Industry

July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil fell for a second day in New York after forecasters expect Hurricane Dolly to miss fields in the Gulf of Mexico and the dollar rebounded, curbing investments in commodities.

Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority bus service would be reduced by about 7 percent, primarily affecting suburban routes, under a cost-cutting plan developed by agency staff members that will be the subject of public hearings next week.

"If you want to know how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have survived scandal and crisis, consider this: Over the past decade, they have spent nearly $200 million on lobbying and campaign contributions.

But the political tentacles of the mortgage giants extend far beyond their checkbooks.

General Motors will try to cut expenses by $15 billion by the end of next year through a combination of job reductions, production slowdowns, terminated retiree benefits and salary freezes, the company said yesterday.

Slow start for Toledo-Oregon coking factory draws ire
Drawn-out process adds to city-port rift

On paper, construction of a multimillion-dollar coking works on the Toledo-Oregon border near the Port of Toledo began months ago, to preserve regulatory permits for the project that otherwise would expire.

America is in a hole and it's getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.

I've been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) together with Hunt Oil Company of the Kurdistan Region, a subsidiary of Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, Texas, and Impulse Energy Corporation (IEC) announced that they have signed a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) covering petroleum exploration activities in the Dihok area of the Kurdistan Region.

http://www.ameinfo.com/131371.html

Delta Air Lines announced yesterday that it will discontinue all passenger service to and from Toledo Express Airport, leaving the airport with only three airline carriers by this fall and daily flights to just two cities.

PHOENIX (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain acknowledged the steep drop in U.S. jobs and said he would help the economy by cutting taxes, encouraging free trade, building nuclear power plants and launching other initiatives.

"DETROIT - Faced with soaring gas prices, a sputtering economy, and rapid U.S. market shift away from trucks, the U.S. auto industry's weakest player, Chrysler, may have to seek bankruptcy or sell its Jeep and Dodge Ram brands as early as next year, JPMorgan said yesterday.

But rivals GM and Ford are likely to get through the rough patch and turn a profit in 2010."

TOLEDO, Oh -- A recent study by the Business Travel Coalition identified Toledo Express Airport as one of the 100 markets most likely to lose some or all passenger service.

http://www.myfoxtoledo.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=6847383&ver...

(Cleveland) - Prepare for a steep rise in your utility bills. So says Richard Lubinski, president of Think-Energy Management in Silver Lake, near Akron.

More than 2,200 workers at the Toledo Jeep Assembly complex will be laid off for nearly two months because of dismal sales of the Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro, United Auto Workers officials said yesterday.

June 26 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil jumped above $140 a barrel to a record as Libya threatened to cut output, OPEC's president said prices may reach $170 by the summer and the dollar weakened.

WASHINGTON, June 24 (UPI) -- U.S. congressional leaders are pressing the Bush administration to block deals to be signed between the Iraqi federal government and the world's largest oil companies and to cancel deals between the Iraqi Kurdish region and smaller U.S. oil firms.

June 20, 2008 -- Marathon Oil Corp. today announced that construction of the estimated $1.9 billion heavy oil upgrading project at its Detroit refinery is under way following issuance of an air quality permit by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).

WASHINGTON: More than 400 real estate industry players have been indicted since March — including dozens over the last two days — in a Justice Department crackdown on incidents of mortgage fraud nationwide that have contributed to the country's housing crisis.

The FBI put the losses to homeowners and other borrowers who were victims in the schemes at over $1 billion.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he wanted 45 new nuclear reactors to be built in the United States by 2030, a goal that he called “as difficult as it is necessary.”

PRESCOTT, Ariz. - The rejection from Air Midwest came swiftly on a one-page fax. The carrier couldn't afford to fly to the mountain community of Prescott anymore, officials said. The city would simply have to find a new tenant for its tiny airport.

"Everything was going fine — then, bam — the airline is gone," Mayor Jack Wilson said with a sigh. "That's just not how you do business."

This Thursday at 7pm you will be able to take a look for yourself at what should/could be the future of Toledo and Northwest Ohio. WSPD is holding a free and open to the public showing of Brian McMahon's Intermodal presentation in the Health Education Building on the Health Science Campus of UT, that's the former MCO campus. If you enter on Glendale follow the signs to Lot 3 and park free.

ELK POINT, S.D. (AP) — Voters in this mostly agricultural corner of the Midwest have approved a proposal to build the first new U.S. oil refinery in more than 30 years.

Union County residents voted 58 percent to 42 percent Tuesday to endorse the rezoning of almost 3,300 acres of pristine farm land north of Elk Point for the oil refinery.

Second of two parts

Twenty years ago, Forth Worth was in a similar spot as Toledo.

Fort Worth's chief industry - the U.S. military - had left town and elected leaders were looking for another industry to support the medium-sized city on the outskirts of Dallas.

With food prices soaring, it takes some gall to force Americans to pay billions of dollars to millionaire agribusinesses. Yet that's what the latest farm bill would do.