Look out. The lame-duck Congress that reconvened November 15 now has only a few days left before the holiday recess to save the republic, solve all our energy problems, create world peace—and appropriate a federal budget that should have been finalized when the fiscal year began in October. Of course, we know what it will really do instead: wreak havoc in one final thumb-your-nose effort following its big Democratic losses.

Isn't it ironic? Democrats who wailed mightily that the Bush administration changed the wording of climate-change studies, deleting or diluting the opinions of scientists who think global warming is caused by human actions, are now under attack for engaging in the same type of biased "wordsmithing."

Now, it seems, some Republicans have accused the Obama administration of editing the documents that sought to ban offshore drilling. Seems someone in the administration alleged that scientists and oil industry experts supported the moratorium.

Despite all the new media floating around, it seems it is well to remember the power of the pen after all.

Then again, the broadcast media is no slouch. In November, "CSI," the top-rated TV crime drama, aired an episode in which two people who were about to expose "the evil oil companies" for contaminating drinking water after fracturing were murdered. Good heavens! One top-rated show like this, seen by millions of people, can offset the entire annual budget for TV public service ads now being aired by the API, IPAA, ANGA, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Chevron and Chesapeake Energy Corp.

A TV reporter interviewed me in Pittsburgh during our successful DUG-East event, which drew close to 2,500 people to discuss the Marcellus shale. Mindful of being on TV, I thought I gave him a pretty simple and positive message about the benefits of natural gas. As it turned out, of course, my clips were short and few, interspersed with footage of about 200 drilling critics, anti-drilling protest songs and sign-wavers who held a protest near the convention center.

By the way, we know for a fact that the organizers of this protest recruited some of the protesters from bars in Pittsburgh. Prior to our event, during the planning stage, we went to a local bar and spoke to one woman. Though drunk, she insisted she was going to attend the anti-drilling, anti-fracing protest in Pittsburgh, even though she had no idea what fracing is, or what the Marcellus shale is.

Now I can sympathize with BP's Tony Hayward about his media gaffes. In fact, Hayward spoke to the British press soon after my TV appearance. He admitted to reporters he did not have a degree in media relations; alas, his formal schooling was in petroleum geology, not drama, or he might have been better prepared for the media onslaught he endured.

In such an environment of suspicion, untested and erroneous beliefs, and the desire for ratings, is anyone able to discover, much less print or broadcast, the truth about energy demand, supply, effects on the climate, the air, the water? Then again, maybe we are all sitting in a court room with Jack Nicholson, who is telling us with disdain, "You can't handle the truth."

What's ahead for next year? Here is the latest context, if not truth.

Strengthening global oil demand has continued this year, especially in China, and most experts think that trend will continue through 2011. Chinese firms made $155 billion of acquisitions of energy and raw materials assets in the past three years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. "Oil volumes processed by Chinese refineries hit a record 8.75 million barrels a day in October, which is a key indicator of crude demand," Thomson Reuters recently reported.

Costanza Jacazio, an oil analyst at investment bank Barclays Capital, says Barcap is forecasting that 2010 will end up having the second-biggest increase in global oil demand in 30 years. "We do see this $80-to-$90 (crude) range as fundamentally justified."

On the domestic natural gas side, there is some disagreement.

A prominent private-equity investor tells a New York audience that the shales are "criminally destructive." Other experts predict the Marcellus alone could produce 7 Bcf a day by 2020.

The latest government data do indicate rising gas production despite that more rigs are shifting to oilier plays. The EIA-914 production data for August (released in November) shows gross gas withdrawals for the Lower 48 at 65.8 billion cubic feet a day, while Natural Gas Monthly shows dry-gas production at 59.8 Bcf a day—both record highs.

Meanwhile, famed Houston oil and gas macro analyst Henry Groppe has called for $8 natural gas sometime in 2011.

Let's relax until the New Year, hope he's right, and give thanks for all the good that occurred in 2010.