Speaker Nancy Pelosi is arguably the most powerful woman in America. But if she wants to see her real power, she should bring the drilling issue to a vote. Only a Fed chairman could have so much impact on market prices.
William Yeatman
New Hampshire is among a dozen states, New York City and the District of Columbia that are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming the Bush administration has failed to rein in emissions from oil refineries.
According to the Los Angeles Times, California’s Legislature is on the verge of adopting SB 375, the nation's first law to control planet-warming gases by curbing sprawl. The legislation would offer incentives to steer public funds away from sprawled development. The state spends about $20 billion a year on transportation, and under the new law, projects that meet climate goals would get priority. The bill is expected to pass the Assembly today and the Senate on Friday.
Will gas prices keep dropping?
A recent drive I took ended with a very strange coincidence. If I were superstitious, I’d regard it as a sign that we’re in for cheaper gas.
Two weekends ago we drove our daughter to college in central Virginia. As we started heading out, I noticed that regular at the neighborhood gas station had dropped to $3.65. That was nice, since the price had been above $3.80 only days before.
We got off I-66 at Gainesville, which two years ago had been the scene of a locally famous price war that for a while led to gas below $2.00!. Filling up at that price back then had been a memorable event for me, since gas had nearly hit $3 only months before.
Further down the road we found prices below $3.50. We filled up—not quite as good a feeling as $1.98, but not bad. And then, at the very end of our trip, one station was selling regular at $3.39. I liked this trend.
Of course, the trend didn’t continue on the way back—duh. But then something strange happened. We pulled into a Gainesville station just before the last stretch home on I-66, and lo and behold—there was a van parked right in front of us with this message stenciled on its rear windshield:
“CRUISING IN LOVING MEMORY OF CHEAP GAS”
Googling this phrase turns up nothing, so it’s not like this is a ready-made window stencil purchased by scores of people. The van we saw may well be the only one in the country carrying this message, and we just happened to pull up behind it after driving all day idly noting gas prices.
I’m a fan of cheap gas. It’s good for my wallet, and it’s good for people universally. If this was an omen of lower prices to come, it was a good omen.
Related links:
Why fans of cheap gas are more honest than warriors against “oil addiction”
Stop kvetching about Exxon (1-minute video)
Visiting New Mexico this week, I haven't found much interest in the global warming debate, but it is having an impact on local issues. The Navajo Nation has finally gained permitting approval for a huge new coal-fired power plant. The plant would be sited next to a coal mine on the Navajo Reservation in northwest New Mexico . (By the way, New Mexico has a lot of coal reserves in the northwest corner, much of it under Navajo land. Coal provides the State with most of its electricity.) The electricty produced would be exported over the grid to population centers in the Southwest.
Naturally, environmental pressure groups have not given up. They are challenging the regulatory approval in court. One of the grounds is that the regulators did not take into account the carbon dioxide emissions that the plant would produce and its contribution to global warming. I don't think they can win in federal court under current laws, but they must hope that if they can delay the project a couple of years, then Congress might pass cap-and-trade legislation that would make coal plants uneconomic.
I don't know whether any utility companies have expressed interest in buying electricity from the Navajos' new plant, but it seems likely that indirectly the plant will help California reach its emissions reduction targets. California imports more and more of its electricity from nearby States, but its new global warming law prohibits importing electricity produced by burning coal. This new plant would allow utilities in Arizona or Nevada to sell their low-emissions electricity to California and then replace it with cheaper coal power from the Navajo plant. Sounds like a win-win to me.
If only drivers could avoid high gasoline prices as easily as Congress has avoided doing anything about them.
Barack Obama has made his economic thinking excruciatingly clear, so it also is clear that his running mate should have been not Joe Biden, but Rumpelstiltskin. He spun straw into gold, a skill an Obama administration will need in order to fulfill its fairy-tale promises.
Even as gasoline prices fall, John McCain and Barack Obama are hammering on energy issues. Here's how the two candidates compare:
Voters are crying out for more solar and wind energy — but that doesn't mean they are opposed to drilling for more oil at the same time, according to a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll.
Less than a week before the Democratic National Convention, the convention committee has overspent and underplanned, though they deny both. As of mid-August, with less than two weeks before Democrats convene in Denver to nominate Senator Barack Obama, the construction of the stage at Invesco field had not been completed and many predict labor will continue down to the wire.
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