TODAY'S Consumer Energy Alliance energy news links:

ICOSA Magazine: ENERGY 101 – PEOPLE BEHIND ENERGY *Shawn Martini Interview
Our Energy contributor and co-host, Emily Haggstrom talks with Shawn Martini, Communications Director for Consumer Energy Alliance. Consumer Energy Alliance represents energy consumers in the debate over energy policy, and advocates for increased domestic production of all forms of energy, from renewables like solar and hydro-electric to traditional forms of energy including oil and gas.
 
CBS News: GOP: Democrats “hold out economy hostage” by blocking jobs bills
Expanding domestic energy production is the "best way" to invigorate the American economy, incoming House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said Saturday in the weekly Republican address, but the "Democrats running Washington don't seem to get it."
 
LA Times: Maine town fights plan to use pipeline to export oil sands crude
On Monday night, the South Portland City Council, including Blake, is expected to pass an ordinance that would prevent the export of crude oil from the waterfront. The product of a relentless 18-month campaign by residents and Maine environmental groups, the measure is a response to plans by Portland-Montreal Pipe Line, or PMPL, to reverse the flow of its import pipeline in order to export oil sands crude from Canada, the same petroleum that would run through the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in the Great Plains.
 
Reuters: Oil trains, born of U.S. energy boom, face test in new safety rules
North Dakota's Bakken oil patch has thrived thanks in large part to the once-niche business of hauling fuel on U.S. rail tracks. New safety rules may now test the oil train model. Within weeks, the Obama Administration is due to unveil a suite of reforms that will rewrite standards conceived long before the rise of the shale oil renaissance, at a time when crude rarely moved by rail and few Americans had ever seen the mile-long oil trains that now crisscross the nation.
 
Bloomberg BNA: States Likely to Need Extensions to Complete Power Plant Emission Plans, McCabe Says
Most states are likely to need additional time to submit their implementation plans for meeting carbon dioxide reduction targets for existing power plants, beyond the one-year time frame outlined in President Barack Obama's climate action plan, the Environmental Protection Agency's top air official said July 17.
 
The Hill: Week ahead: Climate regs back under the microscope
A cornerstone of President Obama’s assault on climate change will be back in the spotlight next week, when senators are set to grill the administration’s top environmental official on plans to impose new limits on power plant emissions. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy will appear Wednesday before the Environment and Public Works Committee

Fuel Fix: Feds OK first-in-decades oil studies off East Coast
The Obama administration on Friday gave the oil industry the green light to use air guns and sonic sensors to search for possible oil and gas under Atlantic waters, overriding environmentalists concerned that the seismic research can harm whales and other marine life.
 
Columbus Dispatch: U.S. OKs plan to open Atlantic to oil surveys
The Obama administration approved a plan on Friday that would allow companies to assess oil resources off the Atlantic Coast, angering environmental groups worried that the plan will harm marine life and open the door to offshore drilling.
 
Miami Herald: Carolinas opinion mixed on offshore drilling
The Obama administration on Friday opened the Eastern Seaboard to offshore energy exploration, causing concern in the Carolinas about the effect on sea creatures and tourism but also raising the prospect of new jobs and revenue.
 
Wall Street Journal: Shale Reshapes Petrochemicals Business
GlobaData flagged the competitive advantage that U.S. companies will receive from the lower cost provided by shale gas. And this opportunity is attracting investment from some of the industry’s bigger names.
 
The New York Times: Frack Quietly, Please: Sage Grouse Is Nesting
In a new oil field among the rolling hills near here, Chesapeake Energy limits truck traffic to avoid disturbing the breeding and nesting of a finicky bird called the greater sage grouse. To the west, on a gas field near Yellowstone National Park, Shell Oil is sowing its own special seed mix to grow plants that nourish the birds and hide their chicks from predators.
 
Associated Press: Great Plains shale tested for possible energy uses
Tests this summer on Pierre Shale that stretches across much of the Great Plains could help build the case for an underground lab and, if feasible, lead to energy production or underground storage.
 
Associated Press: Central Nevada oil lease sale staged under protest.
A U.S. Bureau of Land Management sale of oil and gas leases on public land in central Nevada has been conducted under protest.
 
POLITICO: Rep. Polis “miscalculation” on HF issue could threaten political ascent
For more than a decade, Polis’s political guesses and gambles have all been right. But his decision to force a fight over oil and gas drilling in a tough election cycle may be a big enough miscalculation to derail Polis’s planned ascension up the Washington ranks. “He’s very focused, but sometimes he can be so laser focused that sometimes he lacks peripheral vision,” Palacio told me.
 
Roll Call: Renewable shale?
The Energy Department is spending $31 million to move forward with hydraulic fracturing to produce electricity from rocks.

Denver Post: "Tea Party of the Left" wages ferocious battle over HF
He and his like-minded allies have a new, unflattering label, the Tea Party of the Left. Also known as "fracktivists," the group, like their conservative counterparts, is sworn to certain principles — even if those beliefs cost their side of the aisle the election in November.
 
The Times Tribune: Gulf Oil plans LNG facility in Great Bend
An oil company with Pennsylvania roots plans to have a liquefied natural gas facility up and running in Susquehanna County by the end of 2015. The Great Bend facility would accept natural gas from Williams’ Windsor-Montrose-Washington gathering line and compress it for storage and delivery as a liquid, according to a petition the company, Gulf Oil LP, filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in April.
 
WUNC: Public Will Be Able To Comment On NC’s HF Rules
The North Carolina commission that is drafting rules for hydraulic fracturing will host public comment hearings next month.
 
Allentown Morning Call: Pennsylvania, U.S. benefit from drilling
It's a not a "claim" that shale supports tens of thousands of good-paying jobs — it's a fact. Countless economic studies, from the state Department of Labor & Industry, to the federal Bureau of Labor and Statistics, to many other independent reports, including from IHS Global, confirm these benefits.
 
Scranton Times-Tribune: DRBC gas pains
Pennsylvania is blessed with abundant water resources, and it belongs to five separate commissions that do important work across a variety of watersheds. The state budget this year singles out only one of those commissions, the Delaware River Basin Commission, for a massive budget cut of more than 50 percent. 
 
San Antonio Express-News: Texas jobless rate holds at 5.1%
Alcantar said every sector has expanded over the last 12 months. Mining and logging, which includes jobs in oil and gas, led the way with a 7 percent annual growth rate.