as the headline indicates, and including a batch of links on the so-called trade deals...
it appears the corporate oligarchy suffered a small setback in Friday's skirmish against their agenda, when the House voted 302 to 126 against the trade adjustment assistance (TAA) bill, a part of the trade promotion package added to provide relatively ineffective assistance to workers who would be displaced by upcoming trade deals; in general, Republicans were opposed to it because they saw it as welfare, and Democrats were opposed because it would be paid for by cuts to Medicare...since that bill was linked to trade promotion authority (aka fast track) in the Senate, and the Senate had defeated stand alone trade promotion authority four weeks ago, the defeat of TAA has effectively stopped the fast track bill from going forward...although much of the media coverage reported that fast track was defeated, it was actually submitted by Boehner and passed 219-211, with 28 Democrats joining 191 Republicans voting for it, shortly after the defeat of TAA by the much larger margin...however, it's not over yet, as Boehner has ominously scheduled a re-vote on TAA on Tuesday...recalling how TPA was defeated in the Senate, and then passed 48 hours later after a deal was cut, the sense of deja vu is overwhelming..
since analyzing, describing, or even comprehending the intricacies of the congressional sausage-making process is above my pay-grade, i'll just include a handful of links from articles about it from the past week down below to round out how that story developed and played out…
while that was going on in DC, the number of drilling rigs operating in the US and coastal waters fell again this week for the 27th consecutive week, as working oil rigs fell by 7 to 635, and gas rigs and miscellaneous rigs each fell by one, to 221 and 3 respectively...the total active rig count of 859 is now down 995 from the year ago count of 1854, with horizontal rigs down 10 this week to 663 and down from 1248 a year ago, vertical rigs up 2 this week to 101 but down from 388 a year ago, and directional rigs down 1 this week to 95 and down from 218 a year earlier...land based rigs were cut by 12 to 825, down from last year's 1780, while two rigs were added offshore, bringing the offshore total back up to 29, still down by more than half from the year ago 59, and a fifth rig was added on inland waters, while the inland water rig count is down from 15 that were in use during the 2nd week of June last year..
no state or shale basin lost more than 1 rig the past week, which is a first in the half year we've tracked this metric...Alabama, which now has none, Alaska with 9, Colorado at 38, Illinois with 2, Kansas at 13, Mississippi at 1, New Mexico at 45, Ohio at 21, Texas at 363, Utah with 6 and West Virginia at 19 all saw one rig each shut down this week, while Oklahoma added one rig to bring their total to 107, and Louisiana added 2 offshore and one on an inland lake while idling 2 land rigs, leaving the state with 107 rigs running on June 12th...Canadians, meanwhile, have added rigs for the 3rd week in a row, restarting 11 more this week, with active oil rigs up 9 to 68 and working gas rigs up 2 to 59...the 127 rigs they ran this week is down 117 from a year ago, with 81 fewer oil rigs and 36 fewer gas rigs than last June 12th...
despite the ongoing drop in the number of active drilling rigs, US oil production again roseduring the first week in June to a new modern record of 9,610,000 barrels per day, up from 9,586,000 barrels a day last week and 13.6% higher than the 8,460,000 barrel per day production in the first week of June last year...in the face of higher production, our oil imports finally fell, dropping by 750,000 barrels a day to 6,623,000 barrels a day in this report, more than reversing last week's import increase of 677,000 barrels per day....considering the weekly volatility, we note that the weekly Petroleum Status Report (62 pp pdf) reports that over the last four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 7.0 million barrels per day, 2.3% below the same four-week period last year...with US refineries operating at a near record 94.6% of their capacity, up from their 89.3% capacity utilization rate of a year ago, US inventories of crude oil dropped for the 6th consecutive week, falling by 6,812,000 barrels or 1.4% to 470,603,000 as of June 5th, the largest one week crude oil inventory drawdown in 11 months...lest anyone thinks that means our oil stocks are running low, we'll include the EIA graph of the track of our oil inventories over the last two years, and the range of the 5 years prior to that, taken from the weekly Petroleum Status Report...
in the graph above, the blue line shows the recent track of US oil inventories over the period from January 2014 to mid 2015, while the shaded area represents the range of US oil inventories as reported weekly by the EIA over the prior 5 years for any given time of year, essentially showing us the normal range of US oil inventories as they fluctuate from season to season....you can see that even though inventories have been down for 6 weeks running, the current level of 470.6 million barrels is still 21.6% higher than the same week last year, much higher than they've ever been in recent years, and in fact much higher than they've been in the 80 years of EIA record keeping, which had never seen the 400 million barrel level breached before this year...also note that our oil stocks always decline over the summer period, from May through August, so a downturn of our oil stocks at this time of year is only to be expected...
finally, we want to follow up on a story we touched on 3 weeks ago, wherein an oil well exploded in Karnes county Texas, spewing toxic hydrogen sulfide gas and forcing the evacuation of nearby residents...since it happened on the same day as the Santa Barbara beach oil spill, news coverage of it was pretty much buried, and though we did note that the blowout was accompanied by an oil mist that fell like rain over the area for two days before the well was brought under control, we assumed that with that done, cleanup would begin and those living in the area would return...however, this week we've learned that the evacuation order for the affected area remains in place for five of the families living closest to the damaged site...they are still being housed in a nearby motel while security guards refuse them access to their property, so they haven't even been allowed to return for a change of clothes...a local TV station reports that all vegetation in the area, including trees, are now brown and dying, while other Texas pastures are lush green from the recent rains...meanwhile, the well owner, Encana Corporation, is complaining that they lost 138,000 gallons of oil, worth $197,000, in the accident, not including what they're paying for motel rooms for those forced to evacuate..
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the following links relate to the so-called trade deals currently under consideration, which aren't really about trade at all, but about international regulatory harmonization for the multinational corporations, so they can do business worldwide irrespective of the laws in the signatory nations...
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Obama's Trade Agenda Rewards U.S. Companies That Profit From Slavery – HuffPo
Fast-track vote still up in the air –Politico
Fast Track Will Also Apply to TISA -- Gaius Publius
Fast Track to the Corporate Wish List – Dave Dayen
Last-second objections threaten Obama-GOP vote on trade –the Hill
Why TPP sucks – Crooked Timber
Fast-Track Would Give Obama Green Light To Form EU-Inspired ‘Pacific Union,’ Surrender Congress’ Treaty Powers -U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Nancy Pelosi Got a TPP Talking-To from Her Caucus, Plus Where We Are on Fast Track -- Gaius Publius
House Kills TPP Fast-Track, Huge Blow to Corporate-Friendly Trade Agenda – Ecowatch
Congress Rebukes Obama On Trade, And Thus The Lame Duck Era Begins – Outside the Beltway
The Democrats’ TPP rebellion just drew blood: Everything you need to know about today’s shocking vote - Dave Dayen
Liberals Deal Obama a Stunning Blow on Trade—but One More Showdown Awaits –the Nation
Decline and Fall of the Davos Democrats - Krugman
Trade in Services Agreement – Press release - Wikileaks
WikiLeaks releases secret TISA docs: The more evil sibling of TTIP and TPP -- Ars Technica
America's Biggest Secret: Wikileaks Is Raising A $100,000 Reward For Leaks Of The TPP – Zero Hedge
WikiLeaks Releases Section of Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement That Would Affect Health Care -- Firedoglake