Energy

Car Perk Will Get Scrutiny

April 4, 2011  ·  Mark Reback

<p> California is the only state that provides lawmakers with a car, gas and maintenance paid largely by taxpayers.<br /> <br /> The perk has withstood the recessionary economy and several rounds of budget-cutting, including $11.2 billion in measures the Legislature approved and Gov. Jerry Brown signed in March.<br /> <br />

As Japan Fears Catastrophe, U.S. Energy Chief Says ‘Don’t Worry’

March 16, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> <img class=" size-full wp-image-2014" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/japanreactor.png" style="width: 270px; height: 150px;" width="540" height="300" />The news about Japan’s nuclear crisis <a href="http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8224470">gets worse</a> with each dribble of information from a reluctant bureaucracy. The chief risk Wednesday was that spent nuclear fuel rods in enormous storage pools would boil away the water that shields them, setting the waste on fire to spew highly radioactive particles into the wind.</p>

Refiners Licking Their Chops Over Japan

March 15, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> <img class=" size-full wp-image-2010" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/japanfire.png" style="width: 270px; height: 150px;" width="540" height="300" />With perhaps ten thousand lives lost and a nuclear reactor emergency growing daily in Japan, one industry is poised to reap huge profits from tragedy. The stocks of oil refiners <a href="http://www.tickerspy.com/newswire/?p=4174">charged upward </a>today on bets that Japan would soon have to import a lot more heating oil and gasoline because of refinery fires and quake/tsunami damage.</p>

Japan’s Nukes and Refineries: What’s Going Untold

March 12, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> <img class=" size-full wp-image-2008" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/smokeplume.png" style="width: 250px; height: 178px; " width="300" height="214" />Japan’s struggle to avoid full-on meltdown at nuclear reactors that lost cooling power after the quake. The shutdown of major Japanese oil refineries. Both raise questions that scream for answers about corporate and government behavior.</p>

Absolute Gasoline Price Record in 2011?

March 10, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

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Five Actions to Cut Gasoline Prices

March 9, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> <img class=" size-full wp-image-1994" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/gaspumpcomic.png" style="width: 250px; height: 178px; " width="300" height="214" />An uprising in Libya is not causing your wallet to bleed at the gas pump. The U.S. buys virtually no oil from Libya. Egypt and Tunisia, the other hotspots, don’t even produce oil. There’s still a surplus of oil on world markets, more than enough to make up for any shortage from Libya.</p>

Facts of Life on High Gas Prices: It’s the Speculators & Oil Companies to Blame, Not Middle East

March 8, 2011  ·  Jamie Court

<p> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Progressives-Guide-Raising-Hell-Grassroots/dp/1603582932"><img class=" size-full wp-image-1992" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/raisinghellcover.gif" style="width: 158px; height: 250px;" width="158" height="250" /></a>While skirmishes in Libya and uncertainty in the Middle East are nice cover for outrageous gasoline prices, the fact is the same old suspects are making a killing from sky-high gas prices approaching $4 dollars per gallon in California: big oil companies and greedy speculators.</p>

Glenn Beck Is Raising Your Gasoline Prices

March 1, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> <img class=" size-full wp-image-1984" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/thumb_1.png" style="width: 200px; height: 143px;" width="300" height="214" />OK, it’s not all Glenn Beck’s Fault that you’re paying $3.40 or $3.70 or even $4.00 a gallon at the pump. But his fear-based take on democracy movements in the Middle East (<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/glenn-beck-egypt-caliphate-conspiracy-theory_n_818564.html">oh, the caliphate!</a>) gives cover to the speculative traders who jack up oil and gasoline prices without a trace of supply and demand reason.</p>

Fracking Congress Finally Wakes to Natgas Danger

March 1, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> <img class=" size-full wp-image-1986" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/fracking.png" style="width: 250px; height: 178px;" width="300" height="214" />Congress–or at least a few Democrats in Congress–are at last investigating the explosive and toxic dangers of deep drilling for natural gas–the newest, hottest fad in the oil and gas industry.</p> <p> From The Hill’s <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/146491-top-house-democrats-launch-investigation-into-fracking-on-public-lands">energy and environment blog</a>:</p>

Mr. Koch, the Governor Is On the Line

February 24, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> <img class=" size-full wp-image-1978" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/thumb_0.png" style="width: 200px; height: 143px;" width="300" height="214" />The hilarity of the day: A journalist at a little online alternative magazine, <a href="http://www.buffalobeast.com/">the Buffalo Beast,</a> made a cold call to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Posing as energy megabillionaire and Tea Party funder David Koch, Beast editor Ian Murphy not only got past some oblivious staff members to get Walker on the phone, the Tea Party-backed governor spilled a dirty-tricks plan to deceive opposing legislators.</p>

Golden Wasteland: Regulating Toxics or Toxic Regulation

February 9, 2011  ·  Liza Tucker

California produces more than four billion pounds of hazardous waste every year. That’s enough to fill 727 Olympic-sized pools. At least one hundred thousand businesses, from...

1,500 People Against the Koch’s Dirty Money, Dirty Energy

January 31, 2011  ·  Judy Dugan

<p> <img class=" size-full wp-image-1937" alt="" class="right" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/images_polarbear2_0.png" style="width: 300px; height: 176px;" width="371" height="218" />(Rancho Mirage, CA) -- A year ago, it's unlikely that 15 people would have shown up for a rally against the Koch brothers, owners of the largest privately owned corporation in the U.S, even in the middle of L.A. or New York. Today, in the desert town of Rancho Mirage, 1,500 showed up, protesting the brothers' plutocratic, climate-change-denying, democracy-thieving ways.</p>