My latest email to my Congresscritters on gas prices...

[meldroc]

Dear Senator Salazar, Allard or Representative Musgrave:

Last week, gasoline prices in the Colorado Front Range jumped back above $3.00 per gallon. This would be a significant financial hardship for me, because I have to commute from Fort Collins to my job in Westminster, but I'm able to alleviate the financial hit by using the VanGo van pool. Still, the fact remains that gas prices are much higher than they have to be, and many of your constituents are experiencing serious financial troubles because of this.

When I read the news, I hear various excuses from people in the energy industry, explaining that prices are high because of switching to the summer blend of gasoline, because of production and capacity difficulties in the refineries, because of troubles in the Middle East, etc.

Quite frankly, I don't buy it. I find the gas price drop below $2.00 per gallon just in time for the election, and the sudden rise back to $3.00 per gallon afterwards far too convenient. You may think I wear a tin-foil hat, but I smell price gouging.

So I ask you to initiate or support investigations into high gas prices, and legislation designed to get gas prices back into sane territory. Representative Dennis Kucinich has called a hearing on June 7th to investigate the causes of these high gas prices. Please work with him to try to find a solution to this problem. And please initiate or support similar investigations in the Senate into high gas prices.

Sincerely,

Meldroc

I don't know how much good this will do, but at the least, it'll pressure Salazar, and make Musgrave and Allard reach for their Maalox and bourbon.

[meldroc]

1. You're writing your own emails to your Congresscritters, correct?

After all, politics is won by those who participate.

[liberal N proud]

2. We all need to let them know

it is pinching us. Specially those in the lower income bracket.

All so the CEO of Exxon-Mobile can get record salary

[Hubert Flottz]

3. Dear Senator Dumbkoff,

If gas stays this high very long I will not be able to make it to the polls on election day. SORRY...



Your Congress are belong to us!

[magellan]

8. Why is my first thought "Jabba the Hutt"?

[calteacherguy]

4. I have mixed feelings about high gasoline prices.

On the one hand, I do believe there should be investigations into manipulation and price-fixing by Big Oil companies who latest I heard were enjoying record profits.

On the other hand, I do recognize the illogic of being an environmentalist calling for lower gasoline prices. In Europe, gasoline taxes alone are $4 a gallon. At some point, we Democrats are going to need to make some tough choices...and not just Democrats, for that matter.

Are we serious about reducing our use of carbon-based fuels or not?

[Horse with no Name]

5. Welll since YOU brought up that little nugget

Yes Europe does have high gas prices.
They also have extensive mass transit networks. They ALSO have nationalized medicine programs where people aren't being gouged in every aspect of their existence.
It wouldn't be hardship if gas were over $4 gallon IF I wasn't ALREADY paying out an average of $600 a month in health care related expenses.

[meldroc]

6. Good points.

Since so many people live out in sprawlville in the US, they don't get things like decent mass transit, so they're completely dependent on their cars.

Of course, I want good mass transit, alternative energy, etc. but if the oil companies continue to gouge like this, there won't be any money left for that - it'll all be in the oil companies' pockets. These prices are exactly the kind of thing that causes economies to tank.

[Telly Savalas]

12. Oil company profits do not form such a large percentage of the GDP

that they're stopping mass transit and alternative energy funding.

Oil is a non-renewable resource. Even if it was controlled by charities whose mission was to serve the public, gas prices are going to go up as we start running out of it. So it's time to start addressing the issue of our warped transportation system and sprawl, instead of trying to keep prices low (and thereby consumption up).

If somebody is having problems making ends meet, that's a real problem. But address it by tackling the actual poverty-related issues (e.g. higher minimum wage, earned income credit, universal health care, etc.) Don't just maintain incentives for people to drive gas-guzzling vehicles more and more.

[slj0101]

9. Precisely.

In the last half-century or so, we've constructed our societies to rely heavily upon automobiles to get around. Just take a look at al the sprawl in your area. If you're a person without a car, you're screwed, especially with cuts in mass transit going on in many areas.

[Telly Savalas]

10. Then rather than trying to facillitate cheaper smog and global warming

shouldn't the priority be on improving transit and cutting your health care expenses?

[greenbriar]

13. well...your pal bushy thought it was important in 2000

Bush’s Energy Secretary BackS OFF BUSH SOTU Pledge. Just one day after Bush said he would reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil imports 75% by 2025, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, “said Bush didn’t mean it literally.” Knight-Ridder notes, “In his State of the Union address, Bush pledged to ‘move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.’ Not exactly, though, it turns out.”

FLASHBACK: Bush Pledged to “Jawbone OPEC” in 2000. Talking about how to handle OPEC during a GOP primary debate in 2000, Bush said: "What I think the president ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots. One reason why the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven up. OPEC has gotten its supply act together, and it's driving the price, like it did in the past. And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price."

But Bush HAS REPEATEDLY Reneged on HIS OPEC Pledge: In March 2001, after another cut in production by OPEC, Bush only offered a “muted response” and stated that OPEC was “‘responding to decreasing (world) demand’ and no more.” In April 2004, Bush said he would not personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds after OPEC cut oil production as U.S. gas prices skyrocketed. In July 2004, Rep. John Dingell said, “I asked the Bush administration some months ago to aggressively jawbone OPEC to open the spigots, but it seems that the administration has chosen to ignore that advice.”

[texpatriot2004]

7. Well said. nm

[greenbriar]

11. remind them that when Clinton left office, gas was 1.48 a gallon

they always want to bring up the Clenis...

lets bring it up

[slj0101]

15. And in 1999, gas was around $.85 a gallon in my area.

Those were the days. I could fill my tank on $11. :(

[chaska]

14. Yes, but....

I've read about 3 or 4 different studies that say that oil production has already peaked.

The days of cheap gas are over. The hoarding by companies who want to wait till the price goes higher before they sell has probably started.