LaHood: Americans won’t return to guzzlers when gas prices fall
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday that he’s not concerned that consumers’ interest in efficient vehicles will tail off when gasoline prices fall.
Automakers Ford and GM posted strong first-quarter profits in part due to sales of gas-saving models.
LaHood told reporters that today’s models have enough comfort and pickup to keep consumers’ interest even when prices at the pump retreat, and also expressed confidence in preferences for alternative-fueled and electric cars.
“I think this is the direction the American people are heading in,” he said. “I don’t worry about people going back to their old ways, so to speak.”
LaHood spoke to reporters on a conference call ahead of President Obama’s visit Friday to Allison Transmission, an Indiana company that specializes in hybrid propulsion systems.
JR: And, of course, this assumes they fall very much for very long. Don’t hold your breath on that.
Sponsors Of Oil-Drilling Expansion Bill Received $8.8 Million In Industry Contributions
The chief sponsors of a bill to expand oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and open the coastal waters of Virginia for exploration have received more than $8.8 million combined in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry, a review of campaign finance records shows.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act by a 266 to 149 margin. The measure would force the federal government to conduct three lease auctions in those areas by June 2012. It is considered the first step in a GOP-led process to loosen restrictions on offshore drilling. Authored by House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), it faces a much closer vote in the Senate as well as the stated opposition of the Obama administration.
Nevertheless, the bill’s passage in the people’s chamber underscores the extent to which the political world has moved beyond the concerns over domestic drilling that arose in the wake of last year’s historic oil spill in the Gulf. It also serves as another reminder that, in the halls of Congress, certain legislative power comes with financial prowess.
Speculators, Fed share blame for higher gas prices
It’s pretty close already. As of Monday, retail gasoline nationwide averaged $3.963 a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It topped the $4.00 mark in California, New England and the Midwest.
That’s up nearly 40% from a year ago and around 150% higher than its recent low of $1.60 a gallon in December 2008. Sticker shock, to say the least.
Naturally, Americans are looking for a culprit. Egypt, Libya, Syria, the oil companies “” all have been trotted out as reasons gas prices are sky high.
And indeed, supply disruptions tied to the recent ferment in the Middle East and North Africa have taken their toll as has slightly tighter inventories at refineries.
“The supply part of the market has been behind the recent run-up in oil prices,” said Aaron Brady, a director of research at IHS CERA, based in Cambridge, Mass.
House passes measure to expand offshore oil drilling
With high gas prices becoming a hot political issue, the House on Thursday passed legislation that would expand offshore energy exploration, even though Congress has yet to pass new drilling safeguards a year after the massive gulf oil spill.
The Republican-sponsored measure would open the Virginia coast to drilling and expand production in the Gulf of Mexico, but it faces opposition from the White House and long odds against passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Its approval came as gas pump politics has broken out in the Capitol.
Several bills have been introduced: The Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act would scale back industry tax breaks. The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, or NOPEC, would permit legal action against the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries for conspiring to restrict supplies or drive up prices. Senate Democrats hope to bring up a measure to end subsidies for oil companies in their chamber as early as next week.
White House bashes GOP drilling bills but doesn’t threaten vetoes
The White House said drilling legislation on the House floor would “undercut” reforms established after the BP spill.
The White House is attacking a pair of GOP offshore drilling bills that are on the House floor, alleging they would “undercut” safety and environmental reforms established after the BP oil spill.
But the formal “statement of administration policy” on the measures issued Thursday stopped short of threatening to veto the bills.
The statement said the administration is committed to “safe and responsible” U.S. oil and natural gas production and claims the GOP plans would unravel steps taken toward that goal.
Oil Price Drops Below $100 a Barrel: Gas Continues to Go Up
Gas prices continue to rise — even while the oil used to make it drops in price, say analysts.
The national average price for gas this week is $3.96, according to theDepartment of Energy.
Hawaii still has the nation’s most expensive gasoline as of today, but the nation’s heartland is catching up. In Illinois, the average price is $4.32 a gallon, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. That’s even higher than the average in California, $4.27, which is known for its high pump prices.
Indiana is catching up with an average of $4.24 for regular gas.
At least drivers in those states are facing cheaper prices than those in Alaska. At one gas station in that state, gas was selling for $6.79 a gallon.
To top those prices, just head to the car rental counter. You may face $9.29 a gallon if you don’t prepay for gas or fill up the tank yourself. With an 11-gallon tank in one car, for example, car renters could pay about $100. For larger vehicles, it could cost over $280.
