Oil industry leaders will testify before Congress today. Their message: Cutting oil subsidies is discrimination! Expand oil and gas production, instead, because that’s somehow good for everybody.
And, anyway, oil companies pay more than enough taxes, if you ask the oil companies. If you ask anyone else, they pay a lower rate than the average American.
The U.S. is already expanding offshore oil production: Shell just received permission to start a new drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing could possibly go wrong with offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, right?
Renewable energy projects, on the other hand, have run out of time to apply for the recovery act's $1.6 billion in loan guarantees.
The Obama administration also approved a new type of genetically engineered, drought-resistant Monsanto corn that doesn't resist drought any better than existing corn varieties. But since all farmers will likely be cornered into using it within a few years, at least it's not any worse.
In California, the Sierra Club wants Gov. Jerry Brown to tighten up the state's cap-and-trade program.
And in New York, a peahen, the second recent escapee from the city's zoo, was found hiding in a Bronx garage. (And yes, it got on Twitter first.) Bet the guy who found this fugitive was just glad it wasn’t an Egyptian cobra.
