have money for teachers, you put a lot of teachers out of work.

If you don't have money for law enforcement, you put a lot of police officers, agents and investigators out of work.

If you don't have money for fire trucks and overtime during fire season, that's a lot of fire fighters out of work and lot of property destruction.

If you don't have money for highways, you put a lot of highway workers out of work and you pay a lot of money and repairs for tires and vehicles.

If you don't have money for research, you put scientists and engineers out of work who are needed to make the US competitive.

If you cut down the number of people in the military, you put tens of thousands of soldiers on the street without a job because the budget for helping them get the necessary education, health care and housing is too pitiful to do them much good, since all of the above people would also be out of work.

Since early 2007, when Bush was still president and failing to mind the store as banks and financiers ran amuck, most Americans have experienced economic troubles that our country has not experienced since the 1930s. Those troubles will continue if Republicans keep cutting jobs at the state and federal level. Private industry cannot absorb the number of people who would be out of work if the tea party Tories at the state and national level continue to have their way.

In the end, the tea party folks are phonies. They have far more in common with Kenneth Lay, Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump than they do with average Americans. The tea party folks don't care about you and I. They care about the wealthy, the privileged, and the well-connected. Real American patriots in 1776 were fighting against the rigged and gamed system that the British Tories were pulling on Americans with the substantial help of George III. A rigged and gamed system is exactly what tea party Republicans want more of.

The Senate, with the help of the White House, appears to be leading the way to a less onerous bill (with a crucial nod from some pragmatic Republicans), though that bill is not likely to help us move forward through what is likely to be a difficult period in the next few years. But it is preferable to the bill tea party radicals want to pass. 'Preferable,' but largely useless in terms of what our country needs.

In the end, thanks to the tantrums of the tea party radicals, we're in trouble. There is no way for our economy to continue to move forward without serious attention to our infrastructure and considerable reform of business as usual.

Tea party folks are business as usual Republicans. They make noise, but at the end of the day, they shovel billions into the pockets of those who need it the least and those who continue to ship American jobs to other countries such as China. We cannot solve our economic future by leaving it to corporations that make useless toys, finance costly scams, or treat Americans as easily manipulated cash cows, while leaving millions of people out of work.

Republicans Organize Grassroots for the Wealthy and Flirt with the 19th Century

The tea party mad hatters are threatening to take the United States back to the 19th century—but, the way things are going, these folks may be flirting with the 17th century when emperors, kings and various aristocrats forced average people into fighting for them so that the emperors, kings and various aristocrats could have a little more power and wealth for themselves and their heirs. In the Thirty Years War alone, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people died for the sake of a few hundred powerful people. It took ordinary people two or three generations just to get back to where their grandparents had been.

Timothy Egan has a post on the growing irrationality of a large number of Republicans (but is it irrationality or simply a stubborn refusal to do some homework?):

It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.

Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions.

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, who are notorious for uttering facts more by accident than by design, are only partially responsible for the current state of affairs. Certainly people like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove manage to time their utterances to add kindling to the fire of right-wing anger. Never mind for a moment the damage news outlets not owned by billionaires like Murdoch are doing by not pointing out the outright lies. The fact is that the tea party people are being organized and some curious people are paying the bills. Here's a post from The Mahablog:

Kate Zernike writes for the New York Times that the “tea party” movement is largely being organized and funded by FreedomWorks, which isn’t really news.

FreedomWorks staffers are going around the country training the teabaggers how to be useful political tools and get out the vote for FreedomWorks candidates. It is this organizing that is behind the several upsets in recent Republican primaries, in which “tea party” candidates upset long-entrenched Republican incumbents.

(snip)

FreedomWorks itself evolved from another organization, Citizens for a Sound Economy, created in 1984 by the Koch Foundation with help from Big Tobacco. Joshua Holland of AlterNet has called FreedomWorks a “Wall Street front group,”, although I think it’s probably more accurate to call it “astroturf for hire.” FreedomWorks works with a number of PR firms to manipulate public opinion for a number of right-wing special interests.

