Oil

President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday night about the military action in Libya was composed of 3,362 words. But there were two words conspicuously absent from the 30-minute address: "Oil" and "energy. " Back in the day, when politicians didn't use word like "interest" -- a word that appeared six times in Obama's speech -- as a euphemism, they spoke more plainly.  A quick history lesson (I know, I know, but I promise I'll keep this short): When Europeans were divvying up the deceased Ottoman Empire after World War I, they spoke openly of the desire to control oil fields as their reason for interest in African and Middle Eastern countries.

Robert T. Barry, a retired Exxon Oil Co. salesman and avid sports fan, died Friday from congestive heart failure at his Mays Chapel home. He was 83. The son of a lawyer and a homemaker, Robert Thomas Barry was born in Baltimore and raised on Dukeland Street. An outstanding athlete, he played varsity basketball, football and baseball at Loyola High School, from which he graduated in 1946. He was selected as a member of the All-Catholic Prep Football Team in 1945. Mr. Barry continued playing sports at what is now Loyola University Maryland, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1949.

Nearly two months into the environmental disaster triggered by BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Barack Obama made his first-ever address from the Oval Office last night in an effort to convince Americans that the government is doing enough to protect coastal areas and the livelihoods of residents threatened by the crisis. He sought to convince the public that the federal government is and has been in control and that BP will be held financially responsible, but the weakest part of his speech was the most important: the call for the United States to reduce, and eventually eliminate, our dependence on oil. Although he devoted the conclusion of his speech to the topic, he offered no more than an admonition that the nation must reduce its addiction to fossil fuels and an offer that he's open to suggestions for how to do so. The first order of business for the president appears to be convincing the public that he is in charge.

The Obama administration's latest move to permit testing for oil and gas off Maryland and other Atlantic coast states is drawing flak from both environmentalists and the oil industry. Speaking at a lightly attended public hearing Wednesday afternoon in Annapolis, some residents said they feared the testing might hurt whales and dolphins, disrupt fishing and damage tourism. They also warned that the risks of a spill were too great to warrant even looking for oil. "Avoiding activities that will harm or kill any more marine mammals is significantly more important to me than succumbing to today's frenzied pressures to reduce gasoline prices by a mere 3 cents [er gallon]

Watching the unfathomable ecological and human disaster occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by the tragic loss of the Deepwater Horizon platform and subsequent leaking of massive amounts of crude oil and gas, I can't help but feel somewhat overwhelmed by the cost to the people of the Gulf States and of the planet from our addiction to oil. Disasters of this sort occur when people try to control complex systems and fail. These grand mistakes are not at all restricted to oil drilling and production but include nuclear energy, chemical plants, aviation and even the human space flight program.

I feel so reassured knowing that we have the advanced technology to locate oil deep below the surface of the ocean floor (remember the T.V. commercials?). Yet,the remote controlled submersible vehicles being deployed in the Gulf oil well blow-out are unable to even locate a 450 ton valve of the blow-out preventer, and when they do, they can't even make it operate, when it was suppose to operate automatically when the blow-out occurred. Gee, I wonder if it was ever tested since it was first installed.

LET'S TAKE a look at oil. It's the one crucial ingredient in the world's economy, and two-thirds of the world's oil is in the region surrounding the Persian Gulf. Both the United States and Great Britain deny that the crisis over Iraq is about oil - but there's no question that the future of the oil business will be profoundly affected by what happens there in the months to come. The key, of course, is Saudi Arabia, with its giant reserves. For several years now, American policy-makers have been growing increasingly concerned about the Saudi connection.

With oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill now reaching major ocean currents, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday to assess the threat to the Chesapeake Bay and the waters off Maryland. "The immediate impact on the communities closest to the spill is obvious," the Maryland Democrat wrote in a letter to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. "But my constituents are also asking – will they see oil on the beaches of Ocean City?

Two people were injured when a tanker truck overturned in northern Baltimore County, according to the Baltimore County Fire Department. County firefighters responded at 8:20 a.m. to the 3600 block of Blemheim Road in Phoenix, a spokeswoman said. The tanker was delivering heating oil to a house, and firefighters found the truck on its side leaking oil. Hazardous material crews were called, and the Maryland Department of the Environment was contacted to stop the leak. Two patients were taken to Sinai Hospital.

In the topsy-turvy, Alice-in-Wonderland alternative universe of the tea party and its Republican toadies, small-government and free-market economic policy will save the nation from disaster. In fact, as thinking Americans know full well, the current economic crisis is largely due to the unmitigated greed of Wall Street banks and American homeowners, abetted for years by the "free market" nonsense that Reps. Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachmann continue to foist on the public. When the history of this era is written, it will be clear that the Obama administration's aggressive action saved the nation from a fate far worse than the current recession.

