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WASHINGTON – The increased use of ethanol could cost the government up to $900 million for food stamps and child nutrition programs, a congressional report says. Higher use of the corn-based fuel additive accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices between April 2007 and April 2008 .. The CBO said other factors, such as skyrocketing energy costs, had an even greater impact than ethanol on food prices during that period. .. Ethanol's impact on future food prices is uncertain, the report says, because an increased supply of corn has the potential to eventually...

Rohm Emanuel’s famous quote regarding the current financial crisis, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste...it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before." was ignored last summer when oil prices reached $147 a barrel. The Obama administration has taken advantage of the financial crisis to ram through their socialist agenda which will add trillions to the National Debt. It will stimulate unions, bureaucrats, government employees, and defense contractors. It will do nothing to address the looming energy crisis which will sweep over the country shortly. Again, politicians and pundits will be shocked and astonished when oil soars....

($) 1…2…3? With the U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline now above the $2 per gallon mark, many Americans may be wondering if even higher gasoline prices await this summer. Does the surge over $2 per gallon signal a re-run to the $3 level or higher this summer, adding to the budgetary strain already experienced by average consumers? Although future market conditions are highly uncertain, EIA does not see gasoline prices climbing to such levels this year. It does seem likely, however, that gasoline prices will average more than $2 per gallon this summer. On average, prices of crude...

Crude prices fell sharply to end the week and natural gas tumbled to seven-year lows as a worsening economy led to more painful cuts in the industrial sector. Benchmark crude for May delivery dropped $1.96 to settle at $52.38 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. > Natural gas prices fell more than 16 percent in three days to end the week, settling Friday at $3.631 per 1,000 cubic feet. The last time natural gas was that cheap was Sept. 26, 2002, when it settled at $3.58 per 1,000 cubic feet, analyst and trader Stephen Schork said. >

The ban on offshore oil drilling that expired last September will be restored by “any means necessary,” Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), who serves on both the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, told CNSNews.com on Friday. Inslee, who participated in a conference entitled "Planning for a Secure Energy Future” sponsored by the Washington Post, also recommended a ban on future drilling in the arctic, where he says there is a “gold rush” for oil uncovered by melting ice caps. But Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who serves on the House Select Committee on Energy...

NEW YORK (AP) -- A weakened dollar and evidence that OPEC has significantly slowed production sent oil prices soaring to new highs for the year Thursday. "I think we'll see higher oil prices for a while," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research. "There's an expectation that the market has bottomed out." Benchmark crude for April delivery surged $3.47, or 7 percent, to settle at $51.61 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices hit $52.25 earlier in the day, a price last seen on Dec. 1. Crude prices have increased 11.6 percent since OPEC...

The gas tax proposal advanced by Gov. Jennifer Granholm last week would be the right fuel for Michigan's crumbling roads. The Legislature's job will be to refine her plan -- and make it part of a larger overhaul of transportation spending so that current road funding, which is badly battered, gets the repair it desperately needs. Ms. Granholm's proposal would shift gas taxes from a per-gallon levy to a percentage tax tied to the wholesale price of gasoline. It would work much like the 6 percent state sales tax now collected on gasoline and other items.

A Bloomberg story. Can't link to it directly. Here's the rest of the link: apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=ajS3Z4SOVmVM&refer=energy

President Obama's plan to force energy producers to pay for spewing greenhouse gases could cost American consumers an additional $1,437 in utility costs and higher prices at the pump by 2015, according to a new study. Obama's plan "is the equivalent of a permanent tax increase for the average American households," according to the analysis released yesterday by the George C. Marshall Institute. The study estimates that electricity costs would jump up from 5 to 15 percent by 2015, natural gas prices by 12 to 50 percent and the price at the pump by 16 cents to $2.58 per gallon....

The Obama administration Thursday proposed raising at least $31.5 billion over 10 years from oil and gas companies, reflecting a repeal of tax breaks for domestic production and new charges on oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. The plans, outlined as part of a fiscal 2010 budget proposal, revive long-standing Democratic efforts to turn to the oil and gas industry as a source of funding for other priorities. Among other things, the Obama budget plan calls for about $13 billion over 10 years in new charges on oil and gas companies from the repeal of a tax...

