Obama taps long-time Washington insider for top climate and energy advisor role as Keystone decision awaits

Dan Utech, a long-time Washington insider on environmental issues, will become President Barack Obama’s top advisor on energy and climate change, a White House official said on Friday, a role that will involve tough decisions on power plants and TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline.

The move had been widely expected after the Obama administration said earlier this month that Heather Zichal, who served five years in the position, would step down. Her last day is Friday.

Utech will help Obama implement his climate action plan, which involves limiting carbon emissions from power plants and the pipeline project that would link Canada’s oil sands with refineries in Texas.

Obama set a June 2014 deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency to propose limits on existing power plants, one of the top U.S. greenhouse gas sources. The rules need to be finalized a year after that.

A decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is expected next year, after the State Department and other agencies weigh in on whether the project is in the national interest. Obama said in August he could not approve the project if it significantly worsened climate change.

Utech, the deputy director for climate at the White House, was also a one-time advisor to former Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Before that he served as an aide in the U.S. Senate for a decade, working on energy and environmental issues.

“Dan Utech is a worthy successor to Heather Zichal,” said Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress. “He brings keen analytical and political skill to the challenge of making President Obama’s Climate Action Plan into reality.”

Zichal was “a trusted advisor” and “has been a strong and steady voice for policies that reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, protect public health and our environment, and combat the threat of global climate change,” Obama said in a statement.

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McEwen Mining reports Q3 profit

US miner McEwen Mining on Friday reported a third-quarter profit of $3.3-million, or $0.01 a share, compared with a net loss of $2.7-million, or $0.01 a share, for the same period in 2012.

The NYSE- and TSX-listed company said results for the three months ended September 30 were mainly boosted by the gold and silver sales from the El Gallo 1 mine, in Mexico, and an increase in recovering income taxes, which was partly offset by lower income from its investment in Minera Santa Cruz (MSC), a joint venture between Hochschild Mining (51%) and McEwen Mining (49%), which owns the San José mine, in Argentina.

Gold and silver sales in the quarter totalled $11.8-million, compared with $500 000 for the same period in 2012, owing to the El Gallo 1 mine only entering commercial production for accounting purposes on September 1, 2012.

The consolidated output in the quarter totalled 36 494 gold-equivalent ounces, which included 28 467 gold-equivalent ounces attributable to McEwen from its interest in the San José mine, and 8 027 gold-equivalent ouncesfrom El Gallo 1.

Production during the quarter benefitted from higher average grades, which saw the gold grades increase 26% year-on-year to 6.59 g/t, up from 5.24 g/t, and that of silver rising 11% to 446 g/t, up from 402 g/t.

For the period, total cash costs fell 7% year-on-year to $749 per gold-equivalent ounce, all-in sustaining costs dropped 13% year-on-year to $1 081 per gold-equivalent ounce and all-in costs for all the company’s operations declined by 27% year-on-year to $1 245 per gold-equivalent ounce.

McEwen sold 36 512 gold-equivalent ounces in the quarter, which included 27 711 oz attributable to it from San José, and 8 801 oz from El Gallo 1.

The average realised price for gold fell 19% to $1 378/oz and that of silver fell 29% to $23.19/oz.

The company ended the quarter with $32.6-million in cash and precious metals and has no debt.

Read more: Gold under $1300 after payroll data

Gold lost $25.25 after strong payroll numbers were announced with the yellow metal settling to $1,286 per ounce as of noon ET.

Spot silver was also down to $21.35 ounce, a four-week low.

The expectation for the October jobs report was for 120,000 but the total non-farm payroll was 204,000. The unemployment rate was little changed at 7.3 percent.

August and September payroll data was also revised upward.

"The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised from +193,000 to +238,000, and the change for September was revised from +148,000 to +163,000. With these revisions, employment gains in August and September combined were 60,000 higher than previously reported," wrote the The Bureau of Labor Statistics in its press release.

Employment bright spots were leisure and hospitality, retail trade, professional and technical services, manufacturing and health care.

And the sunnier data may require the Federal Reserve to taper sooner.

The Fed will absolutely not taper before Yellen takes over in Mar 2014 and this at the earliest. No significant organization probably in history ever made changes when someone is going out the door while someone new is coming in the door. This is too funny all this debate by the NY crowd that have been wrong for years about the FED. It's almost as laughable as how poor all FED forecasts have been for years and yet people trade or invest on this basis, truly stupid.
The Fed's reputation is already damaged from poor foresight for years on the economy and a few false starts about QE over the last few years leading to this present open ended QE version 3. Why do you think it's open ended because so many mistakes have occurred to date, maybe. I would suggest the FED is going to be ultra conservative on cutting back QE given what's at stake and will want at least 4-6 months of above average data considering how many times the economy looked ready to be on it's own over the last 5 years yet always falls short.
For me I would want 8-0 months of well above average economic numbers before pulling the trigger given what's a stake after 5 years of trillions of money printing, huge debt burden increases and zero rates. BTW, this has all occurred while most metrics for measuring the economy have been adjusted, bastardized and made mostly useless for comparative purposes with historical norms, this refers to inflation calculations, GDP calcs, jobs calcs and debt measurement. This is what journalists should be pursuing, why do we have to change everything to make it look better, figure it out, do some real journalism.

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