Topic: 
Pownce it!
“People aren’t eating out at restaurants anymore, aren’t going to movies. “I don’t get my nails done, I don’t even buy my dog treats anymore,” Glendale resident Shena Nickell said as she pumped regular-grade gasoline into her Ford Explorer for $3.86 per gallon at a Chevron station in Montrose, CA. “And it still hurts.” Most people, according to latest polls are hurting NOW from high gasoline prices.
Statewide, the average price for regular-grade gasoline has climbed 7.7 cents per gallon since last week to $3.68, or 35 cents higher than the national average for the same fuel, according to the California Energy Commission.
A year ago, motorists in the Los Angeles area were grappling with regular-grade, per-gallon gasoline prices of $3.27, according to the Automotive Club of Southern California
California holds the lead in the nation for the highest gas prices, at $3.767 a gallon, while New Jersey saw average prices of $3.094. Both Alaska and Hawaii came in with gas prices above $3.60 a gallon.
AAA reports more motorists are still driving to work but cutting down on optional trips in an effort to reduce fuel usage. Overall, consumption is down by 1 percent nationwide compared to 2007, said Gregg Laskoski, an AAA spokesman. For the first time since 1980, when long lines sprouted at gasoline stations, Americans are beginning to cut down on their driving.
.
The slight decline in total miles driven – apparent first in December – may indicate that the twin forces of high gasoline prices and a struggling economy are starting to affect the US lifestyle. Surveys find that Americans now consider gasoline prices a “financial hardship.”
In a survey of AAA members, four out of 10 said high fuel prices will cause them to alter their vacation plans. Half of those said they will take trips closer to home.
For most vehicles, traveling more than 60 mph uses significantly more fuel, according to a AAA report.
Every 5 mph over 60 mph that commuters drive their cars works out to an additional 20 cents per gallon they pay at the pump, the report found.
The old formula dictates that the price of gasoline goes up 2.4 cents for each $1 that crude goes up. That amount, $2.40 for a gallon of gas made from $100 oil, is about 55 percent of what we pay at the pump — the rest being taxes and miscellaneous costs.
There seems to be a consensus among academic observers that there’s no fundamental reason for oil to be $100.+ The spike is due in part to speculators in the futures market who have jumped into oil as a safe harbor during the meltdown of the financial markets — and to make a lot of money.
Many investors see commodities such as oil as an effective hedge against a falling dollar and inflation. Also, a weaker greenback makes oil cheaper to overseas investors. Analysts attribute much of this year’s rise in oil prices to speculative buying tied to the falling dollar.
.
.
.
.
.
“There’s no problem with demand,” Mr. Laskoski AAA’s spokeman said. “Our information suggests demand is flat.”
The American Automobile Association and the Oil Price and Information Service listed the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline at $3.343, which is 55 cents higher than it was one year ago. The AAA survey, updated daily, tracks prices at roughly 80,000 service stations across the country. It is conducted for the group by Oil Price Information Service.
thejunction.net/blog-images/aaa30.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”American Automobile Association” width=”251″ height=”160″ />
The federal government agency that tracks energy usage information, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which is run by the Department of Energy, says the national average could reach as high as $4 during the summer vacation driving season. Typically, the demand for gas spikes during the summer, when lots of people go on vacation. Holidays like Memorial Day and the Fourth of July create logjams of tourist traffic during the summer. This high demand usually translates into higher gasoline prices
The rising gasoline prices are causing concern among the American public.
There is new evidence indicating that growing concern over the U.S. economy will lead more Americans to scale back on the purchase of new cars this year. New-vehicle sales in 2008 are expected to drop to their lowest levels in over a decade, according to a March report from J.D. Power & Associates. Sales of new cars and light trucks are predicted to drop to 14.95 million this year, the lowest figure since 1995. This figure is down from an earlier forecast of 15.7 million.
Citroen Crosser
Demand in China, India and the Middle East is expected to push oil consumption up by more than one million barrels a day, each year, for the next decade.
Peak oil is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, or more specifically, the peak in global oil production. Oil companies have, naturally enough, extracted the easier-to-reach, cheap oil first. The oil pumped first was on land, near the surface, under pressure, light and ’sweet’ (meaning low sulfur content) and therefore easy to refine. The remaining oil is more likely to be off-shore, far from markets, in smaller fields and of lesser quality. It therefore takes ever more money and energy to extract, refine and transport.
In the 1950s the well known U.S. geologist M. King Hubbert was working for Shell Oil. He noted that oil discoveries graphed over time tended to follow a bell shape curve. He supposed that the rate of oil production would follow a similar curve, now known as the Hubbert Curve.
No oil producing region fits the bell shaped curve exactly because production is dependent on various geological, economic and political factors, but the Hubbert Curve remains a powerful predictive tool.
“There are currently 98 oil producing countries in the world (most are members of OPEC), and of the 65 largest oil producing countries in the world, up to 54 have passed their peak of production and are now in decline, including the USA in 1970/1, Indonesia in 1997, Australia in 2000, the North Sea in 2001, and Mexico in 2004.
