Gas

Not buying BP gasoline is shortsighted ("Ill will at BP pumps," June 15). We need to keep BP healthy and profitable so they can pay the cleanup bills. Mike Finan, Glen Burnie

“Would you like to buy a carbon offset with your purchase today?” That's a question you hear more often when you rent a car or buy groceries at MOM'S Organic Markets. Now, you also have that option when you buy natural gas to heat your home. Here's the lowdown on carbon offsets, and two “green natural gas” suppliers that offer to conveniently reduce your carbon footprint.   What is a carbon offset? A carbon offset is when you pay for greenhouse gas reductions elsewhere equal to the amount of those gases you're generating from a particular activity or purchase.  Greenhouse gases (chiefly carbon dioxide and methane)

Will the environmentalists who object to offshore oil drilling come fill up my gas tank when gas is $8 per gallon ("Black gold or fool's gold?" April 1)? Of course not, they have cushy, all-expenses-paid jobs, grant money they can squander protesting anyplace that has good food and travel, or they're simply blind, pampered individuals who have never had to hold an accountable job in their lives. In order to get off of Middle East oil, we have to send a message to the rich arrogant sheiks who could care less and to our own nation that we are using the God given resources and that it's time for a change.

Gov. Martin O'Malley on Thursday signed a gun-control bill that is among the country's most sweeping legislative responses to the December mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. The law bans the sale of assault-style rifles, including the AR-15 used in the Newtown killing of six educators and 20 first- and second-graders. The law limits gun ownership for people with mental illness, outlaws the sale of high-capacity magazines and establishes the nation's first new handgun licensing scheme in two decades.

With the price of gas high and taking a larger portion of our paycheck when we fill up, why doesn't the city make a timely, concentrated effort to move traffic more efficiently? When I first moved to Baltimore seven years ago I was told over $30 million was spent to automate the city's traffic lights. This should mean if you continue to travel in one direction at the posted speed limit, the lights should stay green. Instead, I often find myself stopping at every light, especially on Hanover Street.

A bill that would have let gas utilities seek a surchage of up to $2 a month on customers' bill was shot down -- for a second time --  Wednesday by a bipartisan coalition of senators who contended the measure would let monopolies charge ratepayers up front for infrastructure improvements the companies now have to finance out of their own coffers. The Senate defeated the measure 22-24, reaffirming a similar vote earlier Tuesday. After the bill's original 22-23 defeat, a motion to reconsider passed, but a new debate Wednesday failed to reassure lawmakers that the bill provided sufficient safeguards for residential customers.

The Q: Whether it's the telephone company or electric company, reading utility bills can be a mind-boggling experience. With words like "Interlata Carrier Name" and "Franchise Tax," it can be difficult trying to figure out what you are paying for exactly. Reader Jennifer of Baltimore was perplexed recently by her Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. bill. "Can you explain to me what the `gas delivery' charge on my BGE bill is?" she said. "I have tracked my bills monthly in Excel for the past few years, and the `gas delivery' seems to vary all the time - even on a per-day or per-therm basis the rate changes every month.

I've got another annoyance that Dan Rodricks can add to his list ("Overpriced popcorn, O's early-season tease and other annoyances," April 26). It's when I go to the gas station to fill up and I see the price of $4.05 and 9/10 per gallon. Give me a break! Come on, already and lose the 9/10! Do they think we're all stupid? Why not just go $4.05 and 99/100 or $4.05 and 999/1000. Sheesh! The first gas station that I see that loses the 9/10ths of a cent will get all my business.

About 20 homes in Woodlawn were evacuated Saturday afternoon after a gas meter leak was discovered, officials said. The gas leak was discovered at about noon in the 1500 block of Kellys Court in Baltimore County, officials said. The leak was secured by 12:48 p.m. and the residents were able to return to their homes shortly after. No one was injured in the incident, officials said. ywenger@baltsun.com

While the state takes in $77 million a year from speed cameras ("Welcome to Md.," Dec. 13), not to mention red light cameras, do we really need massive toll increases and huge gas tax increases? This state already taxes and spends way too much of our money. There seems to be no conscious effort at spending control, especially if there are a few votes to be influenced in yet another gerrymandered, lopsided election. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller should add a few more idiots to the tax and budget committee.

Maryland's MARC commuter trains, which have always operated Monday through Friday, will begin offering weekend service between Baltimore and Washington on the Penn Line in coming months. The expansion - put on hold in 2008 when the recession hit - is possible as the result of the new transportation revenue law that raises the state's gas tax, officials said. The governor signed the bill Thursday. The news was welcomed by Baltimore officials, who said it would offer city residents a less expensive means than Amtrak of traveling to Washington for weekend events while also encouraging D.C. residents to travel to Charm City.

