Something I'll Think About Next Time I Get Gas
Gas Prices Jump Nearly 15 Cents Per Gallon [AP via Yahoo]
"The weighted average price for all three grades increased to $2.52 a gallon by Friday, according to Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations in the country.
Gas prices are 40 cents higher than they were a year ago." [I paid $2.48 on Saturday to fill up in North Little Rock at the "cheap" place.
Vague Law and Hard Lobbying Add Up to Billions for Big Oil [NY Times]
..."For more than a decade, lawmakers and administration officials, both Republicans and Democrats, have promised there would be no cost to taxpayers for a program allowing companies to avoid paying the government royalties on oil and gas produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf.
"But last month, the Bush administration confirmed that it expected the government to waive about $7 billion in royalties over the next five years, even though the industry incentive was expressly conceived of for times when energy prices were low. And that number could quadruple to more than $28 billion if a lawsuit filed last week challenging one of the program's remaining restrictions proves successful.
"It is an account of legislators who passed a law riddled with ambiguities; of crucial errors by midlevel bureaucrats under President Bill Clinton; of $2 billion in inducements from the Bush administration, which was intent on promoting energy production; and of Republican lawmakers who wanted to do even more. At each turn, through shrewd lobbying and litigation, oil and gas companies ended up with bigger incentives than before."
Yeah, no cost to taxpayers...but big benefits for the oil companies getting the profits from their oil plus the incentives for drilling for it.
"The weighted average price for all three grades increased to $2.52 a gallon by Friday, according to Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations in the country.
Gas prices are 40 cents higher than they were a year ago." [I paid $2.48 on Saturday to fill up in North Little Rock at the "cheap" place.
Vague Law and Hard Lobbying Add Up to Billions for Big Oil [NY Times]
..."For more than a decade, lawmakers and administration officials, both Republicans and Democrats, have promised there would be no cost to taxpayers for a program allowing companies to avoid paying the government royalties on oil and gas produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf.
"But last month, the Bush administration confirmed that it expected the government to waive about $7 billion in royalties over the next five years, even though the industry incentive was expressly conceived of for times when energy prices were low. And that number could quadruple to more than $28 billion if a lawsuit filed last week challenging one of the program's remaining restrictions proves successful.
"It is an account of legislators who passed a law riddled with ambiguities; of crucial errors by midlevel bureaucrats under President Bill Clinton; of $2 billion in inducements from the Bush administration, which was intent on promoting energy production; and of Republican lawmakers who wanted to do even more. At each turn, through shrewd lobbying and litigation, oil and gas companies ended up with bigger incentives than before."
Yeah, no cost to taxpayers...but big benefits for the oil companies getting the profits from their oil plus the incentives for drilling for it.
posted by JP at 8:14 AM
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