The energy world portrayed in the debates—in which coal is “clean” and oil and gas companies will lead the U.S. to a new era of energy abundance if only they are unleashed or regulated properly—is a stage set carefully crafted by fossil fuel industry PR professionals and political consultants.

With gasoline scaling $4 a gallon recently, plans announced last week by international oil giant BP to export U.S.-produced crude oil ought to have Americans howling. For such a plan to be good energy policy--rather than merely profitable for the oil industry--the United States would have to be producing more than enough oil to meet its own needs. But the country produces nowhere near that amount.

-World Energy Outlook Special Report 2012 - Iraq Energy Outlook [press release] -IEA sees Iraqi oil output doubling to 6.1 mil b/d in 2020 -Awaiting the Iraqi oil rush -Will Iraq’s energy boom postpone peak oil yet again?

Abandoned by the state of Pennsylvania and drilling company Rex Energy after the state’s testing found no evidence of groundwater contamination, distressed residents (whose well water is discolored and reeks, and whose families have suffered rashes and other ailments) had nowhere else to turn for clean water but their community. That’s when a group of area churches, including the Presbyterian church where my dad is a pastor, joined together to supply jugs and bottles of clean drinking water to affected families.