Hubbert’s methods, as well as other methodologies, have been used to make various projections about the global oil peak, with results ranging from ‘already peaked’, to the very optimistic 2035. Many of the official sources of data used to model oil peak such as OPEC figures, oil company reports, and the USGS discovery projections, upon which the international energy agencies base their own reports, can be shown to be frighteningly unreliable. Several notable scientists have attempted independent studies, most famously, Colin Campbell with the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO).
Other notable peak oil info packed websites -
http://hubbert.mines.edu/news/Ivanhoe_97-1.pdf
http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation (twice- the 1st time Jan 18th 07‘) and then again earlier in 2008- H.R. 5351 E.H., the “Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008“ that repealed tax breaks in which the oil industry now receives.
But the army of lobbyists who represent the oil and gas industry has so far successfully fought back in the Senate, which has yet to pass a similar tax bill, forcing renewable energy advocates to lower their expectations.
The House Bill ‘Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008′, just passed would repeal a tax break oil and gas firms received in 2004 that effectively lowered their corporate tax rates. It would also bar oil companies from bidding on new federal leases unless they pay a fee on or renegotiated improperly drafted leases from 1998 and 1999 that did not require royalty payments on Gulf of Mexico production. And the bill would take the estimated $13 billion to $15 billion in revenues over a five-year period and set the money aside for tax breaks and appropriations that would go to renewable energy sources.
The House Bill - H.R. 5351 E.H, which includes language to funnel the money to renewable energy projects, passed by a vote of 264-163. The tax break, created in 2004 to protect domestic manufacturers from foreign competition, gives oil and gas companies a reduction in the corporate tax rate on profits from domestically produced products. Rescinding the tax break, which critics argue never should have been extended to the oil and gas industry, will bring in more than $7 billion over 10 years….
.
The royalty provision aims to alter about 1,000 deep water drilling leases for the Gulf of Mexico issued in 1998 and 1999 by the U.S. Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service…
The agency failed to include language triggering royalty payments once oil prices reached a threshold of about $34 a barrel, an error that has already cost the government some $1 billion in lost royalties and could cost more than $10 billion over 25 years.
The legislation requires companies to either renegotiate the flawed leases or pay fees on production from those leases or be banned from purchasing new leases in the gulf.
The industry earned a $123 billion gusher of money last year - 2007, so it’s quite action.citizen.org/t/1153/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=23335&track=pcHome ” target=”_blank” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview (’/outbound/action.citizen.org’);”>appropriate for Congress to take a look at tax breaks that were handed to the industry back when profits were lean, and oil was $30 a barrel. Tax incentives for oil exploration made sense then, but, the U.S. economy frankly can’t afford it now- much less make it right .
The House Bill H.R. 5351 E.H has been placed on the Senate calendar and referred to the Senate Finance Committee .
So contact your Senator and tell them to pass this legislation!
.
Senate Finance Committee whose members are the following -
Democrats
MAX BAUCUS, MT (Chairman)
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV
KENT CONRAD, ND
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM
JOHN F. KERRY, MA
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR
RON WYDEN, OR
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI
ARIA CANTWELL, WA
KEN SALAZAR, CO
Republicans
ORRIN G. HATCH, UT
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME
JON KYL, AZ
GORDON SMITH, OR
JIM BUNNING, KY
CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA
MIKE CRAPO, ID
Democrats
Daniel K. Inouye (HI) , Chairman
John D. Rockefeller (WV)
John F. Kerry (MA)
Byron L. Dorgan (ND)
Barbara Boxer (CA)
Bill Nelson (FL)
Maria Cantwell (WA)
Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ)
Mark L. Pryor (AR)
Thomas R. Carper (DE)
Claire McCaskill (MO)
Amy Klobuchar (MN)
.
Republicans
.
Ted Stevens (AK), Ranking Member
John McCain (AZ)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)
Olympia J. Snowe (ME)
Gordon H. Smith, Gordon H. (OR)
John Ensign (NV)
John E. Sununu (NH)
Jim DeMint (SC)
David Vitter (LA)
John Thune (SD)
Roger F. Wicker (MS)
.
The world’s five biggest oil companies—Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, ConocoPhilips and Chevron—were called to testify at a congressional hearing - Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Chaired by Ed Markey (D-MA)
Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest oil company, may report per-share profit of $2.08, up from $1.62 a year ago, analysts estimate. ExxonMobil brought in $40.6 billion in profit in 2007, breaking its own record of the highest-ever corporate profit. Chevron posted profits of $18.6 billion, a record for that oil company.
.
.
J. Stephen Simon, Exxon Mobil Corp.’s senior vice president, and Robert A. Malone, president of BP America, pointed to figures they said suggest the oil and gas industry’s profits last year were not out of line with companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Hearing - Chaired by Ed Markey
.
.