FuelClub Discount

Senator Barack Obama altered his position on Monday to call for tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gasoline prices as he outlined an energy plan that contrasts with Senator John McCain’s greater emphasis on expanded offshore drilling and coal and nuclear technology.

In a speech here and in a new advertisement, Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, also sought to portray his Republican rival, McCain, as “in the pocket” of oil giants that are profiting from gasoline priced at more than $4 a gallon. And in his speech, Obama called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies to finance rebates for Americans.

At the heart of Obama’s proposals is a focus on fostering alternative energy development by investing $150 billion in emerging technologies and renewable fuels. Seeking to put a million fuel-efficient hybrid plug-in automobiles on the road, he said that he would offer a $7,000 tax credit to buyers, the overall cost of which he did not specify. In addition, Obama said his goal was to have 10 percent of the country’s energy needs met by renewable resources by the end of his first term, more than double the current figure.

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European automakers’ efforts to persuade more Americans to buy cars with diesel engines are turning into an uphill battle because of rising prices at the pumps.

German manufacturers Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG and BMW AG have launched initiatives to make diesel cars more popular in the U.S. as they bet Americans will eventually overcome the perception that diesel engines are loud, smelly and polluting. But their plans appear to be stalling on the back of soaring oil prices.

“The recent price hike is a major blow for the companies’ initial plans to offer more cars with diesel engines in the U.S.,” said Global Insight analyst Roman Mathyssek. He said more-focused marketing efforts along with the diesel engine’s superior fuel efficiency still might be able to win over American customers, if the price for diesel eases again.
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Energy companies are to be told to reallocate some of the ?3bn they must spend to reduce carbon emissions towards directly helping the fuel poor, following uproar over last week’s decision by British Gas to hike gas bills by a third.

Amid widespread calls for a windfall tax on industry profits which could be used to ease the bills of the vulnerable, the government is working on compromise solutions intended to double companies’ spending on fuel poverty measures.

In a statement of priorities that will alarm climate change campaigners Malcolm Wicks, the energy minister, told The Observer: ‘If I said to an elderly woman I’m worried about global warming she would say “Chance would be a fine thing in my living room”. We are not going to sacrifice fuel poverty on the altar of climate change.’
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Construction workers say the rising cost of fuel is putting a strain on business.

Eddie Walls with JPD Construction out of Bossier City says, “Sometimes we bid a job and it may be 90 to a 150 days before the job physically starts when you’ve got diesel fuel that goes up like it has the last 90 days you just about losing money when you get started.”

Walls says high fuel prices is causing the cost of some of their supplies to go up as well. “This bedding rock that we use that goes in the sewer has sky rocketed. The asphalt that we’ll be putting down on this street has sky rocketed, it’s all tied to fuel.”
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Delta Air Lines’ much publicized Salt Lake City-to-Paris flight has run into unexpected turbulence since it was launched earlier this month.

At least twice since the the inaugural flight on June 3, the “nonstop” route has included stops in Cincinnati to take on additional fuel to make it across the big pond.

You can blame the one-stop affair on Utah’s hot weather, the popularity of the flight and technical difficulties that forced Delta to use Boeing 767-300 jumbo jets with different sized engines than would normally be used on the route.

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It was interesting to hear US President George Bush, a failed businessman who destroyed the economy his country and took the world hostage to an illegal war that should have never happened.

President Bush urged Congress today to permit drilling for oil off America’s coasts — on the outer continental shelf — to combat rising oil and gas prices. This is the biggest set up in the history of the world.

When Bush took over Whitehouse in 2001, gasoline price hovered between $1 and $2. Today it is between $4 and $5. This is how Bush and his adminiostration helped the oil price rise:
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