oil

It’s not just the government that’s considering bailing out the auto industry. Several utilities executives are considering ordering thousands of plug-in electric cars.

President-elect Obama has said that energy will be a top priority for his administration in its first 100 days — hinting that it will come second only to the economy.
In the past year, the Obama campaign has made a lot of promises on energy, related to jobs, climate change, clean energy, gas prices and [...]

I have a piece coming up today on how the environment could factor into the youth vote tomorrow.
In my reporting for the story, I came across a group called the Energy Action Coalition, which has run a nonpartisan campaign called “Power Vote” this election season. The campaign’s purpose is to galvanize young people to persuade [...]

Shock, surprise! Exxon Mobil Corp. reported record-breaking quarterly profits today. The oil company earned $14.83 billion in its fiscal third quarter, more than any company in U.S. history.
Hearing the news, Sen. John McCain accused Sen. Barack Obama of being in the pockets of Big Oil, a charge Obama has repeatedly leveled at McCain in campaign [...]

As I reported last week, it’s still unclear what consumers may do now that oil and gasoline prices have plummeted. A bit of news from TradingMarkets.com shows that consumers’ mixed reactions to lower gas prices are making things especially difficult for the auto industry.

Since oil prices plummeted to below $70 a barrel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been talking about cutting oil production to respond to a demand that just keeps dropping. Today, OPEC is doing it. It announced a plan to cut oil output by 1.5 million barrels.

With the price of oil dropping to around $74 a barrel — and gasoline prices, on average, falling below $3 a gallon — the alternative-energy industry may have something to lose. The drop in oil prices stems from the global credit crisis and the recession fears it has spawned.
The stocks of alternative-energy companies, which had [...]

The League of Conservation Voters today released its 2008 National Environmental Scorecard, which rates members of Congress on energy and environmental issues.
Overall, says the group’s president Gene Karpinski in a press release, “in 2008, Congress went in the wrong direction” — that is, away from reducing our country’s dependence on oil.

Rep. Henry Waxman, (D-Calif.) wrote a letter this afternoon to Defense Sec. Robert Gates accusing Harry Sargeant, the head of the International Oil Trading Company of “reprehensible war profiteering” on Iraq War contracts. Sargeant’s company has reaped $210 million in profits by overcharging the Pentagon for oil fuel that is shipped from Jordan to Iraq.
The [...]

Since the tax credits for renewable energy were incorporated into the financial bailout plan that became law last week, green businesses have breathed a sigh of relief.
But green business owners know that they face obstacles. This week, E&ETV looked at some of them in an interview with Natural Resources and Defense Council energy analyst Jim [...]