High priced months ahead; summer fuel outlook grim

[CShine]

Gasoline prices have set records every day since last Wednesday, rising 8.4 cents in the eight-day span to $2.35 a gallon for regular grade by Friday and portending a very expensive summer for motorists, analysts say. Prices began their record tear in February and were expected to fall before the start of the summer driving season on Memorial Day weekend. But the prognosticators were wrong and prices topped $2 for three consecutive months. Now, with driving season a week away, the Automobile Club of Southern California said Friday prices jumped three cents a gallon from Thursday.

<snip>

The oil market that directly influences gasoline prices got some good news Friday, when Saudi Arabia proposed that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries raise its production by 2 million barrels per day. Mindful of their constituents' plight -- and upcoming elections -- politicians have suddenly taken intense interest in high prices. Democratic senators, led by presidential hopeful John Kerry, called for President George W. Bush to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve earlier in the week. Bush declined, but used the opportunity to press Congress to pass his languishing energy bill.

A coalition of seven state attorneys general, including California's Bill Lockyer and New York's Eliot Spitzer, lobbied the Justice Department to investigate high prices on a federal level on Thursday. Lockyer, who first convened a task force in 1999 to investigate prices, is now running three separate initiatives to examine California's troubled gasoline market. Separately, the Senate Select Committee on Gasoline and Diesel Pricing announced an investigation into alleged price gouging by oil companies on Monday. And next week, Congressman Doug Ose, a California Republican who represents the Sacramento area, will hold a hearing on high prices in the west.

"These investigations don't accomplish anything," said Rayola Dougher, senior policy analyst for the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's lobby in Washington. "They help politicians who want to seem like they're doing something. 'Hey, there's nothing happening, let's have an investigation."'

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20950~2164264,00.html

[truthisfreedom]

1. nothing's happening, let's have an investigation? horse hockey! prices

are breaking all records and no end is in sight, profits are exploding... WE ARE BEING GOUGED AT A TIME OF WAR!

[AndyTiedye]

2. They're Trying for $3/gal by July 4

though some places will hit it by Memorial Day.

Record profits for the oil companies, of course!

[Citizen Daryl]

10. GET THE MESSAGE OUT AT THE GAS PUMP!

Yeah, these are mine, and I'm pimping them while I've still got a few left. I had these made up after the anti-drug "I support terror" ads - but they seem more apropos than ever now:

http://www.subvert.us/thankyou

[maggrwaggr]

3. It's not grim if you're in the oil business! It's fucking fantastic

More record profits for the oil giants, no doubt.

Doesn't anybody remember the "windfall tax" they put on the oil companies back in the 70's? I think it's time to bring that back.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

4. It's time for a national strike, don't you think? Let's pick some...

period of time for up to three days duration and stop buying gas and stop driving. The Teamsters, and any other union that wants to join, should be part of this.

Somebody needs to let those NeoCon idiots that we've had enough.

[Fovea]

6. that will not touch them

If you want to hurt them, replace at least 10 miles of errand running a week with a bike or on foot.

That is what will hurt them, not delaying your auto use, but replacing it.

[Citizen Daryl]

11. Just don't hoard up on gas the day before. n/t

[depakid]

5. The oil executive is right

investigations don't accomplish anything- even when they turn up evidence of massive fraud and criminal conduct- not to mention blatant anti-trust violations. The industry keeps its record profits, heads don't role and no one ever goes to jail. In short no one is ever help accountable- even the politicians who are complicit in their behavior.

I've seen this over and over. One of the more memorable and egegious ones happened in 1997- under Clinton and involved manipulation of West Coast gas prices. The evidence there was clear and incontrovertable and the perps- primarly BP executives are probably still enjoying their hefty bonuses. The same thing happened to California also under Clinton with respect to natural gas prices in the winter of 1999-2000.

So get used to it- they pretty much own us, unless we take public transportation.

[Neshanic]

7. Prices hace risen 33% since March in AZ. Lowest I got is $2.25.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. $2.01 for regular unleaded in Madison, Alabama...outrageous!....

My wife is NOT a political person at all (opposites do attract!) and just hates anything having to do with politics. But she floored me today after she came back from filling up the van for $2.01 per gallon of regular unleaded.

She told me today that Americans need to pick a three day period of time, starting with a Friday and going through the weekend, and NOT BUY GASOLINE FOR ANY REASON. Whoa!!

In fact, she stated that in addition to not buying gasoline, we should all just park our vehicles for that entire three day period and just do family related things. I told her that she needed to register to vote...she has never done so before...and help get rid of the NeoCons. And I think she really will...she's pissed!

My wife is starting to become political...and if there are more people like her around the country, Junior is going home soon.

[cliss]

9. I've read some excellent suggestions on this thread,

and I for one will participate. I already told my co-workers that when gas hits $3.00 per gallon, I will stop driving my car and take pubic transportation.

I don't use very much gas to begin with. I have a small car and burn up about $10/week. We don't drive on the weekends if we can avoid it. I just HATE giving the Saudis my hard-earned $$$'s.

So yes - let's boycott those evil gas companies. Stick it to 'em.