University of Maryland business professor Rafael Corredoira's claim that higher domestic oil production won't affect prices is flat wrong ("More domestic production won't lower gas prices," April 20). The only way that a cartel, such as OPEC, can exist is if it controls a large enough proportion of production of the product, in this case, oil. If another large supplier enters the market, OPEC must reduce its output to maintain the world price, which means that the revenue to the OPEC members will decrease.

The Obama administration's move to open the mid- and South Atlantic coasts to offshore oil and gas exploration is scheduled to get a public airing in Annapolis on Wednesday. The Annapolis session is one of a series being held from Florida to New Jersey to take public comments on the Interior Department's proposal to permit seismic and other testing off the Atlantic coast from Delaware Bay to just south of Cape Canaveral, FL The administration had proposed lifting the long-standing ban on Atlantic offshore exploration in 2010, but then reinstated it in the wake of the massive Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.  Last month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Atlantic testing was back on as part of President Obama's "all-of-the-above" energy strategy.

Rafael Corredoira's understanding and explanation of the U.S. petroleum markets is ludicrous. ("More domestic production won't lower gas prices," April 20.) I would need a full page to rebut his assertions. He is as astute as Nancy Pelosi and her view that more imported Canadian crude would be refined and exported. More crude is imported than is required for U.S. markets. Petroleum products are exported because there has been excess refining capacity in the U.S. since 2008 when the U.S. economy went into the tank and oil demand declined.

Baltimore-based Pompeian Inc. has become the first olive oil maker to have the quality of its products backed by the United States Department of Agriculture, the company announced. The manufacturer has obtained approval for its extra virgin and extra virgin organic olive oils through the USDA's Quality Monitoring Program, which tests products to verify purity and quality. To enter the USDA program, Pompeian agreed to unannounced visits and testing of product samples. The product verification will allow the privately owned company to start placing a USDA logo on its products this month and will give consumers additional assurances, said David Bensadoun, chief executive officer of Pompeian.

Gasoline prices continue to climb, and the Republican presidential candidates would have us believe that this is the direct result of President Barack Obama's energy policies. They say that if only he would get out of the way of the oil companies and stop dreaming up ever more environmental regulations, we'd all be paying $2.50 a gallon. They are wrong, of course. Gasoline prices are high because demand is high. And while the unquenchable thirst for petroleum in India and China has a place it all of this, it is mostly my fault.

Campaigning for office, President Barack Obama promised to do something about high gas prices, but now he is denying he can do much about what Americans pay to drive. He is too modest. In September 2008, Steven Chu said to The Wall Street Journal: "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe" - and Barack Obama picked him to be secretary of the Department of Energy. When President Obama was inaugurated, gas was selling for $1.90 a gallon, and it is now nearly $4. Not quite European levels, but doubling gas prices is a good start.

WINSTON Churchill once said, "mastery itself was the prize." He was describing his 1911 gamble in converting the Royal Navy from safe Welsh coal to the dicey oil of Persia.Oil has been synonymous with mastery ever since, writes Daniel Yergin in a monumental new book, "The Prize" (Simon & Schuster). An energy economist, Yergin traces the saga of petroleum from the seeding of industrial capitalism through the wars of the 20th century to today's post-Cold War standoff. Saddam Hussein comes across as a rather ordinary player in his bizarre cast of transient heroes, villains and screwballs.

OUR NATIONAL strength is dangerously dependent on a thin line of oil tankers stretching halfway around the Earth, originating in the Middle East and around the Persian Gulf -- one of the most unstable regions in the world."

Emergency operations officials in Harford County said persistent calls received about gas odors from numerous locations in the county early Friday morning appear to be related to fumes from an oil refinery in New Jersey. No sources of gas were found in the county, but local fire companies were busy throughout Friday morning and into the early afternoon responding to calls of gas odors or suspected gas leaks. Harford Emergency Operations spokesman Rick Ayers said early Friday morning the county was informed by state emergency operations officials that fumes from an industrial facility in New Jersey had been detected in the air in Harford and Cecil counties and in New Castle County, Del. In a later statement, the county government said the fumes were from an oil refinery in Paulsboro, N.J., which is on the New Jersey shore of the Delaware River and across the river from Philadelphia International Airport.

Under international pressure over its nuclear ambitions, Iran is now threatening to take pre-emptive action, which could include disrupting oil supplies to the West. It will come as a shock to most Americans, but no presidential candidate - nor, apparently, any agency at the local, state or federal level - has developed a contingency plan in the event of a protracted oil cut-off. It is not even being discussed. Government has prepared for hurricanes, anthrax, terrorism and every other disaster, but not the one threatened daily: a protracted oil stoppage, whether caused by terrorism or Iranian intervention in the Persian Gulf.