Outraged!!!

[Amora]

I heard on the radio this morning that gas prices are expected to jump to over $2.00 a gallon by the 4th of July and over $3.00 a gallon by Labor day. THAT IS CRAZY!!! How will we even afford to drive to work everyday?????

Does this drive anyone else MAD or is it just me??? I can't accept this, it's getting out of control!!

[Kaylara]

No, you're not the only one... This pisses me off SOOOO much!!!!!! My fiancee is going to be getting one of those hybrid cars in the summer, and I think that I am going to get one when I get my next raise... I would love a regular electric one, but those aren't out yet. The government makes too much money on fossil fuels to push other forms of energy. ( I think that they are specifically trying to keep them off the road, but that's just a sneaking suspicion of mine. )

I'll write more later.
Kaylara

[bluecat]

Originally posted by Amora
I heard on the radio this morning that gas prices are expected to jump to over $2.00 a gallon by the 4th of July and over $3.00 a gallon by Labor day. THAT IS CRAZY!!! How will we even afford to drive to work everyday?????

Does this drive anyone else MAD or is it just me??? I can't accept this, it's getting out of control!!

With two oil boys in the Whitehouse this is a surprise??? Not to me.

There is also another way to look at it, if we are paying $2 & $3 per gallon here, I would not want to be buying gas in Europe!

Blue

[Earth Walker]

We in British Columbia have been paying $3.46 a
gallon for quite a while now, and it appears that
there will another increase(s) soon. :mad:



Only my cat understands me.:D

[Amora]

Originally posted by Kaylara
No, you're not the only one... This pisses me off SOOOO much!!!!!! My fiancee is going to be getting one of those hybrid cars in the summer, and I think that I am going to get one when I get my next raise... I would love a regular electric one, but those aren't out yet. The government makes too much money on fossil fuels to push other forms of energy. ( I think that they are specifically trying to keep them off the road, but that's just a sneaking suspicion of mine. )

I'll write more later.
Kaylara

I've heard many stories about people creating new and better ways to power vehicles. One even about a carborater (sp?) that only uses a quarter of the gas the ones we use now do and supposedly the government bought the patent and destroyed it. I know nothing about politics and I'm not saying I could do better but I just want to live and they seem to be making it harder and harder to do that!!

[Kaylara]

Amora~
I've heard the same thing, but I don't have documentation on it, and don't know if it's hearsay or truth. However, I think that you are correct and that the government has been buying up the patents and destroying the designs.

Kaylara

[Earth Walker]

A few years ago, the Japanese made a car that ran
on water; with the hydrogen process.
The news was quickly squashed, and I believe that
big oil companies and government bought out the
patent, to keep the car from being produced.
Putting quick short-term profits before the environment,
and destroying Mother Earth in the process. :mad:



Only my cat understands me. :D

[Amora]

Originally posted by Mystique
A few years ago, the Japanese made a car that ran
on water; with the hydrogen process.
The news was quickly squashed, and I believe that
big oil companies and government bought out the
patent, to keep the car from being produced.
Putting quick short-term profits before the environment,
and destroying Mother Earth in the process. :mad:



Only my cat understands me. :D

Uhh the urge to kill!!!!

[sherry]

A long time ago there was a man who came up with a safer type and better fuel mileage the gov. squished his dreams. The mans name was really Tucker. Now there is a movie that came out in the 70's or 80's it is really good and most of the facts are true in the movie.
( I did a paper on him for an economics class I took once)

His saftey ideas were put into use after he died and they are used still today!! Better brakes using pads, saftey harnesses he called them, and the bright lights dimmer switch these were some of his patented ideas



Oh by the way here in Ohio on thursday thru the weekend we pay 1.65 and up but come Monday morning it is 1.48 so if passing thru our are plan ahead !!

[Earth Walker]

:D I saw the movie, "Tucker", and it is an excellent
movie. *****


Better than Siskal & Ebert. :bigredgri

[Xois]

Well, even though there are 2 oil boys in the white house, (and you would be amazed how others in his cabinate are connected to oil) we can still make a difference by voting out his croonies in the Senate and House...mid term elections are only 1 year away!

Don't forget to vote!

Go diesel! You can actually buy "bio-diesel" which is veggie oil with the glicerine removed! Your car doesn't even have to be modified!

You can by this bio-diesel from www.worldpower.com in 50 gallon drums!

