If we don’t learn from our mistakes, then we are doomed to repeat them. In the 1970s, we had oil and gas problems. We had the chance to correct it and all we did was talk. It’s now 30 years later and what did we learn? We did nothing! And now we are so much worse for it. We really have nobody to blame but ourselves. We can continue to do nothing about it still, and in a short time we will be paying $15 a gallon./ I’m not saying we can fix this overnight. However, if we did something 30 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Getting more oil and gas isn’t going to solve our problem completely. We need to develop alternative fuels and energy, but we wait. We need nuclear energy. It’s safer than we ever thought. Look how many countries are using it. When was the last time there was a problem? We need to go back to using coal. Wind power is working in many countries. We can use it here also. We don’t need to rely on these methods alone. We have so many other sources. And most of them don’t require using food. Why starve ourselves to make cheap gas? Now is the time to act. Drill here and drill now. JAMES BOUCK Rotterdam
The rates shown in the table don't equate to a 10% increase. The percentage increase is much higher. 36% increase for the first 3 therms, 22% for each additional.
There is more to this than what is presented. Perhaps the effects of subsidy programs to the lower income ? The 10% increase appears to be to their revenue figure.
Quoted Text
... rate increase for natural gas service for an increase in rates to $95,263,000 ...
In college I owned a 1962 VW Bug and then a 1969 Bug- ( this was 1970 ) Both got 30 + mpg-
I would love to own a bug.....my next car I think......anyhow
I would like to pose the question of a 'false' job/income numbers....on child car seat laws and the effects there of...... who owns the companies that build them? who is invested in them? lawmakers? insurance companies? car manufacturers?
folks cannot have a family of 5 or 6 and have one car called 'the bug' or anyother car that truly only fits 4 people 2 of whom are in car seats...... attack on the middle class? attack on the family? there go the country's building blocks......
there is still no straw for the bricks......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Why don't we all start making a list of all of the things we are either doing without or changes we 'have to make' in our life styles because of the increase in fuel prices. How is this 'economic crisis' impacting you?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Clyde Haberman, who writes about life in the Big Apple for The New York Times, has devoted his last two weekly columns to an issue with statewide, if not national, implications: New York City merchants’ penchant for leaving their doors wide open when their air conditioners are on full-blast. It’s an extremely wasteful practice, and though some environmentally minded people think it should be banned, neither the New York City Council or Mayor Michael Bloomberg seem inclined to support such a law. They couldn’t be more wrong. Wasting energy is no longer just a personal issue — not when doing so affects everybody to the extent that it does. With oil at $135 per barrel and gasoline at $4-plus per gallon, the pain is here and now. And with home heating oil pushing $5 per gallon, it’s bound to get worse — perhaps even perilously — next winter. Fossil fuel (e.g. oil, natural gas or coal) is used to generate most of the electricity in this state; so governments like New York City’s are obligated to take action when individuals or businesses do stupid things to waste it, in whatever form. The world is dealing with finite supplies of these resources, and over the short term, getting people to consume less of them is the only way to spare us from more ruinous price hikes. Whether it’s a shopkeeper air conditioning the outdoors in an attempt to lure customers off the sidewalk, a school bus driver letting the engine idle while he takes a cigarette break, or a motorist speeding down the Thruway at 75 mph, laws need to written — and enforced — to discourage these kinds of activities. Otherwise, we’ll only have ourselves to blame when energy prices go higher and the suffering gets worse. And just because the energy is being wasted in New York City doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect people in the Capital Region. We’re all sharing the same finite supplies, and the price we pay is determined, in part, by how much others are using. If New York City doesn’t force its shopkeepers to behave more responsibly, maybe the state Legislature should.
