Energy

Oil prices fell below $97 a barrel on Monday after Hurricane Ike inflicted minimal damage to oil installations on the Texas coast.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery declined $4.39 to $96.79 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by noon in Europe. The contract rose 31 cents on Friday to settle at $101.18 after dropping as low as $99.99 per barrel. Before that, the last time Nymex crude traded below the $100 mark was April 2...

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), thinks the congressional ban on new
offshore oil drilling should be allowed to expire on Sept. 30, opening the door
for new drilling leases to be issued to oil companies. However, Boehner is not
sure whether President Bush should veto any congressional appropriations bill
that contains the ban, should one reach his desk prior to Sept. 30...

Sen. John McCain flew by helicopter to the Chevron Genesis oil drilling platform
in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday to reiterate his call for the United States to
begin selling new offshore oil drilling leases.

Such leases have been significantly restricted by a moratorium that has been included in the
annual Interior Department appropriation bill every year since 1982. The
moratorium will expire on September 30 when the current Interior appropriation
expires unless an extension is approved by Congress and signed into law by
President Bush...

House Republicans promised to be back on the floor of the U.S. House of
Representatives on Monday. They say they’ll continue the protest that began last
Friday when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sent lawmakers home for the
rest of the summer without allowing a vote on energy legislation.

This year's Permanent Fund dividend check — what Alaskans receive each year from
the state's oil-revenue investment fund — is likely to be more than $2,000, the
first time since the state began making the payments in 1982 that the dividend
has topped two grand.

The biggest previous dividend was $1963.86 in 2000. Last year's was
$1,654.

The dividend spins off the Alaska Permanent Fund, the state's $37 billion oil
wealth savings account.

Some 90 billion barrels of oil and a third of the world's undiscovered natural gas lie beneath an area north of the Arctic Circle, government scientists estimate in the largest-ever survey of the energy resources there. The U.S. Geological Survey, which announced the findings Wednesday, called the region, which includes parts of the United States, Russia and Canada, "the largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth."

The Senate on Tuesday cleared the way for a vote on the only “oil price” bill that has a chance of passing before the August recess. The bill, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), aims to curb “out-of-control” speculation in the oil futures market and increase transparency and accountability in the oil and gas markets

In T. Boone Pickens' war on terror, the enemy is foreign oil.

Pickens, the Republican Texas oil mogul, testified Tuesday before a Senate panel to lay out his new, self-titled "Pickens Plan"; to boost renewable energy sources, get the U.S. transportation sector off oil and cut U.S. use of foreign petroleum.

Two Republicans told Cybercast News Service that lawmakers who do not support expanded domestic oil drilling are to blame for the high gas prices Americans are facing at the pump.

President Bush announced on Monday that he will lift the executive order banning offshore drilling, a move that Republicans consider essential to boosting oil supply. Some Democrats, however, say the move won’t lower gasoline prices any time soon.

Bush criticized the Democrat-controlled Congress, saying that it “sat idle” as gasoline prices rose. The American Automobile Association (AAA) listed the national average for unleaded, regular gasoline Monday at $4.109, compared with $3.054 a year ago