[AndyTiedye]

14. WHAT Public Transportation

> I will stop driving my car and take pubic transportation.

...which is in the process of getting cut WAY back, in those relatively
few places that have it.

[ramapo]

12. What's the big deal? This is a surprise?

Gasoline prices adjusted for inflation are still less than they were 20-25 years ago.

The problem is that after the twin fuel/price shocks of the '70s, people forgot. Gas became plentiful, prices dropped, and we decided that we can use as much as we want. We don't need to conserve. We don't need efficiency.

Oil is a finite resource which is cheaper than milk and bottled water. Yet we waste it like there is an unending supply. You'll spend a dollar or even two on a small bottle of water that you can drink in a few minutes. You could fill the bottle for close to nothing yet you pay far in excess of what the product is worth with hardly a complaint.


The need to move to alternative energy/fuel/transportation has gotten plenty of lip service. Compare the rhetoric of today to 25-30 years today. Doesn't matter if it's a politician or citizen. Problem is the rhetoric is the same, the solution too...there hasn't been one because nobody can own up to the changes and investment required.

Guess what? The party is coming to an end. You won't be able to piss away gas like cheap beer fo rmuch longer.

Cars/SUVs cost so much to buy and maintain that the cost of gas is almost trivial to far too many people, even if the price goes to $3+/gal.

Cheap gas is not a god-given right. America has made many stupid decisions over the past couple decades that have brought us right back to the 1970s.

We have nobody to blame but ourselves. Don't blame the politicians, the oil companies, the Saudis. Look in the mirror.

[mistertrickster]

19. I basically agree with your post, and I have never bought water

in my life because there's this amazing thing in most public buildings called WATER FOUNTAIN where you can get the same damn thing absolutely free.

But the one quibble I have with the analysis is that you don't normally drink 20 gallons of bottled water at a sitting . . .

[Barkley]

21. You make several good points!

Prices are lower than the 70s but the issue back the was inflation -- the change in prices or the price level in general.

Inflation is the issue now also; we're seeing a rapid rise in gas prices that's beginning to spill over into other goods like milk.

I also agree that our government has made some pretty bad decisions like making our economy more dependent upon oil from the Middle East.

As you stated we have the technology to implement alternative energy sources. But the economics power of oil has and will continue to block any serious attempts to fundamentally change our energy source from oil.

[lojasmo]

13. 40-50 MPG, $1.65/galon for deisel

I'm liking my VW TDI now!

[AndyTiedye]

15. If The Oil Runs Out While I'm Living Here, I'll Get a Horse

A lot of people around here have them already and there are nearly as many horse trails as roads.

I can ride my bike up the mountain, but not with several bags of
groceries and 20# of kitty litter.
.

[lojasmo]

18. If the oil runs out

I'll make biodeisel from used fryer oil...costs $.59/gal.

[ze_dscherman]

23. Just a matter of training and good gears

Get a good trailer, or good bags, get a good set of gears, and you'll be amazed how much one can carry on a bicycle.

I just spent my holidays in the mountains of Corsica, carrying food, water and the complete camping equipment with my bike. 1000 altitude meters, every single day - there was hardly a flat piece of road. I'm neither an athlete nor a young man! But then, I always bike to work and for recreation. I also do all my shopping (except furniture ...) by bike - I don't own a car since several years.

Of course, I don't know how steep your slopes are, how many miles you have to cover, and how hot your climate is.

[dbt]

16. The hell "those investigations don't accomplish anything!"

Every time the Senate has had (insert PC euphemism for BALLS here) enough to probe gasoline prices since roughly 2001, they have immediatley fallen rather substantially.

OPEC, my shiny metal ass! It's the Murkin Oil Corporations that are jacking up prices just to see what the traffic will bear.

:still looking for the flipoff icon:
dbt

[Piperay]

17. Gosh, I thought that we were supposed

to have all the cheap oil and gas we could possibly want after invading Iraq. :wtf: *sarcasm*

[The_Casual_Observer]

20. High Gas Prices = Economic Slowdown & Inflation

which means Bye Bye Bush!

[fortyfeetunder]

22. Will Big Oil and Detroit now get it: More alt fuel cars?

I grew up around energy crises of the 70's did my undergrad electives studying energy, only to find out when I graduated early 80's there was the (last) oil glut and R&D money for alternative fuels were drying up, both at Big Oil and Detroit.

So Murka collectively sat on its ass for 20 years drinking oil, and now what? Detroit is pimping the gas guzzling SUV's and muscle cars and trucks with no lack of willing takers. So now gas is at a deuce and a quarter or more for regular and now people are starting to gripe? Give me an effin break.

Until Murka, does some behavior modification, embraces more public transportation, and light rail, then we are doomed to suffer when the last of the cheap oil goes away. Screw Big Oil, now that I think about it, they don't or won't get it now. But Detroit has to listen up and get some alternative fuel technologies commonplace, not the onesie-twosie alt fuel stations....

[4dsc]

24. This doesn't seem like the 70's though

for some reason, it doesn't seem like the 70's and urgency is not there.. While it is s good to compare the current prices to the 70's, I haven't witnessed the public outcry over high prices this time..

What's up with that??