U.S. Senate panel approves bill for pipeline safety
Reckless operators of U.S. petroleum and natural gas pipelines would pay higher fines under bipartisan safety legislation passed on Thursday by the Senate Commerce Committee.
The bill is in response to several pipeline accidents in the last year that killed more than a dozen people, destroyed homes and polluted land and water. “More needs to be done to strengthen oversight and address safety vulnerabilities,” said Senator Jay Rockefeller, the committee’s chairman.
The legislation would raise fines from $100,000 per day to $250,000, and from $1 million for a series of pipeline violations to $2.5 million. The bill also requires automatic shut-off valves to prevent oil spills and natural gas explosions, and would authorize more federal pipeline safety inspectors.
Senate to take up bill on ending tax breaks for oil firms next week
The Senate will take up a controversial bill next week that would end billions of dollars in tax breaks for large oil producers and increase breaks for clean-energy producers, aides close to Democratic leadership told The Hill on Thursday.
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the author of the bill and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the was crafting the legislation in part as a solution to high gas prices, which now sit above $4 per gallon in most states.
“High gas and energy prices are hitting folks hard in Montana and across the country,” Baucus said in a statement. “Now is not the time to stand idly by while large oil and gas companies get billions of dollars in tax breaks “” now is the time to take concrete steps toward cleaner, more affordable, domestically produced energy.”
With the demise of climate change legislation last year, attention has shifted to the possibility of a patchwork of other rules that would have the effect of cutting carbon dioxide emissions. On the state level, one popular step is a renewable energy standard for the electricity sector.
Generally the renewables standard is expressed as a percentage of the electricity generated by all energy sources, often with sub-quotas for solar power or geothermal energy.
A few years ago, there was talk of a national renewable energy standard, but in his State of the Union address in January, President Obama called for something slightly different “” a “clean energy standard,” with 80 percent of the nation’s electricity coming from clean sources by 2035.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
(Joe, I don’t know whether this violates the terms of use. I read this e-mail a few minutes before I saw your post about LaHood, so I thought I’d pass this along in case you can post it.)
The Union of Concerned Scientists is asking for interested people to comment on LaHood’s blog at http://fastlane.dot.gov/2011/04/electric-drive-summit-.html
Here’s the message the Union of Concerned Scientists sent to members:
“Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Ray LaHood recently wrote in his Fast Lane blog, ‘With gas prices rising above four dollars per gallon, families and businesses are feeling the effects. And once again elected officials are clamoring for action to instantly reverse that trend. But we know that you can’t bring down energy prices overnight.’
But while Sec. LaHood then went on to tout the DOT’s role in electric vehicle development, he did not mention that the way to get these vehicles—and the pump savings and emissions relief they offer—to U.S. drivers is by committing to strong clean car standards through 2025. In fact, Sec. LaHood is poised to make critical decisions on these standards this summer that could be as strong as 60 miles per gallon by 2025. But automakers are pressuring him to set much weaker standards that wouldn’t deliver the savings at the pump, pollution reductions, or oil savings we need.
Sec. LaHood rarely gets comments from the public on his blog—that needs to change today.
Please leave your personal comment on the Fast Lane blog and tell him that Americans are watching his actions, and want him to support a clean car standard of 60 miles per gallon that will help relieve pain at the pump, cut pollution, and bring new vehicle technologies—and the jobs they create—to market.
Find tips on ways to personalize your comments and more information at http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/what_you_can_do/dot-blog-comment-tips.html.
Given the Fast Lane blog is moderated, we want to both make sure your comments are being posted as they should be, and we would like to use some of your comments in our next HybridCenter.org Driving Change Network newsletter. After you’ve made a comment on the Fast Lane blog, please copy it and send it to us so we can make sure your voice is being heard.”
I’m not convinced that Americans have really turned over a new leaf. Recent prices seem significantly influenced by speculative fever (observe how fast oil dropped yesterday, with hints of economic uncertainty), and there is the possibility that the supply-demand situation could ease enough to offer some near-term relief. Those not flocking out today to buy compact cars today probably won’t after that. Then we have oil companies eying a newer tar sands method etc. So not sure what’s to stop people from returning to beefier vehicles, as they have before. Particularly if the economy fully recovers and people start feeling better about $4 gas.
