Conyers: Fed Up with Gas Prices? Blame the Bush Administration for Not Enforcing Anti-Trust Laws

[kpete]

John Conyers: Fed Up with Gas Prices? Blame the Bush Administration for Not Enforcing Anti-Trust Laws
Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2007
By: Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

In recent weeks, prices at the pump have hit an all-time high. The average price for a gallon of gas in the United States is currently $3.036, just two cents short of the record high reached in September 2005 after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast.

Paradoxically, this year, rising gas prices are not being driven by increases in the cost of oil. In fact, a barrel of oil is actually $7 cheaper than it was this time last year. How is it possible for gas prices to reach record highs while the price of oil remains relatively stable?


..............

In this type of marketplace, with these stakes, we need an administration that is going to have an active, vigorous merger enforcement policy. As reiterated by the Honorable Richard Blumenthal at the panel, the "Federal government's lax and lackluster enforcement of anti-trust laws has led to ... more and more market power concentrated in fewer and fewer hands."

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We don't have to continue to stand by and watch OPEC dictate the price of our gasoline without any penalty or recourse. By passing this bill, we can put our antitrust laws to work against OPEC, just as we would against any other cartel that is fleecing American consumers of their hard-earned money.

more at:
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=35842

[Monkeyman]

1. Better Pray no storm hit the Gulf

[Phredicles]

2. I've been wondering for years when the anti-trust laws were repealed;

but of course just not enforcing them is a nifty way to streamline the whole process, huh?:sarcasm:

[RevCheesehead]

3. $3.03?? Hardly. We're paying $3.46 here.

And I've been looking at Saturn hybrids. They're affordable.

[Pab Sungenis]

4. Saturn hybrid?

Since when does Saturn have a hybrid? Or is it the SUV semi-hybrid they were talking about a while back?

[RevCheesehead]

5. They have a whole LINE of hybrids!

And yes, the VUE is one of them. But there are, I think, 5 models available, including the ION and AURA.

I'm considering the AURA. I can get it for under $25,000.

[Pab Sungenis]

6. Okay, I looked it up.

The Aura is NOT a true hybrid. It's a semi-hybrid. It uses an electric motor to "assist" the gasoline motor, but the gas motor still runs the whole damn thing.

28 city 35 highway? I could get that with my old Saturn SL2!

I'll believe Saturn's commitment to hybrids when they produce a TRUE hybrid on the Prius or Impact model, or a plug-in.