WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. gasoline demand fell in April for the time in three months as high pump prices and expensive grocery bills took their toll on drivers, the American Petroleum Institute said on Friday.

Total U.S. crude oil and petroleum product consumption jumped 5.2 percent in April from a year earlier to 19.886 million barrels per day, according to the API’s monthly supply and demand report.

WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) – Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and its
partners cleared the first major hurdle with U.S. regulators on
Thursday to build a $5 billion transmission line that would
transport electricity from wind farms off the Atlantic coast.

The companies backing the project can earn a 12.59 percent
return on their equity investment in the proposed power line,
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of senators on Tuesday will ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether oil refiners are cutting back their gasoline production in order to keep pump prices high.

The senators, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, plan to send a letter to the FTC chairman seeking the probe, citing recent Energy Department data showing that U.S. refiners are operating only at about 82 percent capacity, according to a congressional aide.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, under pressure from Republicans and the public to bring down gasoline prices, announced new measures on Saturday to expand domestic oil production in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

High fuel prices have dented Obama’s ratings in opinion polls and threaten to dampen the economic recovery that is critical to his re-election in 2012.

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – U.S. oil executives defended the
billions of dollars they get in tax breaks on Capitol Hill, only to
be chastised by senators, who said their huge profits put them out of
touch with consumers facing high gas prices.

Democratic lawmakers slammed executives on Thursday over their
refusal to give up tax breaks after their companies earned $35
billion during the first quarter of this year as gasoline prices rose
to $4 a gallon.

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – Repealing billions of
dollars in tax breaks for Big Oil won’t raise U.S. fuel prices,
Senator Max Baucus said in an opening shot directed at top
petroleum executives summoned to Capitol Hill on Thursday to
defend their surging profits.

Oil prices are set on a world market and the U.S. share of
crude production is less than 10 percent, Baucus said before
the CEOs of some of the most powerful companies in the world.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of 17 U.S. senators called on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Wednesday to immediately crack down on excessive speculation in crude oil markets by hastening planned rules to limit concentration.

In a letter to the CFTC’s chairman and commissioners, the lawmakers said they wanted the agency to unveil a plan by May 23 to impose position limits in all energy futures markets, beginning with crude oil. The agency has already proposed such limits as part of the financial reform, but has not finalized them.

WASHINGTON, May 10 (Reuters) – Crude prices well over $100
a barrel are starting to take a bite out of global oil use, the
U.S. government’s energy forecasting agency said on Tuesday as
it cut its outlook for this year by the most in 10 months.

The Energy Information Agency’s 120,000 barrel per day
(bpd) reduction in its 2011 demand growth forecast is the
latest sign that analysts are factoring in less fuel use as a
result of gasoline and jet fuel prices that are drawing near
their 2008 peaks. OPEC and the Paris-based Energy Information
Administration will release their reports later this week.

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) – U.S. Energy Information
Administration analysts scrambled on Monday to update the
agency’s upcoming monthly energy forecast to reflect last
week’s big drop in oil prices, which is expected to result in
higher U.S. and global oil demand.

The EIA report will be released on Tuesday and is one of
three closely watched forecasts that will be issued this week
on global oil supply and demand estimates.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Reckless operators of U.S. petroleum and natural gas pipelines would pay higher fines under bipartisan safety legislation passed on Thursday by the Senate Commerce Committee.

The bill is in response to several pipeline accidents in the last year that killed more than a dozen people, destroyed homes and polluted land and water.