In Alaska, plan to cut oil taxes hits a wall

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A recovery team has refloated a Shell oil drilling rig that ran aground last week near an Alaska island and began towing it on Monday towards a more sheltered position 30 miles away. The saucer-shaped Kulluk drillship, wrestled from the ships towing it by near-hurricane weather and tossed onto the shore, was refloated at 1010 PM on Sunday night (0710 GMT Monday), a statement from the joint command center for the Kulluk responders said. A later statement confirmed that the tow had begun.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc will not drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic seas this year, the company said on Wednesday, in a widely expected decision that follows a series of high-profile setbacks in 2012. Both critics and supporters of Shell’s controversial Arctic offshore foray welcomed its decision to give up on drilling there for 2013, while the company tries to get its drillships ready and answers to U.S. federal investigators.

AP - Oil industry leaders delivered a stinging rebuke of the production tax that became a hallmark of Gov. Sarah Palin's administration, telling a legislative committee Wednesday that it has discouraged investment and made Alaska a less attractive place to do business.

From WisPolitics today: Gov. Scott Walker says he may have to again consider laying off state employees if his collective bargaining law remains tied up in the courts for much more than the next week or two.

Federal Liberal leadership hopeful Martha Hall Findlay has hit out at Stephen Harper for what she has called his “absolute, blind, unilateral support of Israel, at all costs.” The former Toronto MP claims such a one-sided approach is “not conducive to a solution” to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Canada should be able to strongly support Israel but still have the courage to criticize where criticism is warranted, she said, citing Israel’s intention of allowing more settlements in strategic areas of the West Bank.

JIM MANZI does not think that it's a good idea to use Pigovian taxes to reduce emissions or, it seems, to cut oil consumption. I've always found his arguments interesting but wholly unpersuasive. Here's a small dose, in reaction to a Kevin Drum on the relatively small estimated elasticities of demand for oil produced in a recent IMF study:

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The state of Alaska on Monday proposed a multiyear, multimillion-dollar plan aimed at determining the true oil and gas potential in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

It will take focus and determination over the next several years to open new markets. And that is job one for my government CALGARY, Alberta — Alberta’s premier warned on Thursday that the Western Canadian province faced a $6 billion shortfall in revenue due to deeply discounted prices for its crude oil but offered no specifics on how to prevent falling deeper into the red.