Boehner Politicizes Rising Gas Prices, Gridwise Releases Report on Grid, Obama Heads to Florida to Tout Energy Plan

Republicans are using the rising gas prices and their threat to economic momentum to hound President Obama for his energy policies and to build support for their proposals to force open more areas to oil and gas development. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, flagged the issue Tuesday on Twitter.  "Economists warn rising gas prices threaten economy; Senate Dems must act on House-passed #americanenergy bills," he said in t reference to the energy piece (HR 3408) of the House highway bill (HR 7) that the chamber passed last week. The House energy provisions would open more offshore areas and part of an Alaskan wildlife refuge to drilling, and speed up approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The GridWise® Alliance, released a report detailing the current state of the nation's power grid and quantifying the benefits of a modernized electric system. The report is designed to provide federal and state regulators with concrete examples of demonstrated benefits of grid modernization projects as they contemplate their own optimization initiatives. "Realizing the Value of an Optimized Electric Grid", is written by Quanta Technology identifies direct benefits to grid operations in five separate categories including:  Grid Reliability and Security;   Customer Energy Management Opportunity;  Asset and Resource Optimization;  Health, Safety, and Environment; and   Productivity and Economic Growth.

President Obama heads to Florida on Thursday to tout his energy plan, building off his State of the Union message to push the elimination of oil and gas subsidies, the adoption of a federal clean energy standard and an "all of the above" approach to energy development.