White House Chief of Staff William Daley said today the Obama administration was considering tapping into the U.S. strategic oil reserve as a way to help ease soaring oil prices.

Speaking on NBC television's "Meet the Press," Daley said: "We are looking at the options. The issue of the reserves is one we are considering. It is something that only is done -- and has been done -- in very rare occasions. There's a bunch of factors that have to be looked at. And it is just not the price."

"All matters have to be on the table when you see the difficulty coming out of this economic crisis we're in and the fragility," Daley added.

Labels: America After Oil

A gas shortage that closed many stations Monday and left motorists in lines of up to an hour or more at others promises more of the same today.

And worse yet, there will no quick fix in the next several days, officials said.

“People are panicked,” said Marsha Messer, manager of the Roadrunner Shell station on Merrimon Avenue. Messer stood in the station’s parking lot Monday afternoon directing lines of cars.

“We’ve already had three fights today. That’s why we have the cops here, “ she said, pointing to Asheville police patrol cars parked to the side.

The shortages have spread across much of the Southeast as most the 15 Gulf Coast refineries shut down by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike have yet to come back on line, cutting the nation’s petroleum supply by 22 percent.

Some experts said Asheville’s relative remoteness from the Colonial Pipeline, the main artery for East Coast gasoline supplies, and sparse population compared with major metropolitan areas could be adding to the problem.

The pipeline reopened a week ago Sunday, albeit at a greatly reduced carrying rate, and some supplies are reaching the gasoline terminals in Spartanburg and Belton, S.C., that supply the mountains.

But some industry officials had as many questions as answers in trying to explain the problems Monday.

Labels: America After Oil, tinfoil

The Arctic may contain as much as a fifth of the world’s yet to-be-discovered oil and natural gas reserves, the United States Geological Survey said Wednesday as it unveiled the largest-ever survey of petroleum resources north of the Arctic Circle.

Oil companies have long suspected that the Arctic contained substantial energy resources, and have been spending billions recently to get their hands on tracts for exploration. As melting ice caps have opened up prospects that were once considered too harsh to explore, a race has begun among Arctic nations, including the United States, Russia, and Canada, for control of these resources.

The geological agency’s survey largely vindicates the rising interest. It suggests that most of the yet-to-be found resources are not under the North Pole but much closer to shore, in regions that are not subject to territorial dispute.

“For a variety of reasons, the possibility of oil and gas exploration in the Arctic has become much less hypothetical than it once was,” Donald L. Gautier, the chief geologist for the survey, said during a news conference Wednesday. “Most of the resources are on the continental shelf in areas already under territorial claims.”

The assessment, which took four years, found that the Arctic may hold as much as 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil reserves, and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This would amount to 13 percent of the world’s total undiscovered oil and about 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas.

At today’s consumption rate of 86 million barrels a day, the potential oil in the Arctic could meet global demand for almost three years. The Arctic’s potential natural gas resources are three times bigger. That equals Russia’s proven gas reserves, which is the world’s largest.

Labels: America After Oil

With residential mortgage foreclosures still on the rise, more homeowners nationwide are considering Miss Terry’s choice: whether to take in a boarder to keep their homes. Modest but growing numbers are turning to agencies nationwide like the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center Homesharing Program in Baltimore, which screen boarders to find appropriate matches and relieve some of the fear of strangers.

“We’re seeing greater numbers of marginal people,” said Kirby Dunn, executive director of HomeShare Vermont, one of several hundred programs around the country that have been formed since the 1980’s to help elderly or disabled homeowners exchange spare rooms for income or, more often, help around the house, but now being pressed to meet different needs.

“Historically,” Ms. Dunn said, “the people who come to us have been looking for someone to provide services in the home. But now, money is the bigger issue for folks. There’s definitely an increase in people looking for a revenue stream.”

Ms. Dunn said volume at the agency was up this year, with three or four times as many people seeking rooms as seeking boarders.

On a recent Saturday morning, while Miss Terry attended a training session at her church, Katherine Ongiri, 47, celebrated her first week of living in Miss Terry’s two-story house, where she pays $500 a month, in weekly installments. The women work different schedules, but have shared an occasional meal. Miss Terry helped Ms. Ongiri, who does not drive, get her check cashed, and treated her to lunch at Burger King.

“She’s good company,” Miss Terry said. “And I don’t mind helping because I know how hard it is when you’ve got to take the bus, because I’ve been there.”

Ms. Ongiri said of Miss Terry and her daughter, “I don’t mind helping her keep a roof over that girl’s head, because I know what it’s like.”

The two women’s routes to St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, which culminated in Ms. Ongiri’s moving into Miss Terry’s attic, describe the multiple hazards of the current economic downturn: stagnant wages, rising energy and food prices, exotic mortgages, job insecurity, neighborhood instability and the challenges for single working women to find safe environments for themselves and their children.

“A lot of prayer comes in,” Miss Terry said. “You don’t want someone to try to take over, or cause problems once they get a foot in the door.”

Miss Terry bought her home six years ago, in a hilly neighborhood in northeast Baltimore, for $92,000, with a government-backed mortgage and monthly payments of about $800. She had never owned a home before, and was excited to move out of subsidized housing.

After two refinance loans, like many homeowners she does not understand her current mortgage, which is an interest-only loan. What she knows is that her payments are now more than $1,000 per month, and that she cannot afford them.

“Everything was going up except my paycheck,” Miss Terry said. “During the refinance, people tell you you can get money to upgrade your home, and your mortgage will go up a little bit. O.K., but my paycheck is not rising.”

Labels: America After Oil, mortgage crisis