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The economic impact of the 1995 Deep Water Royalty Relief Act is huge as are the consequences that would result from its modification or repeal by Congress.

Strong worldwide oil demand and lack of supply are to blame for steadily rising gasoline prices in the United States, an oil industry group said Friday. The American Petroleum Institute made no specific price forecast for 2011, but didn't seem to see a drop anytime soon. "Unless we see increases in supply, it's hard not to see a tighter market," John Felmy, the institute's chief economist, said in a conference call with reporters. Felmy said worldwide oil demand in 2010 hit a record of more than 87 million barrels a day, driven largely by strong growth in India, China and...

BUCKHORN, Ontario – Candy Penny and her husband have owned their novelty shop here just long enough to not know what it was like when American tourists flooded this small Peterborough County town in Canada’s “cottage country.” “I understand that, before the recession, every other license plate in town was from a different (American) state,” said Penny, a Michigan native who moved here when she married a Canadian. “Between that and the spike of gas prices in 2008 and again this summer, and the required passports to cross the border, our main business is Canadian.” Her shop is in a...

CENTRAL OHIO - As gasoline prices continue to climb, the oil industry said this week that by 2012, we could be paying not $4 per gallon, but $5. "It scares me," said Sharri Carroll, who was filling up her car in Hilliard Wednesday. "How are you going to afford to fill up your tank every week to get to work?" NBC4 took the concerns Wednesday to John Felmy, a Ph.D. a top official with the American Petroleum Institute. Felmy is one of the country's leading experts on gasoline prices who just happened to be in Columbus Wednesday

(CNSNews.com) -- Armed with a Power Point presentation to illustrate the state of American energy, John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute (API), said the majority of “big oil” and natural gas ownership is in good hands – the hands of the American people.According to a report published in 2007 by Sonecon, an economic advisory firm that analyses U.S. markets and public policy, corporate management owns only 1.5 percent of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.The rest is owned by tens of millions of Americans through retirement accounts (14 percent) and pension funds (26 percent).  Mutual funds...

HOBBS -- Sen. Pete Domenici will be featured speaker at a national energy policy conference May 27 at the Lea County Event Center titled "The Making of Energy Policy: Where Are We Going?" The conference is sponsored by New Mexico Tech, the Economic Development Corporation of Lea County, and the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy. Co-sponsors are the United States Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute. NMCEP, operated by New Mexico Tech, is organizing the conference, the group said in a news release. Registration will begin at 10 a.m., followed at 11:30 a.m. by a welcome and...

CALLICOON, New York (AFP) – After a lifetime struggling to make money from the land, New York farmer Bill Graby has discovered he's sitting on treasure -- possibly the biggest natural gas deposit in America. "It's like winning the lottery," says the 6.6-foot (two-meter) dairy farmer from the picturesque town of Callicoon in the Catskills hills. The deposit, called the Marcellus shale, stretches all the way from New York to Tennessee, containing 168 to 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation. That dwarfs the previous big daddy, the Barnett shale in...

To stop climate change, the nation must "stop coal," a top environmental architect urged during a speech at Ramapo College's conference on climate change. Edward Mazria, who has led efforts nationwide to build more-energy-efficient buildings, said the only way to control global warming is "an immediate moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants in the United States" and a phaseout of older coal plants. "Climate change is the greatest challenge we have ever faced," he told an audience of more than 400 at the conference. "Either we get it under control or we face very dramatic consequences." Mazria is the...

ExxonMobil’s earnings are from operations in more than 100 countries around the world. During the first quarter, more than three-quarters of our operating earnings came from outside of the United States. The part of ExxonMobil’s business that refines and sells gasoline, diesel and other products in the United States represents less than 6 percent – or 6 cents on the dollar – of our earnings. Why so little? Because we actually buy more crude oil to refine into gasoline and diesel in the U.S. than we produce ourselves. And these purchases are made on the open market at the prevailing...

It’s official: TNT is bringing back Dallas, and with original series stars Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray. The 1980s hit will get a modern makeover on the cable network, which just gave its new version of Dallas a 10-episode series order (full official description below). But you don’t have to wait until next summer, when the series debuts, to get a look at the show: TNT will give viewers a preview of the pilot on Monday night during the season premieres of The Closer and Rizzoli & Isles. “TNT has explored the possibility of an updated version of...

