Tom Wolf

When trying to find the “sweet spot” for hydraulic fracturing regulations, I’m reminded of a theme Ronald Reagan employed when talking about a subject a tad more important than fracking – “trust but verify.”

Keeping that wise thought in mind, here are some ideas Illinois is working on as we come up with legislation and regulations on fracking in our state:

1) The states know best

Every state’s geology is bit different. Certainly Illinois’ will be different than Western Pennsylvania’s which is different from Colorado’s. States should be given every opportunity to legislate and regulate accordingly. In Illinois legislation on regulating fracking was negotiated by the oil and gas producers, the petroleum council, environmental groups and the farm bureau and is making its way through the State House. The legislation was informed by experiences in other states as well as insights into our state’s geology, DNR and political landscape. Can the Federal go

There’s a great scene in the 1983 movie classic Mr. Mom where Michael Keaton’s character is dropping off the kids at school and they’re yelling at him, “Dad! You’re doing it wrong!” Keaton doesn’t listen and gets chastised by the volunteer Mom who simply deadpans “You’re doing it wrong.”

It’s no surprise that movie memory comes to my mind when it comes to the Obama Administration’s attempt to regulate the future world of energy – specifically coal generation. In my mind they are simply doing it wrong. I think this for many reasons, including:

· Arbitrarily moving the goal posts. The most recent regulations from the US EPA on allowable greenhouse gas emissions from future generation sets a limit which most natural gas generators can accommodate -- but that coal generation cannot. Is there any science in this limit? Isn’t it a bit strange that this magic limit saves the planet and just so happens to allow natural gas gene

The NRC has approved the first new nuclear power plant licenses since 1978. Wow! This reminds us that good things from that era (i.e. nuclear energy) can survive and bad things (i.e. Disco Duck, Disco Inferno, Donna Summer songs) can stay in the cultural scrapheap.

Since that last license was approved, we’ve relied on nuclear energy for about 20% of our electricity generation and year after year the industry has proven that nuclear energy can be used safely and reliably in this country. In Illinois today, we have the most nuclear energy, the most plants and the most reactors in the country.

Obviously, it’s way past time for the public and private sector to build a next-generation nuclear plant. Like most new, big generation facilities, it will take a public/private partnership to build it. The government is also involved in new coal and carbon sequestration projects in Illinois. This is a good spot for federal investment as it allows new generations of energy to be tested on a commercial scale. Only time will tell if the new nuclear plants are t

The debate surrounding the impending mercury standards from the US EPA hasn’t had any traction here in Illinois. That might sound a bit surprising given the fact that almost 50 percent of the electricity in the state comes from coal-fueled power plants. So how is this possible? Because the industry and the state EPA negotiated stringent mercury regulations several years ago that allowed enough time for each company to make business decisions and technological upgrades to meet the new standards.

So the individual plants have already or will soon meet the new standards and, according to the Illinois EPA, the state has already seen an average 75 percent decrease in mercury emissions – some individual coal plants have seen an almost 90 percent decrease.

This shows that there is a sweet spot for regulations that allow flexibility in how to reach the goals, include negotiated deadlines and are created to provide a substantial benefit to the environment.

Compare this to the US EPA’s current efforts to increase regulations of coal ash disposa

Remember way back when in 2008 when then-candidate Obama was traveling the country, making many campaign promises. By their nature, we all know that campaign promises are hard to keep because a President doesn't have 100% control of most of them.

But there was one promise that always struck me as inspiring. It was "I'm not going to tell the American people what they want to hear, I'm going to tell them what they need to know." Now that is seems like the state of Nebraska and Keystone have agreed to move the route, Obama has no reason NOT to be a leader and keep this campaign promise.

What we want to hear is that we won't need crude oil in our future. What we want to hear is that greenhouse gas emissions will drop because we no longer will need oil from Canada. What we want to hear is that our environment will be safer because the Keystone pipeline won't be built.

However, what we need to know is we'll need crude oil for the forseeable future. What we need to know that this project will a drop in the bucket when it comes to greenhouse gas e

Like too many of today’s elected officials, Rep. Stearns goes for the glib, hyperbolic sound bite that gets attention but does little to shed light on the problem or the solution.

His first mistake is lumping the wind and solar industries together. While solar and wind are similar as renewable energy sources they are a good bit different on many fronts, the biggest of which is that solar is about 10 years behind wind in terms of becoming a more mature form of renewable energy.

In the world of wind, the majority of turbines are built in either the U.S. or Europe. China does have an increasing market share in America, but it’s still dwarfed by other manufacturers. Even if the Chinese could manufacture wind infrastructure more cheaply than in the U.S., you have to factor in the reality that shipping turbines the size of a bus or blades the size of three buses is extremely expensive. The real threat to the U.S. wind industry supply chain is government policy uncertainty (more on that later).

Solar is different as solar panels manufactured in China

Even though the pipeline doesn’t come close to Illinois, our experiences here provide the three key reasons why the Keystone XL Pipeline project should be approved:

1) Clinton did it once already – what’s changed? -- In 2009 Secretary Clinton approved a pipeline from Canada into Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. It’s the same permit. It’s the same oil. It’s the same pipeline technology. The geography isn’t that different. What rationale would they have to approve that project in 2009 and not approve the Keystone XL pipeline in 2011?

2) Pipelines are still safe – Oh, and by the way we have thousands of miles of underground pipelines traversing Illinois. Over hill and over dale. Over aquifers and groundwater. Under rivers, streams and fens. The very few times a pipeline has failed the affects are dramatic, but not long lasting. Pipelines are as safe and reliable as it gets.

3) Oil from Canada is still good – They are our number one trading partner and our number one a

When something bad happens, people generally respond in one of two ways: reaction and overreaction. It’s no surprise that Washington tends toward the latter, especially when points can be scored against the other political party.

Like most issues, the Solyndra case certainly deserves reaction to make sure everyone understands how it happened and to learn if the approval was somehow rushed because of the Administration’s interest in having an event or tainted because certain contributors to the President’s campaign were involved in the company’s finances.

However, let’s not overreact and paint a broad brush of corruption or ineptitude. Nor should we predict the demise of solar or other alternative energies because this one company failed.

At this point, it looks like Solyndra went bankrupt because they picked the wrong type of solar panel technology. They placed a bet, the government supported the risk because it was new technology it thought was worth investing in and it didn’t pan out. This happens in many new industrie