Your prices are high because you are willing to pay them.
Many are "forced" to pay because they purchase vehicles that require a lot of gas, and live far from where they work.
So while consumer "choice" exists, it is very indirect, and hard to correct over the short term.
Some will argue that since they "need" gas, companies should be forced to sell it at a "fair" price, not at the highest price the consumer is willing to pay.
If I have a yard sale, and I have a bicycle I picked up from someone's trash and spent 2 bucks on new inner tubes, I might sell it for thirty bucks. The "regulatory pricing" people might argue that I should have to sell that bike to the first person who shows up with three bucks, that I have no right to sell it for such a HIGH price, to make such a "windfall profit".
But most would argue that since the bike is NOT "necessary" it's OK for me to sell for what the market will bear.
MY opinion is that whenever we try to define parts of the market as "necessary", and then try to use government to "control" the prices, we harm the economy and make things worse, not better, for consumers.
If the gas station down the street was forced to sell gas for a buck a gallon, they wouldn't have any gas for you when you showed up.
The reason gas is high is because the government interferes in the free market, enviros keep the BS laws in place AND oil companies take advantage of it regardless of the spin that says they don't. Next time you want to lecture pick out a person who gives a sh** to listen to your theories and who doesn't already know how the free market is supposed to work.
If you look at my original comment the question I asked was "if we have all these supplies of oil and GAS, and heating elements why are the prices still high? The correct answer is "because the oil companies are sticking it to us" regardless of what people want to believe. They take advantage of the laws that exist now and government interference that exist now and gouge us, plain and simple. If we get the government out of the oil business, out of all business, we can go back to the way it was when I was young, cheap gas and gas companies competing against each other instead of acting in collusion.