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Wonder no longer:  oil and gas get subsidies out the wazoo.  Here’s the latest example from British Columbia… The province will spend $408 million over 15 years to bolster northeastern B.C.’s oil and gas industry, Minister of Energy and Mines Richard Neufeld said Tuesday, which includes new or expanded support for resource road construction, community infrastructure, education and the reclamation of abandoned natural gas wells. Of course, this sort of...

Which states use the least gasoline?  Which ones have the best gas-conservation trends? Probably not who you’d think, at least for the latter question. Based on Federal Highway Administration data covering 2001 through 2003, residents of New York State use the least gasoline, person for person, of any U.S. state:  about 0.8 gallons per person per day, vs. the national average of 1.2 gallons per person.  That’s to be expected:...

This Eugene Register-Guard editorial–cautioning Oregon’s politicians to take a sober, hype-free look at biofuels before launching a program to subsidize them—is definitely worth reading.  But it makes one point that, while not clearly out-and-out wrong, at least deserves a closer look.  According to the editorial, legislative action to promote biofuels in Oregon would be unnecessary… …if biofuels could compete with other forms of energy in the marketplace. The fact that...

US gasoline prices are about to set a new record, at least in nominal terms. Prices are highest on the West Coast, where a gallon of gasoline currently sells for $2.29, on average. As we’ve pointed out before, the Northwest doesn’t produce any of its own gasoline. We refine it, sell it, and tax it, but over half of the cost of gasoline is the crude oil itself (click on...

The Vancouver Sunreported today that British Columbia and Alberta are expected to lead Canada in new vehicle sales in 2005 "thanks to healthy economies and confident consumers." The good news—aside from the confident consumers—is that hybrid vehicles, as in other parts of the Northwest, are rocketing out of BC car lots "as fast as they can be supplied." Hybrid sales have been spurred on in part because BC just doubled...

Gas prices have edged up over the past month, passing $2 a gallon in Seattle earlier this week as an east-coast cold snap pushed up crude oil prices. But no matter how high the market price goes, gas (and driving in general) is still too cheap. See, for example, the chart below, from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (from page 6-4 of this pdf).  Much of the cost of driving...

Is lax environmental regulation bad for the economy? Very likely, suggests an article in today’s Christian Science Monitor. American businesses were once world leaders in wind power, solar panel manufacturing, and coal power plant pollution scrubbers. But decades of regulatory laxness has relegated alternative energy and pollution-reduction to the back burner. Now, in order to diversify its energy portfolio or reduce air pollution, the US is forced to play catch-up....

This afternoon, Ottawa unveiled its budget. It’s got several line items of note, including $5 billion for cities through an agreement to hand over some of the proceeds of federal gasoline taxes. It’s also got $5 billion over five years for environmental programs, with an emphasis on complying with Kyoto. Creative components include a fund to help catalyze entrepreneurial greenhouse-gas reduction schemes. To me, though, the most exciting announcement is...

If you read nothing else in the news today, read Thomas Friedman’s New York Times column “No Mullah Left Behind.” The crux: "By adamantly refusing to do anything to improve energy conservation in America, or to phase in a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax on American drivers, or to demand increased mileage from Detroit’s automakers, or to develop a crash program for renewable sources of energy, the Bush team is – as...

On Wednesday, February 16, the Kyoto Protocol will come into effect, mandating participating nations to reduce their emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Canada has ratified Kyoto. The United States has not. Have you? Not literally, of course. Individuals can’t sign international treaties. They can, however, pledge to match its goals (summarized by World Resources Institute): a reduction of emissions in the United States to 7 percent below-and in Canada to...