Energy: Oil Compromise in California

A $78 million end to a regulatory horror story

Even the biggest petroleum finds do little good if the oil cannot be moved to market. One year after the completion of the $9 billion Alaska pipeline, this remains the great embarrassment of the riches promised by North Slope crude. Congress says it cannot be sold to other countries, but the Pacific Coast states already have ample supplies of their own. Alaska's oil is much needed in the energy-hungry East, but shipping it to Texas via the Panama Canal is not only wildly expensive but logistically almost impossible: law requires the stuff to...

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