Senior Republican warns of Gasoline price-gouging (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

(It's good to hear Rep. Joe Barton saying these things, but he still sounds reluctant.)

Senior Republican warns of gasoline price-gouging

Wed Aug 31, 2005 03:37 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Incidents of retail gasoline price-gouging caused by Hurricane Katrina are occurring throughout the United States and should be prosecuted, the Republican head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said on Wednesday.

Wholesale gasoline futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose sharply on Wednesday to a record high of $2.92 a gallon on growing concerns about the U.S. supply. The killer storm that hit Louisiana on Monday shut nine Gulf Coast refineries with combined capacity of nearly 2 million barrels per day (bpd). Four other refineries were crippled and running at reduced rates.

"I think a very good case can be made today that some retailers have taken advantage and begun to gouge" consumers, Texas Rep. Joe Barton told reporters at a news conference. If price gouging is occurring, "that is going to have to be investigated" and prosecuted by the federal government, he said.

For example, retail gasoline prices jumped $1 a gallon in a single day in Michigan, an increase roughly equivalent to a $24 a barrel increase in crude oil, he said. In his own district in Texas, Barton said he purchased gasoline at $2.41 a gallon at a station that raised the price to $2.68 a gallon later on the same day.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=9525236&src=rss/politicsNews>
(more at link above)

[truebrit71]

1. File this under "No Fucking Shit, Sherlock"...

...what a dumbass..... :eyes:

[yellowcanine]

2. Sounds like Joey Barton is getting worried about his house seat. Good.

[louis-t]

3. Headline should read:

"Republican senator feigns outrage while stifling giggles"

[mknmehappy]

4. Iowa Governor doing the same thing.

Our Governor is asking the same questions and doing similar investigations.

[HockeyMom]

5. If they did not get a new shipment in yesterday

there is no reason for the gas price to go up. I did notice a very few stations still selling at $2.59 a gallon while the VAST MAJORITY went up to $3.29 in a matter of HOURS. That IS price gouging.

[NorthernSpy]

6. the kind of looting that respectable folks do

Where are the calls to shoot THESE looters on sight?

[klyon]

12. by boss said "shoot them"

also "why help them if they are going to act like this"

KL

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. Aw Joe, don't be such a pessimist. You and your party wouldn't

let this sort of thing happen.

That would be horning in on Bush and Cheney's territory.

[mduffy31]

8. Duh...

One of the only things that I ever agreed with Bush about is making the land of decommisoned military installations to build new refineries. New oil refineries are cleaner and more efficent, making the gas cheaper, and we wouldn't have to deal with the price spikes that comes from a fire at one refinery, and has anyone noticed that the price spikes up, but really doesn't seem to come back down. But as the article states, none of the oil companies have showed any interest in the offer. So it shows that it is about pure profit, they are happy with the outrageous prices that they can charge now.

[KansDem]

9. Ahhhh, remember the old days when Jeffords went Independent...

...making the Democrats the majority party in the Senate:

Then Senator James Jeffords switched his party affiliation to Independent -- and control of the Senate fell into Democratic hands.

Immediately, there was talk of Senate committee investigations into the power crisis in California -- this at a time when Enron was contributing to PACs and "think tanks" that were busily assuring the nation that California's woes resulted from profligate waste by Californians, and systematic mismanagement caused by government control of utilities. Most Californians, who ranked 46th in the nation in per capita power usage and who had enjoyed 90 years of inexpensive and unfailingly reliable power while being the fastest-growing state in American history, thought this was utter crap.

And of course, it was utter crap -- a litany of self-serving smears from the same people who were making a fortune gouging California. Californians were told to expect rolling blackouts to get substantially worse during the summer, and to expect to see gasoline hit $3 a gallon.

But that all ended the day Jeffords switched.

California never had another rolling blackout, and indeed, now has a power surplus. Gasoline in our remote area was going for $2.29 a gallon on that day, and today it is down to $1.43.

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20011208Zepp.html

Now days, though, it's impossible to try to distinguish between the GOP and the oil companies. :shrug:

[Up2Late]

10. kick n/t

:kick:

[The_Casual_Observer]

11. There aren't price gouging laws are there?

The "free market" and all.