Tag Archive | "greed"

State’s Drivers Ease Up On The Gas

Sunday, October 2, 2011

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"The pain in their wallets is causing them to rethink their lifestyles," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, a frequent critic of Big Oil. "People tend to be a lot more environmentally conscious when just ignoring it is going to cost them something." The changes are even more significant, Court said, given the steady rise in the number of drivers. "It shows that ultimately we can solve both the higher emission problem and the higher consumption problem associated with more drivers if we can continue to improve fuel efficiency technology," Court said.

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Oil Drops 14%, Gas Only 3.4% – Fuel Prices Vary Significantly

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

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"There's an old saying in [the] gasoline [industry]," Judy Dugan, research director for Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, Calif., said Monday. "Prices go up like a rocket and down like a feather. There is a higher disconnect between the actual price of oil and the price of gasoline." Gasoline prices have been viewed as the "last bastion of competition," Dugan said, "but in this case that appears to have failed." Still, gasoline prices in the state vary significantly.

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Why Is Gasoline Price Staying High?

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

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Why Is Gasoline Price Staying High?

The old adage about gasoline prices, “up like a rocket, down like a feather,” has never been so true. The price of crude oil in recent days has been down near $80 a barrel, translating to about $1.92 a gallon. But the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline, according to AAA, is [...]

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Chevron Witness Pay: Is It Really Hush Money?

Monday, April 18, 2011

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Chevron Witness Pay: Is It Really Hush Money?

Chevron's army of lawyers isn't its only weapon in staving off the demand of Ecuadoran peasants that the company clean up its toxic drilling mess in the Amazon. Chevron is also happy to use deception, secret video and dirty tricksters. The problem with tricksters, however, is that it can be hard to keep them in the fold, and they can be so darned greedy. Consider the tale of secret videotaper Diego Borja, and the "expense money"of at least $169,000 that Chevron has heaped on him since August 2009.

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Gas Prices Keep Soaring As U.S. Fuels Other Countries’ Growth

Monday, April 11, 2011

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Gas Prices Keep Soaring As U.S. Fuels Other Countries’ Growth

California-based nonprofit, Consumer Watchdog, recently provided a clue to where the "missing" gasoline may have gone. Recently, Judy Dugan, a petroleum market commentator for Consumer Watchdog, noted that the shares of oil refiners jumped in price last month "on bets that Japan would soon have to import a lot more heating oil and gasoline because of refinery fires and quake/ tsunami damage."

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Near Record High Gas Prices Not About Unrest In Middle East

Thursday, March 10, 2011

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Consumer Watchdog's Jamie Court discusses why the spike in gas prices - especially in California - has nothing to do with civil unrest, and everything to do with profiteering.

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Why California Drivers Pay More For Gasoline

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

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The new blends cost an estimated 5 to 15 cents more to make per gallon than standard-issue, regular gas. Plus, California became dependent on a limited number of refineries, and those refineries reaped higher profit margins than similar facilities elsewhere in the United States. "It's a stranded market, and it's much easier to control prices in a stranded market," said Judy Dugan, research director of the Consumer Watchdog nonprofit group.

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Consumer Watchdog Says Rising Gas Prices Are Form Of Highway Robbery

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

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On KFMB-TV Channel 8 in San Diego, CA, Judy Dugan from Consumer Watchdog says rising gas prices are a form of highway robbery.

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Facts of Life On High Gas Prices: It’s the Speculators & Oil Companies To Blame Not Middle East

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

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Facts of Life On High Gas Prices: It’s the Speculators & Oil Companies To Blame Not Middle East

While skirmishes in Libya and uncertainty in the Middlie East are nice cover for outrageous gasoline prices, the fact is the same old suspects are making a killing from sky-high gas prices approaching $4 dollars per gallon in California: big oil companies and greedy speculators.

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What BP’s Secrecy on Payout Deals Sacrifices

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

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What BP’s Secrecy on Payout Deals Sacrifices

We've reported about what's wrong in the secrecy around BP's payments to Kenneth Feinberg and his law firm, which is doling out compensation for BP's devastating oil spill in the Gulf. Monday, though, the Center for Justice and Democracy got deep into the guts of the matter.

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BP’s Cost Chiselers Back in Action

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

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BP’s Cost Chiselers Back in Action

Late last week, as the presidential oil spill commission’s co-chair and staff blamed BP’s cost-cutting and “failure of management” for the devastating spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP managers claimed that the government estimate of the amount of the spill by should be cut 20% to 50%, which would save the company billions in [...]

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Jerry Brown, Can Fiji Make You a Wimp?

Thursday, December 2, 2010

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Jerry Brown, Can Fiji Make You a Wimp?

The wee island nation of Fiji managed Wednesday to back down a California-owned company and extract a fee of 8 US cents per liter on Fiji Water. The state of California can't even manage to back down Big Oil and charge a few cents a gallon on oil pumped out of its public lands. Jerry Brown, are you listening?

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Group Calls on Obama To Remove Oil Panel’s Chief Lawyer for Conflict of Interest After Commission Refuses

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

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Consumer Watchdog NEWS RELEASE Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010 Contact: Judy Dugan, 213-280-0175; or Jamie Court, 310-392-0075 Washington, D.C. — Consumer Watchdog today called on President Obama to remove the general counsel to the national Oil Spill Commission after the commission itself refused to either dismiss him or investigate his apparent conflicts of interest, including his [...]

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