A price floor would help wean America off oil. ___ Berkeley, Calif. - Remember last summer, when gas prices broke new records every day and the era of "energy independence" was on the horizon? Gas is half what it was then, but not for long. When OPEC's planned production cuts hit, tightening the global supply of oil just when economies are poised to resume growth, the world may well face the worst oil crunch in history. The way to avert the brunt of that? It might not be pretty at first, but a price floor – a government-mandated minimum –...

After months of private rumination and public mixed signals, Governor Deval Patrick will propose a 19 cent increase in the state's gasoline tax today, in an attempt to solve the increasingly complex maze of problems confronting the state's aging and debt-ridden transportation system. MA drivers face 19-cent gas tax hike under plan Patrick's plan would give Massachusetts one of the highest gas taxes in the nation, but it may avert an unpopular increase that would have raised the cash toll at the airport tunnels to $7, according to two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The increase would...

NEW YORK – Crude oil prices have fallen to new lows for this year. So you'd think gas prices would sink right along with them. Not so. On Thursday, for example, crude oil closed just under $34 a barrel, its lowest point for 2009. But the national average price of a gallon of gas rose to $1.95 on the same day, its peak for the year. On Friday gas went a penny higher. To drivers once again grimacing as they tank up, it sounds like a conspiracy. But it has more to do with an energy market turned upside-down that...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Oil prices slid closer to a new multiyear low Thursday because of growing doubts that the $789 billion stimulus package will reinvigorate the economy and demand for energy. Retail gas prices, meanwhile, reached a new high for 2009 on Thursday and appeared headed back to $2 a gallon as refiners cut back on production. Light, sweet crude for March delivery fell $1.04 to $34.90 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.61 overnight to settle at $35.94 after a government report on Wednesday showed that crude inventories jumped much more than expected. There...

Employees at refineries across the nation will report for work at the beginning of the week, after progress was made in contract negotiations between union leaders and Royal Dutch Shell, the lead negotiator out of more than 30 oil companies. Details of the negotiations were kept under wraps, but the deal staved off a strike at almost 90 plants nationwide, representing almost 64 percent of U.S. refining capacity

HOUSTON -- Some 24,000 refinery workers from the Gulf of Mexico to Montana are preparing to head to the picket lines. A labor agreement expires at midnight Saturday. On Thursday, union negotiators turned down the third and latest offer of a 2.5 percent wage increase for each of the next three years, in addition to changes in medical coverage. A strike would affect 60 producers, according to the United Steelworkers, which represents more than 30,000 oil workers nationwide. The nation's biggest refiner, Valero, said it will shut down some facilities if workers strike, as will European oil company BP. Shell...

WASHINGTON - Every gallon of gas should cost $1 more, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said, so Americans buy less and the country imports less foreign-made oil. In a Washington Post column dated Sunday, Feb. 1, Lugar endorsed the proposal of a conservative columnist, who advocated the $1-a-gallon tax last month. Charles Krauthammer said the $1 tax should be returned to people through lower payroll taxes or higher Social Security payments so their out-of-pocket expenses are the same.

Oil demand has plummeted along with home prices and stock market indexes, but discerning where energy demand could go in 2009 isn’t easy. That’s why, as oil markets attempt to calibrate in the face of this recession, some traders, refiners, big oil companies and other interests have been buying cheap oil in recent weeks and squirreling it away in storage tanks and ships with plans to unload it months from now when prices are higher. It’s difficult to quantify exactly how much oil is being stored in ships, but Frontline LTD, which runs one of the largest crude supertanker fleets,...

HOUSTON (AP) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago. The previous record for annual profit was $40.6 billion, which the world's largest publicly traded oil company set in 2007. The extraordinary full-year profit wasn't a surprise given crude's triple-digit price for much of 2008, peaking near an unheard of $150 a barrel in July. Since then, however, prices have fallen roughly 70 percent amid a deepening global economic crisis. In the fourth quarter...