:D

Xois

[Rævyn Cigány]

Originally posted by Amora
I heard on the radio this morning that gas prices are expected to jump to over $2.00 a gallon by the 4th of July and over $3.00 a gallon by Labor day. THAT IS CRAZY!!! How will we even afford to drive to work everyday?????

Does this drive anyone else MAD or is it just me??? I can't accept this, it's getting out of control!!

Well, up here in Canada, now I'm not that great at converting imperial to metric, but the price of gas is easily $3.30 a gallon in some places up here....I agree, it's ludicrous! It's especially bad for those of us living in this area (the Ottawa Valley) because better than 60% of the people living here commute to Ottawa everyday to go to work. I remember this winter when the price of gas was nearly 90 cents a litre (trust me, it's ALOT) and to travel three days a week back and forth to Ottawa it was costing me 65 dollars a week in gas! *sigh* will the insanity never end? If it isn't petroleum gas prices, it's natural gas prices, and don't even get me started on THAT!!!

AAAAARGH, etc.

Rae )0(

[Earth Walker]

Here in British Columbia, many poor and elderly are
unable to pay for natural gas, and are living without
heat. :mad:
The Dosanjh NDP have sold us out to Big Business,
them, the "great defenders" of the working/poor
folk. :confused:



Money Talks. Everything else is toast.

[gypsiefire]

In Sydney Australia we are paying about $1.00 a litre, it was only 75.9 cents/ litre a couple of months ago. This expensive for us and we often dont go somewhere as we can't aford the fuel and need what we have to get to work.

My dog is snoring

[Earth Walker]

Originally posted by gypsiefire
In Sydney Australia we are paying about $1.00 a litre, it was only 75.9 cents/ litre a couple of months ago. This expensive for us and we often dont go somewhere as we can't aford the fuel and need what we have to get to work.

My dog is snoring

Have you checked out the New Pagans Forum yet?
Come on over and introduce yourself to the family. :)
bluecat has an endless supply of lemonade on the
porch, so find a spot on the thingy of comforty, and
get to know the family. :sunny:

Turn the dog on his other side.


Only my cat understands me. :D

[bluecat]

Originally posted by gypsiefire
In Sydney Australia we are paying about $1.00 a litre, it was only 75.9 cents/ litre a couple of months ago. This expensive for us and we often dont go somewhere as we can't aford the fuel and need what we have to get to work.

My dog is snoring

Welcome gypsiefire :cool:

Pull up one of Kaylara's comfy couch/chair thingies and have a glass of lemonade, it's free, unlike the gasoline.

Blue :cool:

[Lady Tana]

gas prices... argh!!
luckily my work supplies bus passes to help reduce the number of people that drive there..
i am going to have to start that cuz they arent paying me enough to drive there every day :)

its not so bad here in seattle... cheap (am/pm) gas can be had for 1.49 a gallon

[gunner]

g'day gypsiefire, welcome aboard, got a fair dinkum mob here, some of 'em even know christmas from bourke street.

[Earth Walker]

Originally posted by Lady Tana
gas prices... argh!!
luckily my work supplies bus passes to help reduce the number of people that drive there..
i am going to have to start that cuz they arent paying me enough to drive there every day :)

its not so bad here in seattle... cheap (am/pm) gas can be had for 1.49 a gallon

I have a hand-capped bus pass, but it is no good to
me until the bus drivers end their strike.
Until then, I stay at home. :mad:

[Twig]

Originally posted by Xois
Well, even though there are 2 oil boys in the white house, (and you would be amazed how others in his cabinate are connected to oil) we can still make a difference by voting out his croonies in the Senate and House...mid term elections are only 1 year away!

Don't forget to vote!

Go diesel! You can actually buy "bio-diesel" which is veggie oil with the glicerine removed! Your car doesn't even have to be modified!

You can by this bio-diesel from www.worldpower.com in 50 gallon drums!

:D

Xois


Only one probem with that...Diesal smoke is one of the most carcenegious[sp] substances known to man!!! :O

Peace,
Twig :elf:

[bluecat]

Here is an article from today's ABC SCI/TECH news (well maybe more than today, but I just noticed it today. ;) )



By Lee Dye
[quote]
Wescott is a geophysicist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and he can tell you in a few minutes how to supply the world with a clean burning, inexhaustible fuel and free us from dependence on foreign oil.
Sound far fetched? Of course, but if we are ever going to move beyond hydrocarbons as our primary source of fuel we're going to have to start taking people like Wescott a lot more seriously.


