travel, hotel and booking Information

Hotel Booking The collapse of the president's energy bill after several days of debate in the U.S. Senate was welcome news to little Bel Aire, Kan. Kansans in Park City and Dodge City were relieved, too, as well as folks in Ida Grove, Iowa, and nearby Sioux City. But the celebration over the bipartisan filibuster that stopped the bill - for now - echoed beyond the heartland.

The savings figure is based on an internal study comparing the price for travel for two passengers of booking a flight and hotel together using priceline.com's Vacation Packages to booking the same hotel and similar flight itinerary (same travel dates and origin and destination cities) separately on priceline.com. The Vacation Package price yielded a savings of up to $325 over the separate prices of the same hotel and similar flight itinerary.

Travel Agency Towns large and small, from Sacramento, Calif., to Avon, Mass., had a financial stake in ensuring that the mammoth and complex $31 billion bill never made it out of the Senate.

The Accor Corporate Contract, available only to businesses, lets you save time by booking hotels at net rates adapted to your volume while optimizing your travel costs.

Cheap Hotel Their concern was a provision that would prevent communities from collecting damages from the makers of MTBE, a gasoline additive designed to reduce air pollution. More than 1,500 cities and towns across the country claim that it has contaminated their drinking water.

Cape town guide, cape town travel guide, guide cape town, online, free, information, south Africa, afrika, info, visit, visitor, Africa, tourism

Flight Booking The communities and several local water systems want the largely Texas- and Louisiana-based petrochemical companies that make MTBE to help pay the cleanup costs.

Cape Town city centre, cape town city centre south Africa, cape town city centre guide, information, info, travel, tourism, St Georges Mall, sa

Travel Agent "The cost of remediation is very expensive," said Andrew Hutton, a Wichita, Kan., lawyer representing Bel Aire, Park City, Dodge City and the Chisolm Creek Utility Authority in their lawsuits. "This stuff is hard to clean up. It's kind of an issue of who is going to pay for this, the ratepayers or the oil companies."

Groople (www.groople.com), the leader in group travel planning, has partnered with Go10000, a travel focused development and hosting firm, to bring to market a new group collaboration site for the travel space. GroopVine will provide the solution to the complex communication and booking problems group travel planning can create. Enhancing the online travel space by combining the key elements of social networking such as invitations, forums, messaging, photos and video posting, with the best in online travel booking, GroopVine is the only place for group travelers to shop, plan and book together online.

Hotel Chicago That question proved to be the undoing of the bill, although Senate Republicans have promised a second attempt at passage.

Online Booking The bill was a centerpiece of the Bush administration's legislative agenda. Critics called it a "grab-bag of special interests," while supporters said that it would allow "this country to get back into the business of producing energy."

Travel Health Insurance The bill would ban MTBE by 2015 but create a $2 billion transition fund to help manufacturers move to alternative products.

Hotel Reservation John Kneiss, vice president for regulatory and technical affairs for the Oxygenated Fuels Association, said that the Clean Air Act of 1990 required oil companies to develop cleaner gasoline. If Congress now "changes the rules" and bans MTBE, he said, the transition to an alternative product could cost from $30 million to $100 million per plant.

London Hotel Booking Supporters argued that it was wrong to hold petrochemical companies accountable for pollution possibly caused by their product.

Discount Travel "If somebody takes a can of Campbell's Soup and smashes another guy on the head with it, is the maker of the can of soup liable?" said Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. "Certainly not."

Orlando Hotel But many senators were outraged that the government might not only free the petrochemical companies of any liability, but also award them $2 billion when communities were facing millions in cleanup costs.

Booking Agency "How perverse can public policy be?" said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.

International Travel Medical Sen. Hillary Clinton, D- New York was more pointed: "I can't understand how anybody can go home from this body and go back to wherever they represent and look in the eyes of their fellow citizens and say, `Not only did we tell your mayor and your city council and your county leaders that they couldn't sue, we're giving $2 billion to the folks who polluted our water, but not a penny to you.' "

New York Hotel Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas said that while the MTBE section was "controversial," he supported the bill because it would promote energy sources such as wind, solar and ethanol, which he said were important to the state.

Online Travel Booking Shana Stribling, a spokeswoman for Republican Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, said Bond thought the problem between the MTBE manufacturers and communities was with "trial attorneys. They're looking to sue the folks with the deepest pockets."

Travel Medical Insurance MTBE - methyl tertiary butyl ether - has contaminated public and private water supplies in at least 28 states. Not all of the operators have gone to court. The cause is often leaking underground gasoline storage tanks. The plume from MTBE can exist beneath the surface for years.

Miami Hotel MTBE is also drawn toward water and dissolves easily. In high concentrations, the water becomes undrinkable because of an overpowering odor similar to that of turpentine. MTBE is also thought to be a possible cause of cancer.

Air Deccan Booking Missouri has had MTBE problems, too. But no jurisdictions have sought damages in court. That is largely because operators of underground storage tanks have liability insurance through the state's Petroleum Storage Tank Insurance Fund.

Las Vegas Nevada Travel In Oran, a Bootheel community of 1,200 people that had Missouri's most serious case of MTBE contamination, the fund paid for cleanup and for the drilling of a new well, which totaled about $1 million, according to Oran Mayor Tom Urhahn.

Las Vegas Nv Hotel Without the insurance fund, Urhahn said, his town would have had to go to court, as the other communities have done.

Hotel Florence Booking Online "It wasn't our fault what happened," Urhahn said. "We shouldn't be held liable for them putting the additive in."

Orlando Travel But for Bel Aire, Dodge City and others among the 130 communities and water systems that have filed lawsuits since September, court was the only option. The problem, however, was that deep within the energy bill's 1,200 pages was a provision that would have given MTBE manufacturers liability protection from any lawsuits retroactive to Sept. 5 of this year.

Hilton Hotel The MTBE manufacturers sought protection from the kinds of lawsuits with which they have been swamped this fall after a contamination case in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., last year led to a $69 million settlement.

Booking Delta Com More recently, Shell, Exxon Mobil and several other companies reached an MTBE cleanup settlement with Santa Monica, Calif., that could cost $400 million.

Travel Insurance Online The state of New Hampshire is suing 22 oil companies for using MTBE, which a state study says has shown up in more than 15 percent of the state's public water supply.

London Hotel "So it is no surprise that New Hampshire's two Republican senators chose to filibuster this bill," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

Online Hotel Booking Bel Aire filed suit earlier this month, naming as defendants more than 50 oil companies doing business in Kansas. City officials acknowledge that only trace amounts of MTBE have so far been found. But test wells indicate that larger quantities could be present, they said, so they are worried about the future.

Travel Insurance "Our water supply is safe and secure," said Bel Aire City Attorney Lee Parker. "But the thing with MTBE is, once it's down in the water supply it does not ever dissipate on its own. It's something that has to be dealt with. That's the problem."

Paris Hotel By David Goldstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers - 11/28/2003

Topic: Energy

[ Comment, Edit or Article Submission ]