The sudden crash in oil prices might be the smoking gun that shows speculation, rather than supply and demand, drove the huge run-up in oil futures last year. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology’s Center for Energy Policy told participants at a forum in Albuquerque Jan. 16 that massive, speculative trading by investment banks like Lehman Brothers, hedge funds and others is what drove oil above $140 per barrel.

WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama may order a hold on a proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas, an Interior Department official told Reuters on Wednesday. Shortly after being sworn in on Tuesday, Obama ordered all federal agencies and departments to halt pending regulations until they can be reviewed by incoming staff. An Interior official said the department is waiting for clarification from the White House on whether a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic and Pacific waters for...

HOUSTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Wholesale gasoline spiked up 16 cents on refiner and broker buying in the Los Angeles market on Friday morning as three local refineries were performing planned overhauls and unplanned repairs. The jump wiped out a 17.25-cent slide throughout the week that was driven by expected increases in supply from the impending arrival of imported fuels from overseas refineries. Traders said on Friday they hadn't heard of a new refinery problem on the West Coast.

The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular unleaded gasoline in Los Angeles County crashed through the $2 mark today for the first time since Nov. 29, rising 1.7 cents to $2.006.

Kuwait's foreign minister says that Arab countries have lost $2,500 billion in the last four months because of the global financial crisis.

Permian Basin oilmen have watched wobbling global economies destroy demand, just as record high oil and natural gas prices prompted consumers to cut back their energy use. The record high of $147 a barrel reached in July was not merited by supply, demand, peak oil or geopolitical concerns, said Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy, and prices are now oversold on the down side. He said he expects prices this year to average $70 a barrel.

Panel wants fuel taxes hiked to fund highwaysBy JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Updated 04:20 p.m., January 1, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP) — A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by a federal commission to finance highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads. **SNIP** With motorists driving less and buying less fuel, the current 18.4 cents a gallon gas tax and 24.4 cents a gallon diesel tax fail to raise enough to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs. **SNIP** A...

Big is back: As pump prices plunge, SUV sales surgeBuyers with short memories when it comes to gas prices find hot deals on big vehicles. By Adrianne Jeffries | Special to the Daily Press December 30, 2008 NEWPORT NEWS - It looks like the Highlander is in and the Prius is out — for now at least. Trucks and sport utility vehicles will outsell cars for the first time since February, according to a December report by Edmunds.com, which tracks industry statistics. "Despite all the public discussion of fuel efficiency, SUVs and trucks are the industry's biggest sellers right now...

A proposed gasoline tax hike to fix the state's crumbling roads and bridges is pitting road builders against gasoline station owners, who say it would give Michigan the highest tax in the nation. With the proposed hike being considered by the lame duck state Legislature, Michigan would jump ahead of California, the nation's current No. 1... "It's the last thing this ailing economy needs right now," ... "Cheap fuel prices are fueling the (economic) activity we have now. Taxing gasoline to fix roads is an old way of doing it." A recent poll of truckers ranked Michigan interstates as the...

<p>Americans have a deep and understandable aversion to gasoline taxes. In a culture more single-mindedly devoted to individual freedom than any other, tampering with access to the open road is met with visceral opposition. That's why earnest efforts to alter American driving habits take the form of regulation of the auto companies--the better to hide the hand of government and protect politicians from the inevitable popular backlash.</p>

<p>Retail gasoline prices nationwide tumbled Friday to the lowest level in nearly five years.</p> <p>And while crude futures rose, analysts believed it was a temporary pause in an extended, downward arc as the recession spreads.</p> <p>“We’re paying about a billion dollars per day less than we were in July” for gasoline, said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. “We could probably bail out some banks and maybe even some of the auto companies with the savings.”</p>

I'm starting to think the New York Times is rolling out a year-ending Worst Ideas of 2008 list—with a twist. Instead of knocking the nutty notions, the Gray Lady's embracing them. Yesterday, as I noted in Union Got To Be Kidding Me, the Times came out against border fences and for worker rights for illegal immigrants—including the right to form unions. Today, in The Gas Tax, the paper editorializes in favor of taxing gasoline so that it would never cost less than $4-5/gallon. Yup: the Times wants to snuff out the only silver lining on the economic downturn.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After nearly a year of flagging sales, low gas prices and fat incentives are reigniting America's taste for big vehicles. Trucks and SUVs will outsell cars in December, according to researchers at the automotive Website Edmunds.com, something that hasn't happened since February.

