www.zwire.com Angela Carter, Register Staff March 10, 2003

WEST HAVEN — Susan Minniti takes her lunch to work this winter instead of eating out. Shopping trips are less frequent and she sometimes avoids the most convenient gas stations. "I go to the cheapest one there is," Minniti said Sunday, as she sat in her Richmond Avenue home with U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, and Patricia Wrice, executive director of Operation Fuel. Minniti and her husband, Tony Minniti, were describing to both lawmakers the sacrifices they are making because of a stinging spike in their oil bill. Tony Minniti showed them a December 2002 bill for $242 to fill his tank. Two days ago, he paid $335. "This winter’s been abnormally cold and very long," he said. "The price is up 60 to 70 percent over what we’ve paid in the past." Lieberman and DeLauro blasted President Bush and Department of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham for not releasing oil from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve to alleviate price increases and supply shortages. "The supplies are demonstrably down by 50 percent in the Northeast," Lieberman said. "There’s nothing more (the Minnitis) can do to make their situation better, except keep their home colder than it should be." The reserve consists of about 2 million barrels of home heating oil and is intended for release during a crisis. DeLauro said New Haven harbor is a storage site for approximately 850,000 gallons. She and Lieberman in 2000 spearheaded legislation creating the reserve. "There was foresight to put something like this in place," DeLauro said. "This is a crisis in cost, and it is a very cold winter." When the Minnitis asked what was driving increases in gasoline and home heating oil prices, Lieberman pointed to an industry strike, now in its third month in Venezuela, and trepidation over a possible U.S.-led attack on Iraq. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Venezuela is the fifth-largest oil exporter in the world and the fourth-largest supplier to the United States. Iraq produces about 1.5 million barrels per day and approximately one-third reaches America, Lieberman said in a Feb. 24 letter urging Abraham to tap the Northeast supply. "This bothers me more now — knowing this reserve is there," Tony Minniti said. As for gasoline prices, Lieberman said the per-gallon average in Connecticut is $1.75, up from $1.20 per gallon at this time last year. He also said use of national petroleum reserves could buffer drivers against "gouging." Wrice said Operation Fuel was set up to help middle-class families like the Minnitis, who earn too much to qualify for home heating assistance through the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and therefore "fall through the cracks." She said homeowners are losing their houses because they can not afford to heat them. Lieberman said he does not think it is too late in the season to tap the reserve. White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said Bush has increased funding for heating assistance to low-income families and for weatherization programs. He referred questions on the petroleum and home heating reserves to an energy department spokesperson who could not be reached for comment. Susan Minniti said she hopes people will contact their legislators and the administration and push for relief. Angela Carter can be reached at 789-5614 or acarter@nhregister.com.

www.gettysburgtimes.com By JOHN MESSEDER - Times Staff Writer

Political turmoil in Venezuela and possible war with Iraq already are having an effect on local road work that will not start for months. Franklin Township Supervisor Chairman Craig Hartley said the planned major projects will be done, but smaller, maintenance projects may be adjusted if oil prices do not come back down.

“If oil is available for road work, we are probably going to see an increase of 25 to 30 cents a gallon,” Hartley said. “that is a lot.”

Hartley, who also is the township’s road master, made the comment at the February supervisors meeting. At the March meeting, the supervisors published their bid requests in a market that is forecasting costs as high as 40 cents a gallon over last year.

The township’s 2003 road budget contains an estimated increase of five cents a gallon over 2002, but he will have to “re-figure once we get the bids,” Hartley said.

Timothy Montague, of York and Reading-based Koch Pavement Solutions, also is secretary/treasurer of the state Association of Asphalt Material Applicators. In a telephone interview Friday afternoon, he noted the increased asphalt prices are “solely an issue of supply.”

Montague explained the type of oil used in asphalt comes largely from Venezuela. At least 60 percent — some estimates are as high as 80 percent — of asphalt used on the United States’ east coast comes from that country.

Middle East oil is lighter, better suited for making gasoline and other fuels.

Political turmoil in Venezuela involving the military and the current government resulted in refinery workers not being paid, so they walked off the job. Montague said many of them went back to work about two weeks ago, but when they left, they simply shut down the plants.

“It’ll take them a year to get (repairs) completely done,” he said, adding the companies also are having “difficulty getting oil in from the fields to the refineries.”

Competition for available asphalt is stiff.

Venezuelan oil is used in materials for asphalt roofs, including tar roofs, asphalt shingles, and impregnated felt, and that season already is in full swing, with construction suppliers “scrambling to get other sources,” Montague said.

Also, the paving season is starting in southern parts of the United States.

