Fuel Policy
The Fight for Fuel Oil
Heating oil dealers confront challenges from natural gas utilities locally, regionally and in Washington, D.C.
By stephen bennett
"I
've never seen an administration more aggressive
about trying to destroy what your fathers and grandfathers built," Chris Herb told members of the
National Association of Oil & Energy Service Professionals
(OESP).
The administration that Herb, interim president of the
Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, was assailing was
not that of President Barack Obama, but that of Gov. Dannel P.
Malloy of Connecticut. That state's proposed energy plan unfairly
favors natural gas at the expense of fuel oil, Herb told 100 or so
OESP members who gathered in April at Nuchie's, a restaurant
in Forestville, Conn. Herb vowed that the Marketers Association
would fight for an even playing field for fuel oil dealers.
The conflict in Connecticut seems to mirror a larger one that
pits the fuel oil and natural gas industries against each other
regionally and nationally. In that bigger battle, the Obama administration appears to be showing some signs of favoring the natural
gas industry, according to the New England Fuel Institute's online
newsletter, NEON.
The newsletter reported that Energy Secretary-nominee Ernest
Moniz, a nuclear physicist and a researcher at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., called for a major
From left to right: Danny Gentile, Rick Glownia, and George Perrelli. Photo courtesy of Stephen Bennett.
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MAY 2013 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com
