The “curse” of oil wealth is a well-known phenomenon in Third World petro-states where millions of lives are wasted in poverty and the environment is ravaged, while tiny elites rake in the energy dollars and corruption rules the land.  Recently, North America has been repeatedly hailed as the planet’s twenty-first-century “new Saudi Arabia” for “tough energy” -- deep-sea oil, Canadian tar sands, and fracked oil and natural gas.  But here’s a question no one considers: Will the oil curse become as familiar on this continent in the wake of a new American energy rush as it is in Africa and elsewhere?  Will North America, that is, become not just the next boom continent for energy bonanzas, but a new energy Third World?

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell proposed a new way forward on a natural gas pipeline Thursday, saying if demand for gas has shifted from the Lower 48 to Pacific Rim markets, the state must be willing to move with it.

The old adage that oil and water don't mix is proving true in Nebraska, where hundreds of people filled a small town gymnasium to protest a proposed oil pipeline they fear could pollute a major U.S. drinking water source.

Exxon Mobil Corp will bring in more people to mop up oil from a broken pipeline beneath the Yellowstone River as receding floodwaters reveal new contamination, federal officials said Friday.Also Friday, Montana environmental regulators said the pipeline may have leaked up to 1,200 barrels of oil into the scenic river. That equals 50,400 gallons and is 20 percent higher than prior estimates from Exxon Mobil.

Water levels on the Yellowstone have dropped six feet since the July 1 accident. Hundreds of logjams and debris piles, many coated in a layer of drying crude, now litter its banks and islands.

LAUREL, Mont. — Hundreds of barrels of crude oil spilled into Montana's Yellowstone River after an ExxonMobil pipeline beneath the riverbed ruptured, sending a plume 25 miles downstream and forcing temporary evacuations, officials said.

Ruling in favor of Transocean and BP, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed third-party environmental claims in a giant pleading bundle in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill litigation, saying the fact that the oil flow has stopped makes those lawsuits irrelevant.

Federal regulators on Friday gave Statoil permission to drill a deep-water well - the 10th project approved since such work was halted after last year's Gulf spill.

Under the permit, Statoil will be allowed to drill a new well in 7,813 feet of water in its Logan prospect, 219 miles off the Louisiana shoreline, south of Houma. The Norwegian oil company is slated to drill the well with the Discoverer Americas, a Transocean drillship that is en route back to the Gulf of Mexico from Egyptian waters.
It is the second post-spill deep-water project Statoil has gotten approved. The company also won approval for a well in its Cobra prospect 216 miles south of Texas City on March 25.
Statoil contracted with the Houston-based Helix Well Containment Group to meet requirements that it show how it will respond to any blowout at the Cobra project. It has contracted the competing Marine Well Containment Co. for the new Logan prospect well - becoming the first operator to contract with both containment companies on separate Gulf drilling projects.

AS THE PRICE OF OIL roars above $100 per barrel and gasoline nears $4 per gallon, a cry for solutions understandably goes up. Higher gas prices amount to a regressive tax increase on the American consumer, with all that implies for the ability of the U.S. and global economies to sustain their fragile recovery. Some in Congress, citing the disruption of production in Libya, are asking President Obama to uncork the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the government-owned emergency supply - currently 727 million barrels - that Congress established 36 years ago. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) says tapping the strategic reserve would "mitigate the runaway increase in prices [like] that we saw in the summer of 2008."

"A Drop Of Blood" Campaign (a national/international call for action)

Draw a red drop on a small piece of paper and, using cellophane tape, put it on a gas pump.