oil
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Congress introduces twin bills to control drilling and protect drinking water
ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten reports: In a widely expected move that is sure to draw the ire of the oil and gas industry, Democratic members of Congress today introduced twin bills to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and give the Environmental Protection Agency authority over the controversial drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. The stand-alone bills […]
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Goldman Sachs: Oil’s going to $85 by year end
Oil hit $67 a barrel yesterday, driven by the perception the global economy may have hit bottom, among other factors: Much of oil’s rally this year has tracked stock market gains as investors look to equity markets for signs of economic recovery, while a weaker dollar can boost the appeal of oil and other commodities […]
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Former Republican Sen. George ‘Macaca’ Allen shills for dirty energy
Hey, remember George Allen, the former Republican senator from Virginia best known for using the racist slur “macaca” on camera during his failed bid for reelection in 2006? Apparently, he’s making his comeback as the Republican anti-climate bill poster boy, flacking on behalf of the coal and oil lobbies. Allen reemerged this week as the […]
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King Corn, meet Big Oil
Drilling for oil in a corn field: will Big Oil squeeze out King Corn?Back in March, Tom Philpott flagged some moves from Shell Oil and Valero Energy (the largest U.S. oil refiner) that indicated Big Oil was falling for biofuels. Now, the NYT shows Tom had it right with a piece detailing the increasing amount […]
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Critique of auto standards misses how they save consumers money compared to gas taxes
Robert Stavins thinks an increased gasoline tax or cap-and-trade would make Obama’s tougher auto efficiency standards redundant. This offers an excellent illustration of how even economists who are not market fundamentalists can miss the way well-designed regulation improves economic efficiency. Yes, cap-and-trade or a rising gasoline tax will reduce driving and gasoline use. But because […]
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Two homeowners, one monster, and a cutting-edge power source
There’s a monster in our basement. It eats fistfuls of dollar bills, guzzles No. 2 heating oil, and belches filthy clouds of soot and CO2. We have to kill it before it kills us. Only problem is, we and our tenants are dependent on it — this being New England, we need something down there […]
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Chevron hires former CNN correspondent to spin report on Amazon destruction
The New York Times has a great story about Chevron hiring a former CNN reporter to produce a “news” report to counter a 60 Minutes segment on the oil company’s contamination of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. On May 3, 60 Minutes ran a story on the $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron for environmental damage, […]
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Oil prices and the recession
Economist James Hamilton crunched some numbers and found that the current recession can largely be explained by sub-prime mortgages financial derivatives imploding credit markets insolvent banks winged monkeys the surge in oil prices in 2007 and 2008. It’s a result so unexpected that even Hamilton claims not to believe it entirely, but perhaps we shouldn’t […]
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Joe Barton tries to stump Steven Chu with question about where oil comes from
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), a climate skeptic with some wacky theories of his own, tried to stump Energy Secretary Steven Chu at Wednesday’s climate-bill hearing by asking, “How did all the oil and gas get to Alaska and under the Arctic Ocean?” Later, Barton bragged via Twitter, “I seemed [sic] to have baffled the Energy […]
