First oil
As of March, Barack Obama has 10 months left in his presidential term, and the last day can’t come quickly enough. Throughout his first seven years in office, Mr. Obama has done everything possible to make life difficult for operators, from closing off federal lands to development, to imposing multitudinous emissions regulations, to reclassifying “protected waters” under the Clean Water Act—all with an eye toward reducing E&P activity.
This is the same Mr. Obama, who during the 2014 mid-term elections, tried hypocritically to take credit for the great increase in U.S. oil output, achieved by the industry. Now, rather than re-pay the favor and help the industry by easing some regulations, Mr. Obama’s annual budget continues to call for a $10.25/bbl oil tax, which will go nowhere in the Republican Congress. Of course, he could actually do the common-sense thing and impose the tax just on imported oil, but Mr. Obama has never been confused with being practical.
DiCaprio’s credibility gap. Meanwhile, on Feb. 28 at the Academy Awards ceremony, actor Leonardo DiCaprio used his Best Actor acceptance speech to lecture the world about climate change. It is unfortunate that his Oscar win afforded DiCaprio the platform for a dis-informational rant that merely enflamed the passions of a certain segment of millennials.
This was the latest of many anti-oil-and-gas stunts by DiCaprio over recent years. In January, DiCaprio told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that “We simply cannot allow the corporate greed of the coal, oil and gas industries to determine the future of humanity.”
Also, just four days before the Oscars, DiCaprio and fellow actor Mark Ruffalo took other actors and reporters on a “toxic tour” of Los Angeles-area drilling sites, to, as Vanity Fair initially reported, discuss the evils of “urban fracking.” However, there’s one problem—there is no fracing being conducted by operators at any site in L.A. And, back in 2014, DiCaprio partnered with the wife of Sen. Mark Udall (D – Colo.) to produce a series of anti-fracing videos.
DiCaprio’s repeated bleating would be easier to take, if it were not for his hypocritical carbon footprint. As many media outlets have reported, DiCaprio has been a big fossil fuels user, including his hiring of the 482-ft Topaz, the world’s fifth-largest yacht, during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Another example goes back to New Year’s Eve 2012, when DiCaprio and some friends rang in the New Year in Sydney, Australia, then flew on a small aircraft to the curfew-free Canberra airport, where they boarded a chartered 747 for a trans-Pacific flight to Las Vegas, where they continued partying and rang in the New Year for a second time.
This is also the same actor, who took six private, round-trip jet flights during six weeks between April and May 2014. Meanwhile, DiCaprio has worked with a London-based firm, FutureForests, to estimate that his personal, annual carbon dioxide emissions are a mere 11 tons. To get to this number, they have factored in the planting of several thousand trees in “The Leonardo DiCaprio Forest” in Mexico. Yet, 11 tons seems unlikely, given that the World Bank estimates that average per capita emissions in the U.S. are 19 tons per year.
McClendon’s passing. It was a shock, to learn of the passing of former Chesapeake Energy Chairman Aubrey McClendon on March 2, when his SUV slammed into a concrete bridge pillar, just one day after being indicted on federal bid-rigging charges accusing him of conspiring to suppress prices for oil and gas leases. Ironically, McClendon was due in court later that day.
Love him or hate him, McClendon was a seminal figure in the U.S. E&P industry, and is credited with jump-starting the great shale development boom of the 2001-2014 period. And, when Chesapeake’s board forced him out in 2012, he formed a new firm, American Energy Partners, LP, and kept on going. The 56-year-old McClendon also was part-owner of the National Basketball Association’s Oklahoma City Thunder franchise. There will not be another figure quite like him in this lifetime. 