“It could be like the oil embargo in 1973,

www.reviewjournal.com Monday, March 10, 2003 Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Grandstanding on fuel prices

As sure as winter is followed by spring, you can bet some California politician will raise a ruckus about rising gasoline prices and call for something to be done. This year's bleatings originate from Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who wants the General Accounting Office to investigate whether oil companies are taking more gasoline refineries "than usual" out of commission for maintenance ... all with the intent of cutting supplies, thus boosting prices and profits.

"I am extremely concerned about the rising gasoline prices ... particularly with regard to the possible manipulation of supply due to idle refineries," she said.

Rather than calling for another formal investigation of the oil industry -- the 29th since 1979 -- the grandstanding Sen. Boxer would better serve her constituents and the rest of the nation if she dusted off her Economics 101 textbook and reviewed the sections on supply and demand. She'd find that price increases are predictable, for several reasons.

For one, the price of crude oil is at a two-year high, not only because of jitters about the likely war with Iraq, but also due to uncertainties about the availability of oil from Venezuela and its crazed socialist dictator Hugo Chavez.

Another is the pending change in gasoline formulas which takes place each spring in California and other areas that require specialized fuels to reduce pollution during the winter months. As April approaches, and refineries prepare to make the switch to spring and summer gasoline formulas, supplies often run low, causing a boost in prices. California faces an additional problem this year, as it's phasing out the additive MTBE and switching to ethanol, again cutting into production.

Sen. Boxer also might want to review recent history. The Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren note that every one of the 28 previous federal, state and local investigations of alleged price-gouging by gasoline manufacturers has "ended in the complete exoneration of the industry." And when adjusted for inflation, gasoline prices are still roughly 50 cents per gallon cheaper now than they were when they peaked during the Iranian hostage crisis.

All of which suggests that Sen. Boxer's crusade is little more than a publicity stunt, designed to grab headlines and foment populist outrage, all the while squandering taxpayer dollars on a frivolous government investigation.

www.nytimes.com March 10, 2003 By PETER T. KILBORN

ANDREWS, Tex., March 8 — As a welcome to a town with the red, white and blue walls of Buddy's drive-in diner, the slapped-up, steel-skinned service shops of long-ago booms and the horizon of grasshopper-like pumping jacks silently sucking up West Texas crude, the banner at the east end of Broadway is no mere salute to civic aspirations.

As long as a tanker truck and newly painted to keep its sentiments fresh, it proclaims: "Andrews Loves God, Country & Supports Free Enterprise."

Andrews, population close to 10,000, lies 42 miles through mesquite-carpeted rangeland from Midland, President Bush's hometown. Patriotism, faith and freedom to make and lose a buck, touchstones of the Bush presidency, form the bedrock of everyday life in the towns of the Permian Basin, still the biggest source of American oil.

Yet in this heart of Bush country, views of war with Iraq run the gamut of national opinion. For every unswerving proponent of war, there is a foe or equivocator. People here want something done about Saddam Hussein, but many cast doubt on their favorite son's diplomacy, urgency and willingness to go it alone. In terms of both their faith and their oil-dependent pocketbooks, they can see as much to lose as to gain from war.

"I feel like we will go to war, and I'll support it," said Jana Peters, 44, office manager at an oil exploration company. "I think that's the only way we can ensure our safety in my country. If Iraq doesn't want to comply with the United Nations, somebody's got to do it."

But Jonnie Miller, 56, a hardy, crew-cut preacher and owner of L & M Backhoe, which specializes in cleaning up spills in the oil fields, worries about war and a loss of lives. "The Scripture says God placed President Bush in office to take care of us," he said, "and my job is to pray for those in power to make godly decisions.

"But who over there," Mr. Miller asked, "wants us doing what we're doing except us and Kuwait? All life is precious to me. I don't want to see one Iraqi killed. I don't want to see Charles Manson killed."

To protesters who see a blood-for-oil impetus to war, people in Andrews say: don't include us. West Texas oil production has been surging, but largely because of commitments in acquiring drilling rights and lining up rigs made one to four years ago, before much talk of war. "It's not like turning on a tap," said Bradley W. Bunn, 37, a proponent of war who this week completed his seventh well in just over a year.

As in much of the Southwest where towns bloomed by cashing in on their gold, silver, copper, potash and uranium, and then atrophied when the commodities ran down or cheaper foreign commodities dislodged them, West Texas towns of Permian Basin have been slowing down since the early 1970's. Some are ghosts.

Texas produced 364 billion barrels of oil last year, 250 billion fewer than in 1992 and 15 percent of the peak production in 1973. In 2000, according to the census, the median family income in Andrews County, population 13,000, was $37,017, down from $43,756 in 1980. The median home value dropped to $42,500 from $59,558.

This city's movie theater has closed. The Hillcrest Motel is shuttered, with a For Sale sign in front. Among the biggest shops left in town are discounters — Alco, Dollar General and Family Dollar.

