It's a Gas, Gas, Gas

Gas prices are averaging $3.96 a gallon nationally and a record-breaking $4.26 a gallon here in Michigan. Some families spend over 13% of their income on fuel. And yet oil companies receive $4 billion annually in subsidies from the federal government. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Valero Energy, ConocoPhillips, and even BP have all received tax breaks from the IRS.

This is ridiculous. (Even more ridiculous is that we knew this was a problem during the 1970s oil embargo and yet we have spent the last 3 to 4 decades DOING NOTHING.) And gas is going to get even more expensive as demand increases, especially from the burgeoning economies of China, India, etc., and as remaining oil supplies dwindle and become harder both to access and to refine.

So here's what we do: End oil subsidies and put that money into R&D and subsidizing clean energy. The sooner our economy is based on renewable energy instead of being shackled to dirty, foreign oil, the better.

More Bad News and Bad Press for BP

The dome that BP had placed over one of the oil leaks from the downed Deepwater Horizon rig has apparently failed. The reverse funnel was moved after being clogged by methane hydrates, compounds that consist of methane and other hydrocarbons trapped in the crystalline structure of ice. BP hopes either to melt the hydrates by pumping warm water down to the dome or to thin them out using methanol. Both practices are risky as both methanol and the hydrates are flammable. A sudden thaw would precipitously release methane, causing an increase in pressure and potentially an explosion much like the one that took down the rig originally.

And as if the revelations that BP was exempted from conducting an environmental impact assessment and lobbied against stricter safety measures weren't enough, Democracy Now examines the role of BP--then the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company--in the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh and the Iranian republic:

Also, BP was on the grassy knoll.

Will All Great Neptune's Ocean Wash This Clean?

BP is lowering a dome into the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to capture oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon rig that sank over two weeks ago. The dome would work like a funnel in reverse; oil would rise to the top of the dome and be pumped to a ship on the gulf surface.

BP was apparently exempted from conducting an environmental impact assessment on the rig after it was concluded that a massive oil spill was "unlikely." Now this is probably true; according to American Petroleum Institute director Erik Milito, "There have been in excess of 30,000 Gulf of Mexico wells drilled in the last 40 years and there hasn’t been a major spill [ed: I'm gonna let him finish, but Ixtoc I was one of the greatest spills of all time.] so I’d say the safety rates were good." Still, the fact that there is at least some probability of a significant oil spill should require an impact assessment.

Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has responded by calling for a "pause" in pursuing legislation on climate change. According to The New York Times, Graham "said that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had heightened concern about expanded offshore drilling, which he considers a central component of any energy legislation. Mr. Graham also said that Democratic insistence on taking up immigration policy before energy had chilled his enthusiasm for any global warming measure."

Sorry, Senator Graham, but limiting offshore drilling or at least regulating it more tightly after an unexpected explosion kills 11 and spews thousands of barrels of oil into an ecologically sensitive area of the Gulf of Mexico seems like a rational response to me.

Headlines: 27 April 2008

• Oil refinery strikers hold rally
  

  A strike forces BP to close a pipeline that supplies Britain with 30% of its oil. Gas shortages have started to affect Scotland, ironically not because there isn't enough oil, but because people fearing a gas shortage are stocking up.
  

• Clinton Challenges Obama to Debate
  

  Clinton wants a moderator-less, Lincoln-Douglas-style debate. Nobody's told her that Douglas was the experience candidate.
  

• Bush pokes fun at his successors
  

  I'd tell him not to quit his day job, but he hasn't done so well at that either.
  

• Karzai unhurt after parade attack
  

  At least four dead and nine injured after Taliban militants fire into the grandstand.