Seas of Potential Fuel

Like so many scientists, Wescott sees hydrogen as the fuel of the future. Hydrogen can be "burned" in a fuel cell to produce electricity, and the only waste product is water so pure you can drink it. And hydrogen, the simplest and most abundant element in the universe, is everywhere. The seas are literally awash with the stuff. All you have to do is extract it from the water, and bingo, you've got the fuel of the future.

The technology for pulling hydrogen out of sea water is well understood, but there's a problem. It takes a lot of electrical energy to do it. So if you've got a lot of electricity, you can produce hydrogen, and that's the Catch-22 in all of this. If you've already got a lot of electrical energy, why bother with producing hydrogen to make more electricity?

And that brings us back to Gene Wescott. Several decades ago, when the world was searching for new types of energy, Wescott was dispatched from his campus in Fairbanks to a long string of islands that stretches for 1,100 miles from Alaska into the northern Pacific Ocean. The Aleutians are volcanic islands, many of them quite active today, and they are literally sitting on shallow beds of molten rock, surrounded by water.

The U.S. Department of Energy wanted to know if those desolate islands could be used to produce geothermal energy. The idea was that the hot areas beneath the surface might provide a continuous source of blistering hot water, which could in turn be flashed to steam and used to turn turbines and produce electricity. The precedent had been set in California and Iceland. California draws a small percentage of its electricity from geothermal power plants near San Francisco.


Energy for Centuries

So Wescott traveled out the Aleutians, drilling a few test wells along the way, and he found just what common sense would suggest should be there. The rocks beneath the surface were very, very hot.

"There are several obvious resources out there" which could be used to produce geothermal energy, Wescott says.

What he had found was an enormous potential source of energy, located in a remote area of the planet where only a handful of people live. Except for a few scattered native American villages, and an occasional U.S. military installation, the Aleutians are uninhabited. So here was the potential for a series of power plants in nobody's back yard, drawing electricity from natural resources that should produce energy for many, many centuries.

But here's the hitch: Why build power plants hundreds, or thousands, of miles away from any users? It isn't practical to run power lines from the Aleutians all the way to the major population centers of the western United States, so what Wescott really found was an enormous source of energy where nobody could use it.

So the whole idea kind of died, except in the mind of Gene Wescott. As he told me a few days ago, he just couldn't see letting all that energy "go to waste."

As the years rolled by, the world grew even more dependent on fossil fuels, and we grew somewhat more aware of the real cost. Fossil fuels produce greenhouse gases that many scientists believe are making the planet warmer. That could have a devastating impact around the globe. And some day, by the way, those fuels are going to run out.

In recent years, Wescott has returned to the idea of building geothermal power plants in the Aleutians, and using that electricity to produce hydrogen. The hydrogen could be liquified, he says, and shipped to Asia or the west coast of the United States. One of the largest geothermal resources he found in his earlier research is near the major port deepwater port of Dutch Harbor, making it almost seem as though providence planned the whole thing.


So Far, Oil Is Cheap

Wescott approached several government agencies with his idea, but so far, nothing has come of it.

"They said there's no market" for the hydrogen, he says.

True enough. You still can't buy a car that runs on hydrogen, although that day may not be too far away. And there aren't any power plants that run on hydrogen, although if the gas were available, there might be.

And who knows what it would all cost. Oil is still cheap, compared to nearly all other alternate energy sources, and nobody wants to put big bucks into a product that's going to be undersold by an industry that already has a huge constituency.

So Wescott's great idea remains just that, a great idea. Take energy from some place where it isn't needed, transport it to a place where it is needed, and convert it into a product that could help clean up our skies and improve our lives.

That's the stuff that legends are made of. And for now, that's where this remains, a legend. But one of these days, this old world will get so messed up that we'll start listening to people like Wescott. Let's hope it isn't too late.