News by its very nature is unpredictable. Too bad many journalists don’t seem to understand that fact. Ever since gasoline prices began a wild ride in 2004, the media have been obsessed with predicting future energy prices. Gasoline, we were told, would hit $5 a gallon. Or $6, or $7. Or maybe even $12 or $15. The predictions were consistently wrong. ABC, NBC and CBS, who can seldom get current events correct, are even worse guessing future news. In fact, for most of 2008, network news stories that predicted oil or gas prices were wrong nearly two-thirds of the time...

Retail gasoline prices rose over the weekend for the first time in nearly three months and crude prices jumped Monday ahead of an OPEC meeting in Algeria, where oil producing countries are expected to announced huge production cuts.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gas prices rose for the second consecutive day following eighty-six consecutive declines. The motorist group AAA reported Sunday that the national average price for a gallon of gas rose to $1.663 a gallon from $1.66 the previous day. The reports are based on a daily survey of credit card swipes conducted for AAA. The average price of gas was $1.656, according to AAA's Friday report.

Gas prices in NW Indiana jumped 35 cents a gallon overnight. No reports of sudden tax increases or supply concerns. Indiana Governor did mention a cutback in state services to save money.

Stuck for Christmas gift ideas? Why not try a barrel of oil? You can get one for around US$40 these days. That's 54% lower than this time last year and 72% below the price on July 14th ($145.16). True, a big barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil might be hard to fit under a Christmas tree. And it's probably a fire hazard. But it also makes an excellent end table or lectern. However, we would wait for the post-Christmas sale, or maybe even until 2009, for a lower price. Speaking of Christmas, just a reminder that our third annual...

OPEC president Chakib Khelil says oil markets should prepare for a "surprise" output cut after the organization's Algeria meeting. "A consensus has formed for a significant reduction of production levels" by the 14-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Khelil told AP on Saturday. The OPEC head's warning comes as markets have already been expecting an output reduction; however, Khelil said that it could be "severe," suggesting cuts of as much as 2 million barrels per day. A decision that startles markets would help bolster slumping oil prices, Khelil said. "The best way is to surprise them," he said. "I hope...

Brokaw said as gas prices have gone down, consumers have gone back to purchasing big cars and SUV's. Why can't we put an alternative energy fuel tax on gas to bring it back to $4.00 per gallon. Then people won't be able to drive these big vehicles and fill up up on $20 per tank . This is the mindset we are dealing with in the MSM. In-cred-ible. I think BO was surprised at the outlansdishness of Brokaws idea but he covered it. He reminded Brokaw that consumers are already burdened and we can't put any more demands on them.

A video of fish swimming around underneath an oil rig. You can clearly see the piping and frameworks that comprises the underpinnings. You can see the rig in the background when they stand in their boats to show off the fish they caught. This video is useful for when the oil drilling debate comes back.

A Florida tourism group has dropped its long-standing opposition to offshore oil and gas drilling, saying that a cheap national fuel supply would trigger a boom for the Sunshine State's No. 1 industry. When gasoline prices skyrocketed to more than $4 per gallon this summer tourist spots such as Florida suffered, as would-be vacationers stayed home. So in response, the Florida Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus (FACVB) has adopted a new policy that encourages a "comprehensive, long-term energy policy" that includes increased oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico along Florida's coast.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Oil prices dipped again Tuesday and gas prices hit their lowest levels since January 2005 with the United States officially in a recession. Analysts say prices at the pump may be bottoming out, though demand could fall even further in January with job losses reducing the number of people who drive to work. Gas prices fell for the 20th week since the July 4th holiday and hit $1.811 per gallon, according to the government's Energy Information Agency. Auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express said prices fell 0.8 cents overnight to $1.812, down...

