I'm not saying that my research isn't complete...I just kind of did a quick study to figure out the cost. I'm sure there are other avenues I havent researched (such as pipelines and distribution)but sometimes I feel like we aren't doing enough to figure out how to not get gouged when we go to the pumps, but perhaps we don't get the entire picture. I am a student who works a part time job, and i'm not saying I'm better than anyone else. I know we are all in the same boat here, i'm just trying to think of a way to maybe give someone an idea to help us out of it. If it might work cool! If not, then well I tried .
The fact that you keep saying "gouged," as if that meant something, suggests that you need to do some more basic study. I suggest the complete works of Thomas Sowell.
A couple months back, I did a tank job for a tank farm in New Haven, CT, a port and distribution point for much of New England.
Trucks loaded fuel out of there day & night. There were independents, Mobil, Shell, Hess and a bunch of others picking up gasoline at the rack. They all sell product from the same tank. Some add a 5-gallon bucket of some special crap so they can say their product is different, but it's all from the same source.
It's the same deal with heating oil and diesel.
Same deal with the crap running through the pipelines. It's a commodity. Company x puts in so many barrels and expects to get the same out at the end of the line. They don't care if it came from their operations or anyone elses, just as long as the quantity is correct.
There is no way a consumer can say with any reasonable level of certainty that the fuel came from Texas of Saudi or Alaska.
To me, there is no such thing as gouging - it's market economics.
The best short-term way to reduce the price of petro products is to severely curtail usage. An oversupply will lower costs soon.
Long term, lobby your elected represestatives and let them know you are pissed off that the enviro faggots haven't allowed petro companies to build a refinery in the USA since 1976, probably before you were born.