Energy Sector

It's Not a Space Shuttle or a Giant Rock, But Chevron's 100-Foot Coke Drums Shut Down the PCH Yesterday

See also: *20 Ways to Pose for Photos at the LACMA Rock *LACMA Rock Finally Opens. Does It Live Up to Expectations? Last night, Chevron began moving two of six 500,000-pound coke drums -- that's oil industry lingo for processing units -- up from the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro to its refinery ... More >>

Gas-Price Gouging Possible As Cost of a Gallon Reaches New Record High in L.A.

See also: *Gas Prices Could Reach All-Time High in L.A. Gas prices set a new record in California over the weekend. Is this a scam? Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to launch an "immediate investigation" into the price spikes because, she stated, "it does no ... More >>

Gas Leak

Bill Morrison/Johann Johannsson

Chevron Refinery in El Segundo 'Avoided Paying Millions of Dollars in Taxes'

It's officially election season in America, and few topics are hotter or divide us more than taxes: Should the rich pay more? Do the wealthy carry the rest of us? Do corporations pay their fair share? On that last one, KCET's news series, SoCal Connected, might have a partial answer:

The Big Fix review

William Barry Wise, Worker at Carson BP Refinery, Crushed to Death by Railcar

terrapsych.comBP's refinery in Carson, where Wise was killed.​A longtime employee of the BP refinery in Carson died early yesterday morning while on the job. The L.A. County Coroner identifies him today as 54-year-old white man William Barry Wise, an Irvine resident. BP spokesman Walter Neil ... More >>

Jesse Marquez: Thorn of Industry

Hydraulic 'Fracking' -- New Oil-Drilling Technique -- Could Create Jobs, Poison Tap Water in California

What's a little contamination in the name of the drill?​The nation was abuzz yesterday with highly unsustainable news of a fresh way to squeeze millions more barrels of oil from the deepest Earthstuffs of America the Beautiful: It's called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" among Big Oil exec ... More >>

BP Puts Monster SoCal Refinery -- 25 Percent of All L.A. Gas -- Up for Sale

terrapsych.comBP Carson Refinery: officially on the market​It's easy to hate BP. Those jerks made the glistening Gulf of Mexico into a goopy seafood dish that lined our nightmares in black slime and swallowed helpless baby animals whole. And that was just the view from unaffected California, ... More >>

Gloria Allred, L.A. Attorney to the Stars, and the Children of Huntington Beach vs. $8 Million Chevron Solar Panels: We Want Our Lawn Back

Gloria Allred departs Hollywood for a Huntington Beach middle school today​Updated after the jump: Gloria and 200 angry middle-schoolers give police, school administrators -- and most of all Chevron -- a piece of their mind. We're more used to seeing L.A. attorney Gloria Allred fight for the ... More >>

Need A Crack Pipe? Arco Gas Station Near Watts Middle School Reportedly Has Them

ReelUrbanNewsBP spills oil on our shores and apparently sells us crack pipes too. ​You would think our British friends over at BP had enough bad press over that whole Gulf oil spill thing to get a handle on its image, particularly in the U.S. Nothing a few mil thrown at a good P.R. or "crisis ... More >>

LA Weekly Flickr Pool Reader Photo of the Day: BP Oil Spill at Wolvesmouth Dinner

This LA Weekly Flickr pool photo comes to you from of our oft-used photographer djjewelz, who took this at the underground Wolvesmouth dinner from Chef Craig Thornton, formerly of Bouchon. The dish pictured is something of a back-handed homage to the people over at BP: uni "polenta," squid, uni, oys ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 7/6-7/9

In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "The Tam O'Shanter in Atwater Village, owned by the Lawry's family, is also as ersatz as can be, a Disney version of a Scottish inn that in fact started its life as a drive-in restaurant, but something tells me it's the ... More >>

Is Your Olive Oil Really Extra Virgin? U.S. Called a "Dumping Ground for Cheap Olive Oil"

Flickr/Kevan"Extra virgin" olive oil may contain safflower, canola or peanut oil--and there's nothing you can do about it.​BP isn't the only disreputable oil company in the United States. Apparently there are no rules regulating olive oil here. Which means that purveyors can sell consumers any ... More >>

La Nogalera Walnuts: Great For Cooking Cleaning up Oil Spills

Brooke BurtonCan walnut shells really stop oil leaks and filter polluted water?​ Go to the Hollywood farmers market to sample La Nogalera's excellent walnut oil from the Santa Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County, and you may quickly identify the nutritional benefits for salads and vegetable sid ... More >>