That aside, large fuel economy improvements (vs. the modest gains realized on average from engine and transmission tweaks) take money. Yet substantially more efficient vehicles need to become more affordable/attractive to consumers. Hybrids are one of the best options, yet they’re still a small percentage of sales after over a decade on the market. That probably means we need broad incentives for alternatives until economies of scale are achieved. The question then is how to fund those incentives without a carbon pricing system.
Desdemona reports that Tepco may be having trouble finding employees that want to clean up the radioactive mess.
Could this be employment opportunities for Americans who can’t find jobs here?
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2011/05/fewer-workers-willing-to-brave.html
The Vatican Academy of Sciences has released a report on global climate disruption.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/05/anthropocene-vatican-climate-change-group-coins-name-for-our-era.ars
“…the Vatican convened a group of scientists with relevant experience, along with a few Nobel Prize winners. The group’s focus was on increasing evidence of glacier retreat, and the report ended up focused on its causes. The group’s co-chair, Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen…”
I like this quote:
““We call on all people and nations to recognize the serious and potentially reversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants,”"
Saying that gw is “potentially reversible” and NOT saying gw is potentially caused by humans (as so many do) is a wonderfully honest pronouncement.
“It concludes: “The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish.”"
Yep, all we have are prayers; our leaders have abandoned the issue for many years to come.
RE: The Vatican
Economics is a human made religion, a belief system.
The belief that fossil and fissile materials mined from the lithosphere are “energy resources” is a religion. It is a religion of fraud, impoverishment and ultimate death by contamination and natural geophysical response. Sanctioned by nation-states, call this religion the fuels of war.
Praying against the laws of nature, such as how carbonic acid gas contaminates the ecosphere, will do nothing. We are contaminated in thought and in fact.
Over one hundred nations endorse 350 ppm (350.org) as a goal. But not the rich ones, those of corporate plutocracy.
China ups the ante – doubles it’s solar energy target to 50 Gigawatts by 2020.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-china-solar-power.html
The Vatican’s proclamation is great. Now, why doesn’t the Pope issue a dictum that all priests must deliver a sermon on CC, enlisting the help of scientists, including a request that their parishioners vote according to the climate change positions of politicians, or face dire consequences.
The advancing crest on the Mississippi River could approach or break records set in 1927 and 1937.
The river swelled to 130 kilometres wide during the 1927 flood blamed for up to 1,000 deaths and forcing 600,000 people from their homes.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/07/3210397.htm
————
At least 700 military personnel are in south-eastern Quebec to provide assistance with evacuations, sandbagging, and finding shelters for people forced from their homes.
The Richelieu River has reached record high levels and burst its banks in several places.
At least 3,000 homes have been affected with a third of them evacuated.
Farms and roads in the region have been washed out after the melting of an unusually heavy snowpack, combined with a week of rain.
Meanwhile in Manitoba, officials are scrambling to raise several dykes after learning that an unreliable water gauge was reading low.
The Assiniboine River is expected to rise by more than 30 centimetres in the next few days; rain is also forecast for the region.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/07/3210530.htm
————
A landslide and flash floods triggered by heavy rain killed 17 people and inundated four villages on Indonesia’s Java island, a disaster management agency spokesman said Saturday.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/07/3210505.htm
The God-botherers of the Vatican ought to issue a fatwa, not beat around rhetorical bushes. ‘The Sin against the Holy Spirit (for which there is no forgiveness) is the Sin against God’s Creation ie Life’-so all the ecological destroyers are going straight to Hell. That ought to set the cat amongst the pigeons. It may even turn out to be true-we agnostics like a good each-way bet. Until they do so I’m sticking with the Godless ChiComms to achieve something meaningful.
@Michael Tucker: the Vatican may have been tipped off by this verse from the Bible:
Isaiah 24 (writing in 700 BC)
1See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth
and devastate it;
he will ruin its face
and scatter its inhabitants—
2it will be the same
for priest as for people,
for master as for servant,
for mistress as for maid,
for seller as for buyer,
for borrower as for lender,
for debtor as for creditor.
3The earth will be completely laid waste
and totally plundered.
The LORD has spoken this word.
4The earth dries up and withers,
the world languishes and withers,
the exalted of the earth languish.
5The earth is defiled by its people;
they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes
and broken the everlasting covenant…
(it gets worse, but that’s enough Bible for this morning.)
There’s 20 different translations from 20 different versions here somewhere at this site:
http://niv.scripturetext.com/isaiah/24.htm