Northeast braces for heating oil price increases Some homeowners may face choice between eating and heating BY ANDREW MIGA The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New Englanders struggling this summer to pay gas prices topping $4 a gallon should brace for more bad news — home heating oil costs next winter are expected to hit record highs. One retail heating oil dealer says she expects a typical household delivery that cost $500 last winter will climb to at least $850 this winter. “It’s going to be staggering,” said Northboro Oil Co. owner Sandra Farrell in telephone interview with The Associated Press. “It’s going to be a real problem going into this winter for everyone unless something changes.” Farrell, whose family has owned and operated the Northborough, Mass., business since 1953, said some dealers are talking about prices in the $4.89 per gallon range for the coming winter, about $2 more per gallon than last winter. An average household usually needs four deliveries from December to March, she said. Record-high crude oil prices have sent gasoline costs soaring this year. The National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which represents state-run low income energy assistance programs, recently predicted that home heating oil costs will hit record levels this winter. The group said the national average cost to heat a home with oil this winter will be $2,593, up from $1,962 last winter. Families in coldweather Northeast states will be hit even harder. About 40 percent of Massachusetts homes use oil heat. More than 963,000 households in the state use home heating oil, which is delivered by more than 800 distributors, many of them small businesses. In Maine, one of the nation’s coldest states, four out of five households heat with oil. Farrell told a Senate panel she expects high heating oil costs will force many cash-strapped families to make tough choices between eating and staying warm. “It is very tough looking into the eyes of these customers when they ask me what I think they should do,” Farrell said in testimony Wednesday at a Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing. “I don’t know what to tell them. For the first time I think some of my customers are going to have to choose between main essentials like groceries, gasoline, warm clothes and heating oil just to pay their bills.” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who heads the Small Business panel, warned of an impending crisis in the Northeast, which is more reliant on oil heat than other regions. “It is reality not rhetoric that price spikes will force people to decide whether to feed their families or heat their homes,” Kerry said at the hearing. Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, the panel’s ranking Republican member, said high oil prices are a matter of life and death. She said parts of Maine could literally “become uninhabitable” for many this winter. “When people can’t afford the cost of home heating oil, they simply freeze,” Snowe said. “Consumers and small businesses are being stretched to the limit and beyond, but nowhere is the ensuing calamity looming larger than in New England, where just getting through this winter is fast-becoming our No. 1 priority.” To ease the oil heating price crunch, Kerry and Snowe are pushing legislation to give businesses hurt by high heating oil costs access to credit through Small Business Administration disaster loan programs. They also want to help more families by expanding government home heating aid through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Millions of poor and elderly people on fixed incomes rely on heating assistance to help pay their bills. Snowe has a bill, co-sponsored by Kerry, to mandate that heating oil from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve should be released if home heating oil tops $4 per gallon this winter. Farrell said the line between running a business and a social services agency can sometimes seem to blur when she’s dealing with families who can’t afford to heat their homes. “It is painful to have to tell someone when the temperature outside is below zero that we cannot deliver to them because they have no money,” she said in testimony. “I have made so many exceptions, but if I make too many more, the business won’t survive.” Small oil dealers are feeling squeezed because many customers can’t pay, or else they get way behind in what they owe. The credit crunch means dealers can’t pay their suppliers, who want their money within 10 days, Farrell said. “We’re finding the cash coming in very slowly,” Farrell said.
CAPITAL REGION Heating forecast causing chills Soaring oil prices spark winter worries BY J. JUDE HAZARD Gazette Reporter
Although afternoon temperatures will hover around 80 degrees this week and furnaces have long since been turned off for the summer, some people are already looking toward winter as home heating oil prices continue to skyrocket. According to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the average price for heating oil in the Capital Region was just under $4.57 per gallon last month, 77.3 percent higher than local prices in June 2007. The estimated 8 million American households that use home heating oil may need to bundle up and turn the thermostat down at home this winter. John Bove Jr., the chief financial officer of G. A. Bove Fuels in Mechanicville, said customers are buying less heating oil this year than in the past. “Higher oil prices lessen margin, so we don’t make as much,” he said. “It costs more to operate our vehicles. All of our vehicles operate on diesel fuel.” Bove said the company normally buys about 50 percent of the home heating oil it will sell in the winter by July to take advantage of low summer demand, but due to the volatility of the market, it has purchased less than 20 percent of its expected winter sales so far this year. “We don’t want to get stuck high, but unfortunately that leaves us to the whim of the market,” he said. “It’s a nightmare.” The company is still offering budgeted and prepaid plans where customers can either pay for their winter fuel months in advance or smooth energy costs out over a 10-month period during the year. Bove Fuels services about 2,700 customers in the area. One Bove customer, Mechanicville Mayor Anthony Sylvester, said that he plans to consider buying his personal home heating oil on a budget plan this year. He said he spent about $1,800 last year on home heating oil and expects that cost to nearly double this year. “I think I might get on a budget plan this year. I never have been before,” he said. “It’s going to impact whether I decide to take retirement, [whether I can] continue the lifestyle I lead.” He said he also plans to lower his thermostat and wear sweaters and socks around the house and will encourage his wife to do the same. “They’re definitely cutting back,” Bove said. “Some people are planning on winterizing half their house and just not using half their house [during the winter].” “We certainly encourage people to look at what’s available out there to help them reduce energy costs,” NYSERDA spokeswoman Colleen Ryan said. “I think energy is something people are much more aware of and our programs have helped throughout the years to reduce energy costs for folks.” Ryan said one suggestion to reduce heating costs is to use a programmable thermostat that adjusts the temperature when nobody is home. She also suggested paying a contractor to inspect the home for any areas where energy effi ciency could be improved. NYSERDA offers assistance or loans to qualifying low-income households to help pay for costs involved in making a home more energy efficient, Ryan said. According to a U.S. Department of Energy study, crude oil accounts for about 42 percent of the cost of home heating oil. Marketing and distributing makes up 46 percent and refining accounts for the other 12 percent of the cost. Home heating oil was under $1 per gallon in the Capital Region as recently as November 1999. The price hit $2 per gallon in November 2004 and was up to $3.17 last November, according to NYSERDA. “We think it’s going to peak this summer and then start to drift down, because the economy can’t sustain these prices,” Bove said. “Eventually, there will be less demand, and if demand weakens and supply stays steady, then obviously the price will come down in theory.”
“We think it’s going to peak this summer and then start to drift down, because the economy can’t sustain these prices,” Bove said. “Eventually, there will be less demand, and if demand weakens and supply stays steady, then obviously the price will come down in theory.”
What a power point presentation that is......ha ha ha ha ha......how about the elephant in the room-----WAR EFFORT------
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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