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free ... More >>

Bicyclists Clash with LAPD

Bad blood continues despite attempts at detente

Bicyclist Who Videotaped Alleged LAPD Use Of Force Files Claim, Says He Was Kicked By Cops

The kick that started a firestorm.​The man who filmed a police officer throwing a kick toward a bicyclist during a protest ride last weekend has filed a claim against the Los Angeles Police Department and the city of L.A. that alleges, in part, that he was thrown to the ground and kicked by at ... More >>

LAPD Officers Involved In Clash With Bicyclists Removed From Duty

​Officers involved in a Hollywood clash with bicyclists protesting British Petroleum's role in the Gulf oil spill over the weekend have been removed from duty as the Los Angeles Police Department continued to investigate the incident, Fox 11 News reported. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck showed up at ... More >>

James Cameron to Plug Oil Spill By Losing His Temper At a Production Assistant

​Federal officials met today with filmmaker James Cameron as they look for ideas on how to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.No really. That happened.Cameron was among a group of experts on deepwater operations and drilling who sat down with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency. No w ... More >>

LAPD Officers In Hot Water Over Bike Ride Incident Caught On Tape

YouTubeAn officer throws a regulation kick.​The Los Angeles Police Department launched an investigation over the weekend after an officer was spotted apparently throwing a kick toward a bicyclist involved in a demonstration against British Petroleum Friday night in Hollywood. At least 400 bi ... More >>

Why Californians Should Be Called In To Stop Gulf Oil Spill

The Deepwater Horizon oil platform went up in smoke last month, causing what could be the nation's largest oil spill.​It's sad watching British Petroleum struggle to stop the month-long Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as the Obama administration stands by, arms akimbo. BP has ... More >>

Fishery Disaster Declared for 3 Gulf Coast States

Food Safety News​ On Monday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke declared a fishery disaster for three states, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, along the Gulf of Mexico. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody, except maybe BP. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ... More >>

Crude: A Sticky Situation

Joe Berlinger’s documentary dives into the toxic battle between big oil and dying natives in Ecuador

Crude Realities

One of Anna Wintour's most significant (and profitable) contributions to Vogue, we learn in The September Issue, has been her decision to put movie stars -- rather than fashion models -- on the magazine's cover. That gives The September Issue an unintended but hardly insignificant point of connectio ... More >>

Sundance Film Festival 2009: Crude Realities

One of Anna Wintour's most significant (and profitable) contributions to Vogue, we learn in The September Issue, has been her decision to put movie stars -- rather than fashion models -- on the magazine's cover. That gives The September Issue an unintended but hardly insignificant point of connectio ... More >>

MTA's Toxic Towers in Van Nuys

Metro wants to cram 2,000 renters onto land that faces a Chevron oil plant

Gas Snaps Four Bucks

Sure we've seen gas for four-and-change in Cambria and other places up the coast. But this Chevron, with the spankin' new slightly-altered logo signage, was caught in Chinatown on Sunday. The Times noted that "the average price of a gallon of self-serve regular climbed 7.7 cents to $3.685 -- th ... More >>

Fuel's Gold

While Bush and Schwarzenegger rush to market biofuels, the fact is that not all ethanol is created equally.

New Year, Same Old Crap

Only an act of God will change moneygrubbing political parties

Scandalous! A Year of Republican Treachery

LA Vida

Scandalous! A Year of Republican Treachery

Outing Polluters

Ruffled Feathers

Audubon sues the DWP for the sake of songbirds

Enron Forgotten

Congress may stick us with a natural-gas rip-off

Don’t Mince Birds

Wind power for Los Angeles faces down a new foe

Loss and Loathing on the Cheney Trail

The environmental destruction wrought by the vice president’s secret energy plan

Winning Grandma Millie’s Vote

The attorney general’s bottom line with Enron

The Cheney Connection

Tracing the Halliburton money trail to Nigeria

Good Connections

Letters

A Switch for Enron

An ex-trader’s admission of fixing California’s energy market is a challenge for prosecutors

Enron’s Revenge

Fallen energy giant may be out to tarnish other big firms in the great rip-off of California

The Enron Rip-off

Congress hears details of the energy giant’s shams during California’s manufactured energy crisis

High-Wire Dreamin’

Enron's role in California's energy crisis of 2001

Ignoring the Protesters

U’wa’s next stop — Democratic Convention

Where Is Al Gore?

Silence on Colombia’s oil-drilling showdown irks environmentalists