Mitt Romney released an energy plan yesterday that some outlets report sets a goal of energy independence by 2020. That’s not quite right. The goal expressed here is “North American energy independence” by 2020, and when you consider that one of our biggest if not our biggest energy trading partner is Canada, and that Mexico [...]

TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline permit hangs in the balance, up for a potential Senate vote this week, having already passed the House as part of the Transportation Bill last week. Other companies, meanwhile, are wasting no time pushing their own respective tar sands pipeline proposals while that drama unfolds. Last week, DeSmogBlog noted that for [...]

The delay of the Keystone XL pipeline has led Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to threaten that he will pick up his dirty oil and go to Asia instead: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he will step up efforts to supply energy to Asia after Washington delayed a decision on whether to approve a [...]

The other day, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried to offload the decision on whether to go forward with the Keystone XL pipeline on the State Department. But President Obama himself was asked about the pipeline in a local news interview last night, and he took full responsibility for making the decision. In doing [...]

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is a scientist and a scholar. He surely knows the effects of production of tar sands oil on climate change. He knows that it takes a massive amount of energy to do the strip mining necessary to extract tar sands oil. He knows about the potential for environmental damage from a [...]

As I noted earlier, the threat of a double-dip recession or Japanification is entirely man-made, a failure of policy to make the kind of adjustments necessary to improve economic growth. The right answer, to increase near-term fiscal stimulus or at the very least not cut spending, has been marginalized in the debate in favor of [...]