On The Road Again

Consider this:

1. Last night I went to my local QuikTrip to get a tank of gas for my car. It cost $41.50 and I drive a mid-sized car! I was so stunned, that I thought about leaving my car there and walking home just to save the precious liquid.
2. In 2004, Big Oil spent $18.1 million lobbying in Washington, led by ExxonMobil spending $7.7 million, Chevron-Texaco $5.2 million, BP Amoco $2.3 million, Marathon Oil Corp $1.9 million, and Shell Oil Co. $1 million.
3. In the same time period the US auto industry spent $27.1 million lobbying in Washington, including the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Inc $8.5 million, General Motors $8.4 million, Ford Motor Company $7.2 million, and DaimlerChrysler Corp. $3 million.
4. The energy bill passed by congress this summer included $1.5 billion in subsidies to oil companies for drilling deep oil wells and extraction facilities for tar sands. There was no incentive for alternate vehicle fuels or consumer conservation.
5. In late August the White House proposed weakening the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, by splitting the light truck category in to six components and excluding vehicles like the Hummer, Ford Excursion and Chevrolet Suburban.
6. Sales by the Big Three US automakers plummeted in September while Honda, Toyota and Nissan experienced double digit sales increases.
7. Music legend Willie Nelson uses bio-diesel fuel in his tour busses and his Mercedes and his wife's Volkswagen. Bio-diesel is a blend of 5% to 20% of vegetable oil with regular diesel fuel. It drastically reduces harmful emissions, increases milage and performance, plus it cost less. Nelson has started his own bio-diesel fuel company, providing tanks and his B20 fuel to a growing number of truck stops.

Hmmmm.



Keywords: Gas Prices, Big Oil, Automakers, Congress, White House, Willie Nelson, and biodiesel.