May 14, 2008 | dugan
The latest campaign finance reports, from OpenSecrets.org, show Sen. John McCain closing in on the defunct Rudy Giuliani as Big Oil's bet in the presidential race. Oil money these days is as nasty as tobacco money, and all the candidates ought to be refusing it. The last round of campaign finance lawmaking curbed direct corporate spending on candidates, but who in this room thinks that strangled oil's influence in Washington?
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May 14, 2008 | dugan
I hope the nay-sayers who insist that stopping the taxpayer-funded flow of oil into the federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve won't drop prices were watching today. On news that U.S. petroleum supplies went up 200,000 barrels, the price of oil dropped by up to $2.24 a barrel. So... If President Bush stopped putting 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the reserve, that would add 490,000 barrels a week to the market. Oil goes down, gasoline goes down, right? Only if refiners don't play games.
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May 13, 2008 | dugan
Oh, man, I wish I had a share of Exxon. The shareholder meeting May
30 is going to be a show. A group of big institutional investors,
mostly public pension funds, has filed notice that it will formally campaign to oust board member Michael Boskin. The investors say he refused repetedly to
even meet with them about developing a corporate climate change policy.
How dumb can a company get, refusing to sit and talk with its biggest
investors?
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May 13, 2008 | dugan
What the Senate did today isn't huge, and isn't quite finished, but a 97-1 vote in favor of stopping White House oil purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a landmark. The vote cracks the gridlock that has blocked effective Senate actions against the oil price crisis. It holds out the possibility of a shift to doing the peoples' business rather than scoring partisan points. Capping the reserve would also save taxpayers $6 million to $7 million a day that's now going straight to oil company pockets. Hooray on that.
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May 13, 2008 | dugan
OilWatchdog has offered plenty of reasons that suspending the federal gasoline tax would end up as a bad joke on consumers and the economy. Here are some fresh ones, from Jonathan Alter at Newsweek--including carnage on our potholed roads.
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Recent Articles:
Not Always As Green As They Claim
by Janis Mara, CONTRA COSTA TIMES (California)
March 6, 2008
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Shell's Record Profit Is a Thumb In the Eye of Recession-Wracked Nation, Says Group
Judy Dugan, cell: 213-280-0175, or 310-392-0522, x305; or Jamie Court, x327
January 31, 2008
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Consumer Spurs Change In How PG&E Lists Charges
By Janis Mara,CONTRA COSTA TIMES
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Outage Responses Fuel Power Debate
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