The gas tax increase Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law Thursday will pay for weekend MARC service between Baltimore and D.C., roads and bridges throughout the state and construction on the Red and Purple lines to begin as soon as 2015. The first phase of the tax increase - 4 cents per gallon - will arrive in July, but officials already decided how to spend an $1.2 billion it will generate over the next six years. The tax is expected to increase at least three more times until July 2016, bringing the total tax increase to as much as 19.5 cents per gallon, according to state estimates released Thursday.  Here is the list of 10 projects officials announced immediately after the gas tax bill was signed:  $100 million to add weekend service to the MARC Penn line beginning this winter, two more round-trips on the Camden line during the week by next spring and new locomotives this summer.

Robert M. Douglass, former chief engineer of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.'s Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, died Monday of cancer at his home in Port Republic, Calvert County. He was 88. The son of an electrical engineer and a homemaker, Robert Mann Douglass was born in Hartford, Conn., and raised in Wethersfield, Conn., where he graduated in 1942 from Wethersfield High School. He served as a paratrooper with the 11th Airborne in the Pacific and with occupying forces in Japan during World War II. After the war, he enrolled at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., where he earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1950.

The Senate voted Monday to allow states to assess a sales tax on purchases from Amazon.com, eBay and other online retailers in a bipartisan measure that would also reduce the increase planned for Maryland's gas tax. The bill, which passed 69-27, would resolve a long-standing complaint of brick-and-mortar business owners, who say they struggle to compete with online companies that don't charge sales tax. The legislation requires Internet sellers to...

A Baltimore man who was found suffering from a gunshot wound in Rosedale early Sunday morning had driven to the gas station where he collapsed onto the parking lot, Baltimore County police said Monday. Robert Wynder Jr., 23, of the 1700 block of Montpelier Ave., was shot in a different location before driving to a Shell gas station on Kenwood Avenue in a gold four-door Honda Civic, police said. Officers were called to the gas station at 4:28 a.m., where Wynder was suffering from at least one gunshot wound in front of the gas station.

Remember the 1980s? It was to be the decade of Japanese dominance. A post-Jimmy Carter America would be unable to compete with the efficient Japanese jobs machine. Aging technology, lazy management and high-cost labor would ensure America's rapid demise at the hands of the ascendant Asian economic superpower. History records a very different evolution, however, including a prolonged economic slump that continues to haunt the Japanese economy to this day. At the onset of a new millennium, many pundits predicted it would be the Chinese who would dislodge America from its dominant economic perch.

%HTMLsymbol; %HTMLspecial; ]> bz.digest05.ART Chevron pulls out from 1,100 gas stations in East NEW YORK - Chevron will pull its name from about 1,100 service stations in eastern states, the oil giant said Friday. It's just the latest oil major to cut back on retail operations where profit margins can be razor-thin.

From The Aegis of Thursday, April 26, 1962: A disturbingly large leak of propane gas had Bel Air on edge 50 years ago this week. The news staff quoted a firefighter in the county seat saying: "Half the town was sitting on a bomb, but nobody lit the fuse!" A tank truck parked at Dallam Place was undergoing a repair to a faulty gasket when a leak was sprung and about 100 gallons of liquefied gas was sprayed into the air. Fire and ambulance crews responded to the scene, houses were evacuated and the area was secured for about three hours to allow the gas to dissipate.

An allegedly intoxicated man allegedly drove into two homes on East MacPhail Road in Bel Air Wednesday night, hit a propane gas line that started a fire at one house and then backed his pickup truck into the other and knocked part of it off of its foundation, according to police. The driver, later identified as Michael Lee Smith, 54, of the 1000 block of Cedar Lane in Bel Air, then allegedly left the scene and was arrested a short time later near his home. At about 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, Harford County Sheriff's deputies were sent to the 1000 block of East MacPhail Road, where a vehicle, later identified as a 2001 blue Chevy Silverado, drove off the road and hit a home and propane gas line, starting a fire, according to a press release from the Harford County Sheriff's Office.

Online shoppers would have to pay state sales taxes on more purchases under legislation that advanced in the U.S. Senate on Monday - but Marylanders could also wind up paying a smaller increase in gasoline taxes. Bricks-and-mortar stores have long sought changes to a federal law that they say gives online companies such as eBay an advantage: Most Internet retailers don't charge sales tax, and most consumers ignore requirements to declare their online purchases for state taxing purposes.