Lee Dye’s column appears weekly on ABCNEWS.com. A former science writer for the Los Angeles Times, he now lives in Juneau, Alaska.
[\quote]

[gunner]

most interesting mr. cat, both the geo-thermal energy idea and hydrogen as fuel, as you note, neither is a new idea and neither requires radical new technology to be developed to make their use possible. basically geo-thermal energy is a heat source to drive a turbine that drives a generator, it's advantage over others such as nuclear or fossil fuels is it's relative lack of by-products. hydrogen as a fuel is not new, it was proposed as an automotive fuel 25 or 30 years ago for converted internal combustion engines but storage and cost of production problems precluded development at the time. perhaps the "cost benefit ratio" might be better now with the development of fuel cell power.
"gunner"

[Swanspirit]

Merry Merry,
Two Oil Boys in the White House, talking about lowering taxes so we can have more money
to pay for higher gas prices, WHO voted this jerk in ....... ooops that's right he didnt REALLY win,
he stole that too.....
I cant wait for the next election but I keep getting this feeling there will be some huge scandal with the "shrub" that will make Clinton's escapades laughable,,, well ok more laughable... :>
Love and light
Swannie

[Lisa McKay]

Visions of "Road Warrior" dancing in my head.:D :elf:

[zemblin]

I can't even drive yet,but I still have to pay for my own gas because I mow lots of lawns.If this keeps up I'm just going to stick to riding a bike.(that or build my own solar power vehicle).

I've heard about a form of peanut oil that works as a fuel , but it clogs your engine . couldn't someone just find a safe way to unclog it or build a specially designed engine?

[Swanspirit]

Merry merry,
Than most people realise........... There is even a car ready to manufacture that doesnt use ROADS,
can you imagine how much natural environment we could reclaim if we didnt have to use roads?
Check this out
http://www.moller.com/skycar/
Love and Living Lightly on this earth
Swannie

[Kiya]

Currently 76 pence per litre at my local garage... that's US dollars $2.84 per gallon....

:(

[Dria El]

Originally posted by Amora


I've heard many stories about people creating new and better ways to power vehicles. One even about a carborater (sp?) that only uses a quarter of the gas the ones we use now do and supposedly the government bought the patent and destroyed it. I know nothing about politics and I'm not saying I could do better but I just want to live and they seem to be making it harder and harder to do that!!

You can't blame only the government for that. If the people didn't sell it, the government couldn't buy it.

Annoyedly,
Dria El

[Dria El]

Originally posted by Swanspirit
Merry merry,
Than most people realise........... There is even a car ready to manufacture that doesnt use ROADS,
can you imagine how much natural environment we could reclaim if we didnt have to use roads?
Check this out
http://www.moller.com/skycar/
Love and Living Lightly on this earth
Swannie

In present incarnation it wouldn't work for most. It doesn't look like it can hold 3 kids. :(

Hopefully,
Dria El

[Swanspirit]

Merry Merry,
Give them time to develop the station flying wagon LOL , the thing is it WILL work and and could even run on alternative fuel there are options and solutions.......>
love and light
Swannie

[Dria El]

Originally posted by Swanspirit
Merry Merry,
Give them time to develop the station flying wagon LOL , the thing is it WILL work and and could even run on alternative fuel there are options and solutions.......>
love and light
Swannie

LOL!

Wow! What's that a picture of? It looks like something I'd like to get a closer look at.

Inquisitively,
Dria El

[Swanspirit]

Merry Merry,
Ohhh just some ancient Chinese Astronomical instruments I have laying about the house :>
LOL they are Ancient and Chinese and AStronomical........... This picture came to me after my Soltice adventure At Stonehenge 1999 :>> Things have been sent since then.... continually .......
Love and Light
Swannie

[Dria El]

Originally posted by Swanspirit
This picture came to me after my Soltice adventure At Stonehenge 1999 :>> Things have been sent since then.... continually .......
Love and Light
Swannie

Ok, call me dense but I'm not sure what you meant by 'sent?'

Interestedly,
Dria El

[Swanspirit]

Merry Merry
or late to supper either :> , it is just that I have to say "sent or given " because
I was told (during my experience) that I would be given everything I needed to do what I needed to do , and from time to time things "turn up" that help me along the way, like the pieces of a cosmic puzzle gently falling into place. The FIRST thing that turned up was something that let me know this experience was FOR ME, and I didnt understand why I would need "cosmic proof" UNTIL someone later on tried to glom onto it and "horn in" and try to exclude me , and use this experience for their own self aggrandisement , and "popularity " instead of the spiritual purpose which is EARTH HEALING.
So let me post a pic of what was at my feet when I came out of trance at Stonehenge :> so you can see a bit of what I am talking about.

