Posted on 04/24/2006 12:12:45 PM PDT by Crackingham
Republican congressional leaders on Monday urged the Bush administration to investigate whether oil companies are gouging consumers at the gasoline pump and if market speculators are pushing up fuel prices. U.S. retail gasoline prices are above $3 a gallon in many parts of the country and pump costs are forecast to keep rising. Republicans fear they could lose the Senate and House of Representatives in this November's congressional elections if voters retaliate against them for the high fuel prices.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert wrote President George W. Bush and asked him to direct the U.S. Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on any potential price gouging.
"Anyone who is trying to take advantage of this situation while American families are forced into making tough choices over whether to fill up their cars or severely cut back their budgets should be investigated and prosecuted," the lawmakers said in their joint letter to Bush.
The lawmakers also want the Justice Department and the FTC to look into oil refining operations, transporting fuel by pipelines, marine vessels and trucks, storing and marketing fuel, and spot shortages of gasoline to determine if there is any manipulation of gasoline prices.
"Sweeps of retail distribution centers should be undertaken to ensure that retail price movements are in response to a change in market conditions and not price gouging," the lawmakers said.
They also asked Bush to direct the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to increase its scrutiny of trading of oil, gasoline and other energy contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange to determine if the price spike is caused by market manipulation by traders or energy firms.
"We believe that protecting American consumers in these unprecedented market conditions is of paramount importance," the lawmakers said.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said the Republicans' call for a gasoline price investigation shows they are "scrambling for political cover" because Republicans will be held accountable for "turning a blind eye" to soaring gasoline costs. The Democrats also said the Republicans' demand for action lacks credibility because Republican lawmakers "have allowed oil and gas companies to line their campaign accounts with cash when they should have been cracking down on price gouging and rising gas prices."
He could do all of that. But, also, rescend the Toon's exec. order tying up Utah shale oil deposits. I heard on Boortz today (don't remember source) that there is some 1 trillion barrels of oil that could be recovered. Enough at current consumption to last 100 years.
the sad thing is if they can't figure out a simple problem like this, how are they going to figure out the more complicated ones?
This is what I've been thinking, too!
This won't have any affect on gasoline prices. Since the final price is a function of supply and demand, and gasoline taxes do not affect the supply, rmoving the taxes will result in the same price that we have now, since demand will not change much either (that is, it would increase a bit if the price was reduced by the amount of the tax, which, given the same supply, would quickly drive prices back up to their current levels)
On the other hand, your comment about clean air mandates - particularly in reference to the various federally mandated reformulated fuels - is spot on. Mandatory fuel formulations not only add a lot of cost and complexity to the manufacture and distribution of gasoline, but they typically reduce automobile gas mileage by 5% and result in an effective 5 - 10% loss in refinery capacity, due to change up and other associated downtime.
Eliminating the silly ass reformulated fuel requirements would effectively add 5 - 10% additional supply while reducing costs and complexity and have ZERO real impact on the environment. And Bush could do it TODAY!
Bears repeating, especially given the high number of seedy characters (i.e., terror-supporting regimes) that profit off of it.
As for lowering gas taxes, I'm opposed to that for two reasons: One, it probably won't have much effect on the price, because the price is scarcity-driven. Two, it will just make it that much harder to make the income tax cuts permanent. And income taxes are far, far worse than gas taxes.
ping for later
Listen, the whole "eminant domain" thing is proven legal, so we just TAKE the entire coast of Calfornia and Florida (and the postage stamp sized chunk of ANWR) "for the public good".
The main reason for high gas prices, among a myriad of other concerns to the American people, is to GET US OUT OF OUR AUTOMOBILES. The less mobile the people, the easier to CONTROL the people. IMHO, Mr. P. won't be doing ANYTHING to benefit the American people. Never before in our history have we lost so much as we have in the past 15 years.
Often used comparison, but one that only looks good (but holds no real substance just the illusion of it). Unless, ofcourse, a family that has a vehicle with a fuel tank capacity of 26 gallons and fills up once a week also heads to their local supermarket and buys 26 gallons of bottled water/cheap beer/crappy wine/fave soft drinks/etc every week (in which case their weekly expenditure on gas would be cheaper than their weekly expenditure on 26 gallons of the other products at the prices you listed).
If American families are consuming bottled water/cheap beer/crappy wine/fave soft drinks/etc at the rate at which gas is consumed then that analogy would not be moot, but people don't drink 26 gallons of 'crappy wine' at 30 bucks a gallon (i.e total cost of 780 dollars A WEEK) or 26 gallons of 'really cheap beer' at 14 bucks a gallon every week (total cost of 364 dollars a week). Or even 26 gallons of bottled water at 8 dollars a gallon (i.e 208 dollars a week)! HOWEVER that family does fill up with 26 gallons of gas a week, and at 3 dollars a gallon that comes to 78 dollars a week.
Hence the comparison between gas and the other products simply doesn't hold water, because while the per gallon cost of gas is less than the per gallon cost of water/beer/wine/pop people do not consume those at the rate that they consume gas. Thus the example only looks good (and might make people not good at basic math feel good) but it is simply void of any substance whatsoever.
Also people do not buy 26 gallons of any of the above a week (26 gallons of 'crappy wine' at the price he listed of 30 bucks a week comes to 780 dollars a week) , but there are people who fill up their 26 gallon tank with gas a week. That analogy would only make sense if people consumed wine/beer/water at the same rate that they consume gas.
I don't see how that's the case. Government control - particularly federal government control - over us has increased as we've become more mobile.
Price is the point at which supply = demand. Which article of the Constitution gives the President the power to meddle with either supply or demand of any commodity?
I thought not....
We need more refining capacity.
I wondered if the president could suspend the clean burning fuel mandates by executive order or if it would require legislation. It seems to me he temporarily suspended them last year after Katrina. We he allowed them to be re-imposed is beyond me. Almost no one other than Al Gore would have noticed, and only a few more would have cared, if they had just been permanently done away with at that time. As you say, clean engine technologies over the last 10 years make these EPA clean fuel mandates totally redundant.
The last time we lost this much freedom this fast? The Depression.
The time before that? The Civil War
Um - you are incorrect about Peanut Brain - he was not POTUS in 1976 nor was there a gas shortage that year. He tried some foolishsness in 1979 as did R Milhous Nixon in 1974. FACTS , buddy, facts!
Bush's fault.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.