/articles

Obama Said to Block Selling New Drilling Rights in U.S. Arctic - Bloomberg Politics
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-16/obama-said-to-block-selling-new-drilling-rights-in-u-s-arctic-ivl28guc

The Obama administration is set to block the sale of new oil and gas drilling rights in U.S. Arctic waters under a five-year blueprint, handing a victory to environmentalists who said the activity threatened whales, walruses and other wildlife in the region.

The details were confirmed by people familiar with the plan who were not authorized to speak publicly before it is issued, something that is expected within days. It is subject to a 60-day congressional review and could be rewritten by President-elect Donald Trump, in a process that could take months or years.

Because the Interior Department had already removed Atlantic waters from consideration, the decision to leave out the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska largely limits new drilling lease auctions between 2017 and 2022 to the Gulf of Mexico. The fate of a proposed sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet could not be learned.

The move is a blow to oil companies that have pressed the Obama administration to open up more areas for offshore drilling, arguing new territory is needed to build on decades of energy development in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil companies had largely abandoned existing tracts in the Chukchi Sea, after Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s 2015 drilling campaign there did not yield a commercial discovery.

Environmental activists have pressed President Barack Obama to go further and use a provision in a 1953 law to permanently restrict oil development in U.S. Atlantic and Arctic waters.

#Mer_des_Tchouktches #Mer_de_Beaufort #Alaska
#Arctique #forages_pétroliers

Hillary Clinton (repassée derrière Trump dans les sondages) : « C’est la faute aux Russes »

À défaut d’être captivante, la campagne présidentielle US a au moins l’intérêt de nous faire rire. Et #Hillary_Clinton va finir par avoir la palme du comique à l’insu de son plein gré.
La pauvre favorite de Wall Street court décidément de déboire en déboire. La voilà à nouveau doublée dans les sondages par #Trump — mais il faut dire que les enquêtes sur le pouce qui lui prédisaient une confortable avance à l’issue d’un Comité national démocrate pourtant calamiteux sentaient bon la manip de bas étage.
Pire encore, le FBI et la justice américaine ont beau tout faire pour enterrer l’affaire des mails inopportuns, les “leaks” n’en finissent plus de révéler la duplicité grossière d’Hillary Clinton et l’incompétence crasse de son équipe en matière de sécurité informatique, sinon en politique tout court. Et #Julian_Assange promet une nouvelle volée de révélations assassines sur les indélicatesses de la dame juste avant sa dernière confrontation télévisée prévue avec son concurrent républicain.

Savez-vous ce que la #diva_va-t-en-guerre a trouvé comme excuse ? Si elle perd la #présidentielle_US, ce sera à cause de Poutine ! C’est la très sérieuse agence▻http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-09-05/clinton-says-potential-russian-election-meddling-serious-issue qui vient de rapporter très sérieusement cette inénarrable blague.

Non content d’avoir annexé la Crimée, occupé l’Ukraine orientale, foutu la pâtée aux “opposants modérés” d’Al-Nosra et sauvé la mise à l’infâme tyran syrien soutenu par Washington, le diabolique président russe se serait donc mis en tête d’envahir l’Amérique soi-même en hackant le système politique américain, en sapant la confiance des électeurs US, en désinformant sournoisement les naïfs médias d’outre-Atlantique.

« Nous devons être doublement vigilants pour protéger notre système électoral à tous les niveaux et nous devons dire clairement que nous n’avons pas l’intention de laisser quiconque interférer dans les décisions du peuple américain » (Hillary Clinton, 5 septembre 2016).

Même notre Hollande national va avoir du mal, en 2017, à nous pondre des éléments de langage aussi cons.

▻http://yetiblog.org/index.php?post/1970

Education Level Emerges as Sharp Dividing Line in Clinton-Trump Race - Bloomberg Politics
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-12/education-level-sharply-divides-clinton-trump-race

There are many demographic fault lines emerging in this year’s presidential campaign, but few are deeper than the division among likely voters based on educational attainment.

Those with the least number of years of education are far more likely to support Donald Trump, while those who have had the most schooling are much more likely to back Hillary Clinton, according to a Bloomberg Politics national poll released this week.
[…]
Another trend may also be developing in the campaign that could pose a threat to Clinton: apathy among potential voters under age 35.

Both of these subplots were revealed in the new poll, with educational level offering the starkest contrast.

Clinton wins the college-educated segment by 25 percentage points, 59 percent to 34 percent. Trump’s edge among those without a college education is 10 points, 52 percent to 42 percent.
Trump’s lead is 4-to-1 among white men with less than a college degree, 76 percent to 19 percent. Clinton’s advantage with college-educated women is 64 percent to 31 percent.
[…]
The Bloomberg Politics poll also showed a sharp decline among those 18-34 years old who say they definitely plan to vote in November. When compared to a Bloomberg Politics survey taken in June, the number fell to 46 percent from 60 percent.

Virginia, Ground Zero in Drilling Debate, to Learn Its Fate Soon - Bloomberg Politics
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-14/virginia-ground-zero-in-drilling-debate-to-learn-its-fate-soon

http://assets.bwbx.io/images/iQ0gHKp3D1bQ/v2/-1x-1.jpg

From the shores of Savannah, Georgia, to the Beaufort, North Carolina beachfront, coastal communities in conservative southern states have locked arms in opposition to oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic waters lapping their shores.

A different story is playing out in Virginia, where Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe and both Democratic U.S. senators support nearby drilling which they say could deliver jobs, new business, and money to the state.

“Virginia is the battleground state,” said Athan Manuel, director of the lands protection program at the Sierra Club.

The Obama administration opened the door to a new generation of offshore drilling along the East Coast in 2015, when it released a draft plan for selling oil and gas leases in 104 million acres of the mid- and south-Atlantic. Now, as the administration prepares to release the next version of its 2017-2022 leasing proposal, the penultimate step before finalizing it later this year, a big question is whether Virginia’s coastline will remain up for grabs.

The answer could come as soon as this week.

The stakes are huge for Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and other companies whose U.S. offshore activity is largely confined to the Gulf of Mexico. The Interior Department has estimated that 3.3 billion barrels of oil and 31.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be recovered from the Atlantic outer continental shelf, based on data from the 1970s and 1980s, when energy companies drilled 51 wells off the U.S. East Coast.
[…]
For Obama, the issue is tied to his environmental legacy, following a historic climate accord struck in Paris in December, a rule slashing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and a halt in leasing coal on public land. “There is no way that opening these areas is going to be seen as anything other than a contradiction” of the president’s climate goals, said Franz Matzner, a senior adviser with the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund.

“If you open these offshore areas up for oil drilling, it’s telegraphing that you really don’t believe in our ability to achieve our climate goals,” Matzner said in an interview. “You’re saying in 20 or 30 years we will still be so stuck on fossil fuels that we can’t afford to take this oil off the table. If we can’t say no here, then we are in deep trouble.”