ExxonMobil has long been Alaska’s most enduring villain, thanks to the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker accident that spilled at least 11 million gallons of oil, not to mention the years Exxon spent fighting devastated fishermen and others in court to avoid and delay paying damages. Former Gov. Sarah Palin's emails show how much state officials shared in the general outrage over Exxon’s legal tactics. Having already held the case up in the courts for nearly two decades, winning reversal of billions of dollars in punitive damages by the U.S. Supreme Court, ExxonMobil lawyers in 2008 filed pleadings to avoid paying...

Big Oil. We love, LOVE, to hate Big Oil. As we’re paying more and more at the pump, and as we continue to flounder in this post recession economy, it’s hard to look at the Big Oil companies , their profits and think anything other than greed. But is that fair? Let’s check. Recently, the big oil companies announced their profits for the first quarter of 2011. And they are impressive numbers to be sure: ■Exxon Mobile – $10.7 billion ■Chevron – $6.2 billion ■ConocoPhilips – $3.0 billion THAT is a lot of billions. A LOT! But is it really...

(CNSNews.com) - Senate Democrats are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate possible price-fixing of gasoline by U.S. refineries because “recent reports,” according to the senators, suggest the refiners are trimming supply to keep prices high. But a federal report from November shows that refinery stockpiles started to decline in 2008, if not earlier. At a press conference on Tuesday, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that they had sent a letter that day to the FTC, “to request the Commission begin an investigation into potential price fixing of gasoline by U.S. refiners.” “Recent...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate blocked a bill Tuesday that would repeal about $2 billion a year in tax breaks for the five biggest oil companies, a Democratic response to $4-a-gallon gasoline that might fare better when Congress and the White House negotiate a deal later this year to increase the government's ability to borrow.

Energy: As the House passes a bill to open up offshore drilling, the Senate holds another show trial of oil executives showing why people blame them, not the administration, for high gas prices. Last week they fought back. Summoned for what Sen. Orrin Hatch labeled a dog-and-pony show, executives of Exxon Mobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, BP America and Chevron appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday and, in often-heated exchanges, indicated their days as whipping boys are over. The hearing was called ostensibly to support the Democrats' Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act, a bill with no chance of passage....

A top executive at ConocoPhillips today accused backers of proposals to eliminate certain tax benefits for major U.S. oil companies as distorting the facts and unfairly penalizing a few companies that already are heavily taxed. “We think there’s a real mischaracterization of the whole debate,” ConocoPhillips’ Chief Financial Officer Jeff Sheets told reporters this morning before the Houston oil company’s annual shareholder meeting. The tax breaks and deductions the industry receives are not special subsidies for the oil industry, as critics say, but are widely available to other U.S. companies. Eliminating them would amount to putting “unique taxes” on the...

Sarah Palin in an interview with Bret Baier was asked if she would remove the oil subsidies to oil companies and the short of her answer was probably not. She says that the four billion that Obama is wanting to strip from the oil companies may not have that much impact on the large oil companies, but would affect the smaller independent explorers who Palin says we want out there with their resources extracting for oil: You have to remember that President Obama – and I’m going to say this with all due respect to the office of the Presidency...

House Speaker John Boehner says he’s open to calls from the White House to curb some of the $4 billion in oil and gas subsidies and tax incentives, as Washington continues to feel the heat over high gas prices. Oil and gas producers are “gonna pay their fair share in taxes and they should,” Boehner told ABC News. Continue Reading Text Size -+reset Listen VIDEO: Boehner on oil subsidies POLITICO 44 Latest on POLITICO Blago trial may be moved for Oprah VIDEO: POLITICO Playback Clyburn urges 'compassion' Playbook: 'An insurgent campaign' Brewer: Birther fight is destructive Poll: Gas prices costing...

Oil industry leaders delivered a stinging rebuke of the production tax that became a hallmark of Gov. Sarah Palin's administration, telling a legislative committee Wednesday that it has discouraged investment and made Alaska a less attractive place to do business. Representatives of BP Alaska, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Pioneer Natural Resources said the tax cut and expanded tax credits proposed by Palin's successor, Gov. Sean Parnell, is a positive step toward encouraging greater activity and boosting oil production.

First, you must understand that Boehner is a GobGop: a Good Old Boy of the Grand Old Party. The GobGops' goal is to keep the present system funded by the Bigs: Big Business, Big Pharma, Big Oil, and Big Banking. If you do not understand this, then you are as naive as a Democrat who thinks Obama speaks for The Common Man.Boehner shilled for Hank Paulson and Goldman Sachs by begging the Republicans to vote for the $750+ billion Big Bank Bailout in 2008. Watch his emotional performance here. "We just have to do it!" No, they didn't. Ron Paul...