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Global Warming Tax   Duke Energy, a leading U.S. electricity and gas utility, announced this week its support for a global warming tax () — essentially a consumption tax on consumers of gasoline, oil, natural gas and coal. The tax is intended to reduce energy use and resulting emissions of greenhouse gases. Duke calls it a “carbon tax,” but we might call it the “Greenpeace tax” in honor of the various radical environmental groups, like Greenpeace (), pushing global warming hysteria and supporting such a tax. But we could also call it the “corporate appeasement tax” in honor of businesses...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Oil giant ChevronTexaco Corp. is looking to invest between $5 billion and $6 billion US in a heavy crude oil project in Venezuela's Orinoco tar belt this year, a company official said. "We're hoping to start basic investment in late 2005," Ali Moshimi, president of the company's Latin America upstream projects, told reporters. Spain's Repsol YPF and Chevron announced last week plans for a joint project to refine extra-heavy crude from the tar belt in eastern Venezuela into synthetic crude. The fuel would then be transported through a new regional pipeline. Chevron holds a 30 per...

HOUSTON, Oct. 18 - Billions of dollars of Iraqi oil had been sold under a United Nations program - and food and other goods bought with the proceeds - when Saddam Hussein decided in 2000 that he personally wanted a bigger cut of the action. Documents now suggest that at least one United States company acceded to that demand, paying surcharges that kept the oil flowing. The action by the Coastal Corporation, which was founded by the Texas entrepreneur and oilman Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., is detailed in a formal Iraqi government tally of secret payments made from September 2000...

As Saddam Hussein pressed the United Nations oil-for-food relief program for more money that he used to buy banned weapons, an unwitting ally may have been the American driver. Almost until the eve of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, American oil companies were among the largest purchasers of Iraqi crude oil. The role that the companies, including ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, played in the oil-for-food program is now coming under greater scrutiny in the wake of a report by the chief arms inspector for the Central Intelligence Agency that disclosed how extensively Mr. Hussein was abusing profits from the...

LAGOS, Nigeria - Security forces raided five villages in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta, leaving 15 people dead and homes ransacked and burned, residents and militant leaders said Thursday. The security forces said the raids were part of an effort to combat attacks on multinational oil operations in the Niger Delta. Troops in speedboats with mounted machine guns raided the villages of Sunny Zion, Idegbagbene, Odiogbogbene, Opia and Ogbinbiri between Sunday and Wednesday, said Maj. Said Hamed, spokesman for the region's 3,000-strong military-police task force. He was unable to confirm whether anyone was killed in what he described as a "cordon-and-search"...

A federal judge said ChevronTexaco could be sued by Nigerians in an U.S. court for the actions of a subsidiary in Nigeria. Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said jurors had enough evidence to determine whether the company had indirect liability over the coordination between Chevron Nigeria and the Nigerian military when it brutally ended a protest over environmental and hiring practices on an offshore oil platform in 1998 and 1999 (Karen Gullo, Bloomberg/Oakland Tribune). Proponents of the trial said the company knew about the situation in Nigeria. "They had their hand...

MOSCOW - American companies Exxon Mobil and ChevronTexaco business interests have suffered from actions of Russian government, as they have been deprived of their rights for development of oil fields in Sakhalin. Despite earlier statements, the results of the bid for “Sakhalin-3” project development were annulled by commission on product sharing agreements. This was announced by deputy premier Viktor Christenko today. He said the right to develop the project would be sold by auction, but experts foresee the possibility of “Sakhalin-3” project inclusion into integrated program of East Siberia and Far East oil fields development, which is coordinated by Gazprom....

<p>Long ago in Leningrad, my wife and I were enjoying a gala dinner laid on by the local soviet for visiting trade center representatives from around the world. The band was playing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon," perhaps to remind us of how recently Americans had been prisoners in Vietnam. But then a fight broke out on the dance floor. A burly Russian, well lubricated with vodka, tried to cut in on another man's date.</p>

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) - ChevronTexaco Corp. capitalized on a summertime spike in oil and gas prices to generate its largest quarterly profit since the $39 billion merger that formed company two years ago. The San Ramon-based company said Friday that it earned $1.98 billion, or $2.02 per share, in its third quarter, in contrast to a loss of $904 million, or 85 cents per share, at the same time last year. ChevronTexaco's revenue totaled $31 billion, a 22 percent improvement from $25.4 billion last year. The company said its earnings per share in this year's July-September quarter would have...

<p>Until now, few people outside of South America have ever heard of Lago Agrio -- a crime-ridden oil boomtown in Ecuador's Amazon rain forest, near the Colombia border.</p> <p>That is likely to change this week as lawyers from the United States and Ecuador gather in the ramshackle community for one of the biggest oil pollution trials in history, a case that is being watched closely by legal scholars, environmentalists, human rights advocates and multinational corporations.</p>

Some day, as corporations that honor marriage and family are hounded out of business or prosecuted, it will be accurate to say: "This was brought to you by the executives of Anheuser-Busch, Kodak, ChevronTexaco, Wells Fargo, Philip Morris Companies Inc., and other corporations that promoted perversity for short-term gain." - Robert Knight, Culture and Family Institute 1/14/2003 The Culture and Family Institute reports five corporations are being honored this month in the pro-homosexual "OUT" magazine for their aggressive sponsorship of homosexuality, including funding homosexual political groups and transgender activism, promoting homosexuality in the schools and even underwriting "gay" rodeos....

NEW YORK - As a former Midland oilman, President George W. Bush must find it unnatural to root for a decline in the price of West Texas Intermediate crude. But a spike in oil prices could push the economy back into a double-dip recession, which is why today's weak earnings report from Exxon Mobil contained some good news for Bush--and for the rest of us. Exxon Mobil cited lower crude prices as one reason its second-quarter financial results fell short of the year-ago numbers. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is the U.S. benchmark, and it averaged a bit more than $26...

<p>ESCRAVOS, Nigeria (AP) -- An oil company has agreed to build schools and electrical and water systems to satisfy a group of women who had taken 700 workers hostage in a southeast Nigeria oil terminal.</p> <p>Monday's deal signaled an end to the weeklong takeover, which featured a typical tactic with a new twist: Young men frequently resort to kidnapping in the oil-rich Niger Delta, but the peaceful, all-women protest was unprecedented.</p>

ESCRAVOS, Nigeria (AP) - Unarmed village women holding 700 ChevronTexaco workers inside a southeast Nigeria oil terminal let 200 of the men go Sunday but threatened a traditional and powerful shaming gesture if the others try to leave - removing their own clothes. "Our weapon is our nakedness," said Helen Odeworitse, a representative for the villagers in the extraordinary week-old protest for jobs, electricity and development in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta. Most Nigerian tribes consider unwanted displays of nudity by wives, mothers or grandmothers as an extremely damning protest measure that can inspire a collective source of shame for those...