12-19-08 by dugan Do I have this right? A giant financial/insurance company, AIG, gets two taxpayer bailouts totaling $150 billion, no strings attached, which does zero to help distressed homeowners or the frozen credit…
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Press Release
Voters Want Oil Regulation
Consumer Watchdog For Immediate Release Poll Finds Strong Support for Regulating Oil Companies to Stop ‘Roller Coaster’ Pricing Consumer Watchdog Urges Obama, Energy Secretary-designate Chu to Respond to Public Anger Over Energy Companies’ Rule of…
Blog Post
Putting energy policy on track
12-17-08 by dugan The New York Times today offered up a tight list of all the wrongs that the new Interior Secretary, Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, will face the minute he walks into his…
Blog Post
$1.60 gasoline, $4.50 heating oil
12-17-08 by dugan I heard recently from a friend in Maine who is freaking out: she’s paying $4.50 a gallon for her home heating oil, even as drivers pay well under $2.00 a gallon for…
Blog Post
One cheer for Exxon
Oil companies said, back when crude oil cost $145 a barrel, that exploration and construction costs were too high for them to invest much in drilling and refining. Exxon, for instance, spurned any project that…
Blog Post
How to kill green energy
12-11-08 by dugan Two or three of us at Consumer Watchdog, OilWatchdog’s parent group, have gotten calls today asking our endorsement for the city of Los Angeles’ "Green Energy/Good Jobs Act" on the city’s March…
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About those oil markets
12-4-08 by dugan The price of crude oil is only slightly above $40 a barrel today, about $1.00 a gallon. That’s barely more than one-fourth of the price six months ago. What the slide proves…
Press Release
CEC Deep Freeze On Hot Fuel
California Energy Board Seeks To Put Remedy for ‘Hot Fuel’ Ripoff in Deep Freeze — Group Calls for Immediate Fix Draft Report Accepts Industry Call for Ban on Temperature-Compensating Device, Denies Consumers Would Benefit From…
News Clipping
Warm Out = Less Gas in Tank
Warmer Weather Means Less Gas In Your Tank By David R. Baker, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE December 4, 2008 California drivers were overcharged $376.4 million on gasoline in one year because fuel pumps don’t adjust for…
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Amtrak model for Big 3?
12-3-08 by dugan Michael Moore’s been wrapped up for the last several years with failing health care, the failed Bush Administration and the war in Iraq. But the author/moviemaker’s enduring fascination is Detroit iron. He…
Blog Post
Let oil rescue autos
12-2-08 by dugan With U.S. automakers headed to Washington for a do-over of their disastrously inept begging trip, OilWatchdog reader Ray Bock of Arroyo Grande, Calif., offers a suggestion that’s been in the air: Let…
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Chevron slides, for now
12-2-08 by dugan It’s no surprise that a federal jury in San Francisco acquitted Chevron in the shooting of Nigerian protestors aboard a Chevron rig a decade ago. As I noted earlier, conditions 10 years…
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Chevron’s moral liabilities
11-26-08 by dugan A jury in San Francisco is deliberating whether Chevron is liable for a shooting spree by Chevron-paid Nigerian troops against protesters aboard an oil platform a decade ago. No matter what the…