Good news for supporters of American Energy Freedom Day. A report from Capitol Hill says that in an effort to sneak out of town quietly, Democrat leaders won't attempt to extend congressional bans on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Check out this article from The Hill:

Two parties that started September headed for a bitter clash that could have shut down the government are now preparing for a quiet departure as each tries to shift into campaign mode.

Democrats have given in to GOP demands to lift a decades-old ban on expanding offshore drilling, paving the way for must-pass legislation to keep the government running after Oct. 1.

Click here to read on.

More photos from the American Energy Freedom Day Rally on Wednesday outside the U.S. Capitol:



Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), David Vitter (R-La.) and Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) and Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) joined representatives from Americans for Prosperity, National Taxpayers Union and American for Tax Reform outside the U.S. Capitol Wednesday afternoon to show their support American Energy Freedom Day coming up on Oct. 1, 2008.

With 14 days to go until American Energy Freedom Day, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) joined a number of his GOP colleagues outside the U.S. Capitol today to call on Democrat leadership to allow the ban on accessing America's energy resources expire.

More photos to come.

The Heritage Foundation has released a new study that breaks down the economic costs per state of proposed climate change legislation to be considered by the Senate next week. "America's Climate Security Act of 2007" (S. 2191), introduced by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.), "would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s."

According to the Heritage Foundation, Lieberman-Warner "promises extraordinary perils for the American economy, should it become law, all for very little change in global temperature…" If this bill passes, South Carolina will lose over 40,000 jobs by 2030 and will see an increase in energy prices -- which means gas prices will continue to rise to unheard-of levels...

For some time now environmentalists have been pressuring the Bush Administration to list the polar bear as a "threatened species" under the Endangered Species Act. Is this because the polar bear is truly endangered and possibly on its way to extinction? Not in the least. But hardcore environmentalists see the listing as a means to a much bigger end, as pointed out earlier this month over at The Foundry (the official blog of the Heritage Foundation):

It would be the first time a species was listed on the theory that global warming was threatening its environment. The ESA is an extremely powerful law capable of grinding to a halt any government action that could affect a listed species. If polar bears, or any other species, were listed as endangered due to global warming, environmentalists would be empowered to stop everything from power plants, to new roads, to repairing bridges. Already, using existing laws and regulations, environmentalists have instituted a nationwide campaign to stop the construction of all coal power plants. A polar bear listing would not only ensure victory for them in that fight, but it would also give them a powerful new tool to stop federal government infrastructure spending everywhere. Let’s hope the Interior Department sides with the Canadians on this one.

A recent blog post over at RedState.com reiterates the use of the polar bear as an environmentalist pawn and goes on to highlight a letter sent by nine senators, including Sen. DeMint, to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that gives several reasons why the polar bear should not be listed as a "threatened species"...

In his latest article for National Review, reporter David Freddoso reveals some shocking infomation on the billions in taxpayer dollars being used to subsidize ethanol:

What exactly do we get from ethanol? Environmentalists have given up on ethanol as a reducer of carbon emissions because of the changes it causes in land-use and the increasing reliance on coal in the refining process. Advocates of ethanol still claim that its subsidies are a vital tool for attaining energy independence.

It takes only a bit of simple math to disprove this claim. According to a 2006 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ethanol contains about 25 percent more energy than is consumed by the process of making it (a generous estimate compared to some others). This means that the farming, distilling, and shipping required to bring five gallons of corn ethanol to market consumes the energy equivalent of four gallons of ethanol.

Each gallon contains 76,000 British Thermal Units (BTUs) of energy but requires 60,800 BTUs for production. The net energy gain from ethanol is therefore approximately 15,200 BTUs per gallon, which translates to 99 trillion BTUs for the 6.5 billion gallons we produced last year. That’s the energy equivalent of 868 million gallons of gasoline — slightly more than what Americans consume in two days.

Such a minor gain in energy independence hardly seems worth the $6.3 billion to $8.7 billion in annual direct and indirect federal and state ethanol subsidies estimated by biofuels expert Doug Koplow of Earth Track...