House OKs bill to curb gas gouging
By Patrice Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published May 24, 2007
The House yesterday passed a bill that would make price gouging by gas stations and oil companies a federal crime as prices at the pump surpassed a 1981 record reached at the height of the Iranian oil crisis. The White House, which has threatened to veto the bill, warned the legislation amounts to price controls and would lead to gas shortages and lines like in the 1970s.
The cross over the threshold of $3.23 a gallon reported by GasBuddy.com equals the inflation-adjusted record high for gas prices and heralds a new era of high energy prices and scarcity of fuel as growing demand in China, India and the U.S. collides with scarce new sources of oil and sluggish increases in gasoline production worldwide. Economists say the House bill will not help to ease those shortages or bring down high prices.
Business groups said the bill would be difficult to enforce and would set a dangerous precedent by opening the floodgates to frivolous lawsuits, further driving away any hopes of increased energy production that would take the pressure off prices.
Oil Industry Says Biofuel Push May Hurt at Pump
Gas prices are spiking again — to an average of $3.22 a gallon, and close to $4 a gallon in many areas.
And some oil executives are now warning that the current shortages of fuel could become a long-term problem, leading to stubbornly higher prices at the pump.
They point to a surprising culprit: uncertainty created by the government’s push to increase the supply of biofuels like ethanol in coming years.
In his State of the Union address in January, President Bush called for a sharp increase in the use of biofuels, along with some improvement in automobile fuel efficiency to reduce America’s use of gasoline by 20 percent within 10 years. Congress is considering legislation calling for a nearly fivefold increase in the use of ethanol.
That has forced many oil companies to reconsider or scale back their plans for constructing new refinery capacity.
Moller International’s Rotapower Engine Achieves Performance Breakthrough Using Ethanol-Water Mix
9:00a ET May 21, 2007 (Business Wire)
Hit by high prices and fees, some gas station owners stop selling fuel
By THOMAS CONTENT
tcontent@journalsentinel.com
Posted: May 23, 2007
As gas prices hit another record last Friday, Jeff Curro couldn’t take it anymore.
He wasn’t a motorist at the pump fed up by the blur of numbers spinning higher as he filled his tank.
Curro is a gas station owner who has stopped selling gas to his own customers.
After selling gas at N. 124th and W. Burleigh streets for 20 years, Curro turned off his pumps at his Shell station in Brookfield when the price he was being asked to pay was just too much.
Including the wholesale cost of gas and other taxes and charges, he was being asked to pay $3.44 a gallon Friday, a day when the competing stations down the street were selling gasoline for $3.47.
“Three cents a gallon doesn’t cut it,” Curro said. “It doesn’t pay the bills.”
Add to that the money he loses every time a motorist uses a credit card at the pump, and there was no reason to keep selling gas, Curro said.
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