Word: gal
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Supporters of this measure are taking a beating even though the average U.S. pump price of $1.16 per gal., when adjusted for inflation, is the lowest since the mid-1960s. (The cost includes 20 cents per gal. for state and local levies.) Moreover, each penny increase in the federal tax raises about $1 billion in revenues. Trouble is, the tax has far fewer friends than enemies, including Clinton, who is wary of measures that might put him between Americans and their cars. It is also the most politically volatile form of energy tax, because it is the most visible...
...DRILL THAT HAS GROWN ALL TOO FAMILIAR, SALvage and fire-control specialists were rushed to the scene of a burning oil tanker, this time near the entrance to the Indian Ocean's Malaccan Strait. The Danish-owned Maersk Navigator, carrying 78 million gal. of light crude, had collided with an empty Japanese tanker, rupturing one of the loaded vessel's 12 tanks and setting it ablaze. Fortunately, most of the escaping oil quickly burned off or evaporated, calming fears of environmental damage to fishing waters and the coasts of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. By week's end emergency workers...
...RELENTLESS DAYS, HUGE waves and strong winds mercilessly pounded the oil tanker Braer, grounded on the rocks of Fitful Head in the unspoiled Shetland Islands. Bit by bit, the cargo of 26 million gal. of Norwegian light crude leaked into the sea, turning it chocolate brown. On the seventh day, the pounding caused spouts of oil to gush spasmodically from deck hatches, making the tanker look like some pitiful beached whale blowing black blood in the throes of death. The following day the ship did die, splitting into at least three pieces and releasing all its remaining oil into...
...vigorous wave action worked as a high-energy cleanser of rocks and beaches. Thus the Shetlands are likely to be spared the costly and environmentally disruptive cleanup that followed the spilling of nearly 11 million gal. of crude (less than half the amount lost by the Braer) into Prince William Sound in Alaska. Says Robert Spies, chief scientist for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council: "There is ample evidence that overzealous cleanup can be harmful." The chemical detergents, high-pressure sprays and brushes used to clean beaches and rocks after a spill destroy microorganisms that are an important part...
...would be a mistake to underestimate the resilience of nature. Studies of other spills reveal remarkable recoveries -- even from shocks like the estimated 250 million to 350 million gal. of crude that was deliberately pumped into the Persian Gulf in 1991 by Saddam Hussein's army. Though the majestic coral reefs in the gulf still show the effects of their trauma, they are slowly rebuilding. Says Sylvia Earle, a former chief scientist of the U.S.'s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who visited the gulf last year: "The reef was like a weedy lot, not a healthy wilderness...