Lawyers representing the oil giant BP on one side, and more than 100,000 Gulf Coast residents on the other, were set to show up at the court of U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier on Monday morning. There they would have begun …
Oil
Gasbag: Why No President Can Bring Us $2 Gasoline
It’s Presidents’ Day as I write this, so if you were lucky enough to have the day off, give some thanks to Washington, Lincoln and all the other chief executives — even stinkers like James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. Of course …
Pipeline Politics: Are the Oil Sands “Game Over” for the Climate? One Study Says No
There are no shortage of reasons why the Keystone XL pipeline has become such a hot button issue for environmentalists. Many worry about the risks the project could pose to the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska, where the pipeline was …
Pipeline Politics: Keystone, Advocates and Analysts
If there were any doubt that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline—which would bring more than 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian oils sands through the Midwest to refineries in the U.S.—has become the biggest environmental issue …
Pipeline Politics: Keystone Is Dead (For Now). What Happens Next?
Chalk a win up for the environmentalists. On Wednesday, the White House announced that it was rejecting—on the recommendation of the State Department—the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would have brought 700,000 barrels a …
An Oily Case: Chevron’s Never-Ending, Record-Breaking Lawsuit in Ecuador
How long has the legal battle between indigenous groups in the Ecuadorean Amazon and the oil giant Chevron been going on? So long that Texaco—the company originally accused of dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic sludge in and …
Petrol Politics: Why Nigerians Are Enraged Over the Rising Price of Gasoline
As we mark the official start of the never-ending U.S. Presidential campaign with tonight’s Iowa caucuses, it’s worth remembering the one thing that politicians would be wise not to fiddle with during an election year: gas …
Crude Forecast: Get Ready to Ride the Roller Coaster on Oil Prices in 2012
Oil is the bad boyfriend of the international economy: we can’t live with it, and we can’t live without it. We complain about the price of gas—which really is crippling middle-class America—and worry about the threat of oil …
Oily: How a San Francisco Oil Spill Took Its Toll on Fish
How quickly have Americans forgotten about the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill? Fast enough that that last week BP launched an advertising blitz aimed at giving a “progress report” on the company’s cleanup efforts. It’s nothing new …
Petrol Politics: How Much Should an Oil Spill Cost?
How serious should the penalties for an oil spill be? In early November, Chevron and its drilling partner Transocean accidentally spilled some 3,000 barrels of oil into the ocean off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. As oil …