Apologize and do it now, Barack Obama, John McCain and all you members of Congress who ranted about Big Oil's price-gouging and the way future-markets speculators were abusing the wallets of consumers at the gas pump. Those prices have come down to the lowest level in almost four years, something like $2 a gallon on the average, and you know why — slackening demand caused chiefly by a worldwide economic downturn. [snip] As for speculators, it might help if you political critics read the experts enough to have at least some vague notion of what they do and how they...

Could the era of cheap fuel be back? Oil costs one-third what it did this summer. Gasoline prices now average less than $2 per gallon, their lowest level in more than three years. Although California is a bit more expensive - about $2.20 per gallon - prices here are falling every day. So is this a return to the golden age of inexpensive, plentiful fuel? Probably not, many experts warn. For one thing, oil still costs roughly twice its historic average. At $49 per barrel, it only looks cheap in comparison to this past summer, when it reached $145.29 on...

Americans Drive Less, Creating a Problem Less Consumption Means Lower Gas Prices, Will We Go From 'Shock to Trance' Again? When gasoline prices shot over $4 a gallon this summer, Americans didn't wait for Washington to respond with an energy policy. They took action on their own by driving less and switching to more fuel-efficient cars. The results are dramatic, but also problematic. The good news is that gasoline consumption has fallen compared with a year earlier in every month from March through September of this year, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Vehicle miles traveled -- the...

Text size: increase text sizedecrease text size Conquering The Cold Oil Prices Falling, But Interest In Alternative Fuels High By THERESA SULLIVAN BARGER | Special To The Courant November 23, 2008 Glen Rokicki Glen Rokicki peeks into the belly of a Vermont Casting wood-burning stove in the showroom of Fireside Supply in Hebron to check out the clean-burning aspects of BioBricks. (JOHN WOIKE / HARTFORD COURANT / November 20, 2008) Even before heating oil spiked toward $5 a gallon last summer, businesses that sell wood and pellet stoves were busy. By early fall, some pellet and wood retailers were so...

TUMBLING: Prices are expected to drop further in the next few weeks as demand sags in emerging economies that have been propping up the market, analysts said AFP AND AP, LONDON AND HOUSTON Sunday, Nov 23, 2008, Page 10 Oil prices collapsed this week to under US$50, their lowest levels in almost four years, as the market focused on the threat of a global recession and tumbling energy demand. Base metals aluminum and copper also hit their worst levels for more than three years as traders fretted about weaker demand from struggling automakers in the US. “The deterioration in the...

Call it a hangover from $150 oil. After six years of growth, Texas' mighty oil and gas industry is bracing for what could be a sharp downturn in activity as falling commodity prices and the broader economic meltdown prod energy companies to cut back. A stark reminder came Thursday, when crude fell below $50 a barrel for the first time since May 2005. Its closing price of $49.62 was down almost $100 from the record close of $145.29 on July 3. And weak global energy demands threaten to keep prices low. The first signs of a pullback are just now...

Oil prices on Thursday hit levels not seen in more than three years, and retail gasoline prices are now below $2 across nearly half of the country on dour economic reports suggesting a painful economic pullback. Benchmark crude fell as low as $48.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, levels last seen on May 18, 2005, when oil hit $46.80 a barrel. Meanwhile, prices at the pump fell again overnight nationally close to $2 a gallon, with the average price in 23 states even less than that.

Gasoline prices may be low again and the public more focused on fixing the U.S. economy, but addressing the nation's energy challenges must remain a top priority, the oil and gas industry's top lobbyist said today in Houston. Indeed, President-elect Barack Obama should begin tackling energy issues during his first 100 days in office, Jack N. Gerard, the new chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, told reporters during a media briefing today in Houston. Yet it is more likely the nation's economic woes will take precedence early on in the Obama administration, he said. "We're going to do our...