Lately, however, resurgence is in the air. Oil prices have rebounded from as low as $10 a barrel in the 1980's here, to $20 a year ago to nearly $40 now. By late last month 169 rigs were drilling into the basin, 20 more than in January and 40 more than a year ago, said Morris Burns, executive vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association in Midland. "That's a big increase," he said.

In Andrews, flatbed 18-wheelers lugging drilling and casing pile rumble through town, want ads are looking for welders, electricians, roughnecks and roustabouts. Companies that reactivate long-silenced wells are busy. L & M Backhoe added two more roustabouts to its team of six last week.

Economists attribute much of the rise to faster economic growth and to shrinking supplies of oil because of the oil industry strike in Venezuela and the cold winter. The markets' anticipation of war is contributing, too, they say. A shutdown of Iraqi oil fields or another Arab oil embargo could spur world prices and domestic American production.

But in Andrews, people say the more likely outcome is a short-lived spike in prices, like the one to nearly $40 a barrel as the last war in the Persian Gulf began, followed by the collapse to $20 as it ended. "We're all waiting for the hammer to fall — the next downturn in prices," said Don Ingram, publisher of the twice-weekly Andrews County News. "Everyone assumes it will go down just like before."

At Buddy's, an unabashedly patriotic diner that has held on since 1969 largely on the local appeal of a fat-encrusted deep-fried specialty called steak fingers, a table of oil business retirees while away an hour.

"We've got to get rid of Saddam Hussein," said B. L. Tipton, 77.

But what the oil patch needs most, the men said, is relative price stability like the kind they knew until the mid-1980's. "War is disruptive," said Joseph Golden, 87. "You can't get stabilized."

Anxiety about war has touched Andrews High School. An article in the latest edition of the Round Up, the student newspaper, tells of two senior girls with boyfriends in the armed forces. "I am terrified," it quotes Sara Blodgett saying. "I think they could resolve this without war."

Marcy Hubbard said, "I support a military move against Iraq, because it is better to get rid of him now so that our children and grandchildren won't have to do it." But she added, "If I could say one thing to President Bush and his military advisers, I would tell him to do what they can to protect our military personnel."

On a personal level, President Bush is widely admired in Andrews by many Democrats as much as he is by Republicans. At Buddy's, Elmer Feland, 72 and retired, voted against him and supports a war. "He still needs to be got out of there," he said of Mr. Bush. His wife, Betty, 65 and retired, said: "I agree with that. But he's likable. I like that he believes in God and prayer."

Like him or not, some people here find the president's style in promoting war grating and unstatesmanlike. "I think of Teddy Roosevelt walking softly and carrying a big stick," Mr. Ingram said. "I think that still holds around here."

Edward J. Phillips, 75, a barber, is a Democrat-turned-independent who voted for Mr. Bush. "I think he's a good man, but he needs to slow down on some of his talking" he said. "I wish he wouldn't make so many talks. You can say more in five seconds than you can straighten out in a lifetime."

Between haircuts, Mr. Phillips unfolds a map of the Middle East. Tallying up the population there, he warned of retaliation against the United States. "If all those countries banded together, we would have problems. There's a lot of innocent people who are going to get killed if we go to war."

Mr. Bunn, who contends that the risk of not going to war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq exceeds the risk of trying to remove him from power, said: "I think anybody who listens to the president's speeches would find his language has been even and diplomatic. The idea that he's been too forceful is a bad rap.

"But there's a strain of West Texas straight talk that unfortunately may be misunderstood." Mr. Bunn said. In West Texas, he said, "black is black, white is white and an apple is an apple. We mean what we say."

www.alertnet.org Sun March 9, 2003 06:05 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. average retail gasoline prices rose over the last two weeks, as crude prices climbed to 12-year highs on fears that war in Iraq could upset Middle East oil supplies, according to a nationwide survey released on Sunday.

The national average for self-serve regular unleaded gas rose 5.31 cents to $1.72 a gallon in the two weeks ended March 7, according to the Lundberg survey of 8,000 gas stations.

Oil prices have already jumped 20 percent this year on fear that war in Iraq will hit exports from the Middle East, which pumps a third of the world's oil. Prices hit $39.99, the highest since the Gulf War on Feb 27.

The United States and Britain have since set a March 17 ultimatum for Iraq to disarm or face war. Concern is growing that rising energy costs will further strain a weak economy.

"When uncertainty about Middle East oil supply eases ... crude oil prices will fall," said Trilby Lundberg, editor of the survey.

"If that fall is substantial and sustained, gasoline prices will come tumbling down as well," she said.

An oil workers' strike in nearby Venezuela, and strong heating demand in a bitter northern winter has already drained U.S. fuel stocks. The government warned on Thursday that gasoline prices would hit record levels this summer.

California consumers can expect to pay even more as the wholesale price for the state's new gasoline blend -- made with corn-based ethanol -- have shot up in recent trading on the spot market.