According to SourceWatch, its funders in 2007 included –

Armstrong Foundation, $20,000
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, $80,000
Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, $100,000
Sarah Scaife Foundation, $200,000
Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation, $20,000

In other words — grassroots, my ass. What’s behind the “tea parties” are the same mega-wealthy familiy trusts that bankroll everything else that’s right wing in America.

The New Yorker has an article on a particular pair of right-wing billionaires who are behind the tea party folks, the Koch brothers:

[The Koch brothers own] virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars. ... Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill....

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.

Many Republicans, when they aren't complaining about immigrant and Muslims, continue to believe that the biggest danger to America is big government rather than big business. The Koch brothers show how unproductive that belief can be. Keep in mind that if the United States takes global warming seriously and turns to alternative energy in a major way, the oil giants will still be pumping oil and the coal giants will still be mining coal for many years to come. Switching to alternative energy is going to take time. There is still a lot of money that big coal and big oil can make, and a lot of work for those in those industries (however, very rapidly, there will also be many workers needed in alternative energy and the infrastructure projects). Rationally, the billionaires and other big investors who own coal and oil ought to know all this. Business is supposed to be rational, right? But greed and power do funny things to people. It seems people like that can never have enough. It's clear that right-wing billionaires have an itch to throw their weight around.

In the meantime, people who deal with facts are getting uneasy. I live in Northern California and I learned something new about global warming this month. All over the world, we have been seeing record heat this year. Russia, still an important breadbasket for various nations, had record heat and drought that has drastically affected its agricultural output (I know, the Republican with his head in the sand is complaining that this has nothing to do with him).

But we have also been seeing other things. We have seen record floods in Pakistan and China. And yet, despite the record heat around the world, a very few places like the western counties of Northern California have experienced a very cool summer. Cool? Yes, and there's a reason for it. And it does not contradict the climate scientists. The interior counties to the east are experiencing long periods of record high temperatures and when the conditions are just right, the heat rising in the interior areas is allowing the marine layers to flow farther inland.

There is a reason the scientists prefer the term climate change to global warming. Most of the effects in the years to come will be rising temperatures but there will be any number of weird side effects around the world. We are seeing these things far earlier than we thought we would and it's only 2010.

Climate scientists are doing a lot of modeling trying to understand what is happening. The science is powerful but it is not exact. An example of powerful science was the development of the atomic bomb. In the beginning, no one knew exactly how much the first nuclear weapons would yield. Before the first explosion at White Sands, the scientists did their calculations and came up with a range. A few calculations suggested nothing might happen. One or two calculations suggested the Earth's atmosphere might catch on fire. The great bulk of the calculations were somewhere in between. But even the calculations near the actual power of the bomb had quite a range. It turns out the actual explosion was a little bigger than most thought it would be. We know nuclear weapons are real. Only a fool would say they're not.

Climate science is a less accurate science than physics but not by as much as one might think. Still, the calculations the climate scientists have made so far have not been entirely correct. So far, they have been underestimating the effect and speed of global warming. Some scientists are trying to get ahead of the curve and taking more seriously the possibility of worst case scenarios. For an article on the growing odds of worst case scenarios, check out this post at Early Warning on the probability distribution of various temperature scenarios.

In the Guardian, Bill McKibben has some thoughts on the record summer heat:

But this is no longer an environmental battle. As this summer demonstrates, if you're concerned about development, climate change is issue No 1 (how much development is going to go on in Pakistan, now that its bridges are all gone?). If you're concerned about war and peace, climate change is issue No 1 (when Russia stops sending grain to Egypt and Nigeria, and when wheat prices start to rise, what do you think comes next?). If you're concerned about the future, then climate change is issue No 1 – because this summer is a tiny taste of what the future is all about. So far we've barely raised the earth's temperature a degree, and that's caused all that we've seen so far. But climatologists assure us there's four or five degrees more by the century's end unless we work with incredible speed to end the fossil fuel era.

The Tea Party crowd is determined to turn the Republican Party into the American Taliban. If by Taliban we are talking about fundamentalism, xenophobia, self-righteousness, a turning away from rationalism toward authoritarianism and an inward turn toward the past, there can be no doubt the United States has a problem. The question this fall is whether enough Americans will join right-wing Republicans to form a majority or whether Americans will turn away from the kind of nonsense that has never done our nation any good.