[bluecat]

Bush Task Force Will Recommend Alaska Drilling
April 23, 2001 12:51 pm EST

By Patricia Wilson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seeking to clarify a muddied message on oil exploration in the Alaska wilderness, the White House said on Monday President Bush's energy panel would call for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Bush made opening about 8 percent of the refuge's coastal plain for exploration central to his long-term solution to U.S. energy shortages and a major plank of his election campaign.

"The president's position is as it always has been," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "The president believes we can and we should, in an environmentally responsible way, open up a small portion of ANWR so we can explore for oil."

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman said on Sunday the White House energy task force's report would not specifically cite drilling in the refuge as a vital option. Her remarks came after senior Bush adviser Karl Rove reportedly told a Republican consultant the president would not push for drilling there.

But Fleischer said Bush's position remained the same and that the president "intends to fight for it."

"That will be part of the energy plan that is presented to the president and nothing has changed," he told reporters.

The idea of drilling in the arctic refuge has little appeal in Congress and Bush faces widespread opposition from environmentalists who cite it as a pristine home to teeming herds of caribou and other wildlife.

His administration has taken a public relations beating recently over some of its environmental stands and the comments from Whitman and Rove were seen as part of a continuing effort to reverse what Interior Secretary Gale Norton portrayed as a failure "to get our message across."

PART OF THE PLAN

In recent weeks, Bush withdrew from talks on a global warming treaty; declined for now to implement tougher standards for arsenic in drinking water; reneged on a campaign pledge to require power plants to control emissions of carbon dioxide, and took other actions critics say show he is more interested in helping industry than protecting the environment.

To shore up its environmental image, the White House last week made several announcements with fanfare, including upholding rules from the Democratic administration of former President Clinton requiring thousands more businesses to disclose potentially toxic lead emissions and signing a global treaty aimed at curbing toxic chemicals.

Trying to limit the damage from the arsenic controversy, Whitman said on Wednesday said she had asked the National Academy of Sciences to review the issue and that a new rule would call for a reduction of arsenic in drinking water of at least 60 percent from current allowable levels. A Clinton plan would have reduced levels by 80 percent.

Whitman, a member of the panel that has been studying energy options to present to Bush, clarified her own statement on drilling in the refuge, saying later on Sunday the task force would not make specific recommendations on where to drill.

"We aren't specifically saying you should or should not" drill in specific locations, Whitman said. "We haven't taken anything off the table or put anything on."

The Cabinet-level panel, headed by Vice President Dick Cheney and appointed on Jan. 29, is expected to report by mid-May. Norton, who also sits on the task force, defended the idea of drilling in the refuge.

"That's an area that has been for decades designated as a place where we might want to have oil production at some point. And so it's a question that needs to be addressed by Congress," she said.

Congressional Republican leaders have omitted from their pending 2002 budget resolutions any revenues from drilling in the refuge, seeking to avoid a fight.

Bush asked for a plan to fight high energy prices and reduce dependence on foreign oil, to encourage development of pipelines and power-generating capacity and to find ways to cope with California's electricity supply shortage.

"Our energy plan will look at a number of diverse ways to increase supply," a White House official said. "One of a diverse number of ways to increase supply is to open a small part of ANWR to exploration."

"It will be part of the plan," he said.

[Swanspirit]

Merry Merry,
In this area is that he IS meeting So much resistance , and we need to provide more of it :>
other wise I would just collapse weeping ......
Love and HUGS
Swannie

[Swanspirit]

:>

[bluecat]

Exxon Mobil Profits Up 51 Percent
Monday April 23, 1:02 PM EDT

By Paul Thomasch
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp.(XOM), the No. 1 U.S. oil company, said on Monday first-quarter earnings rose 51 percent, as it cashed in on strong crude oil and natural gas prices as well as better profits from refined fuels such as gasoline.

Exxon Mobil posted record first-quarter income, excluding merger effects, of $5.05 billion, or $1.44 a diluted share, up from $3.35 billion, or 95 cents a diluted share, in the year-earlier period. First-quarter revenues rose to about $57.28 billion from $54.1 billion a year before.

Earnings for the Irving, Texas-based oil company, which last year set a record for the world's highest corporate profits, surpassed most analysts' expectations, helping its stock rise nearly 2 percent on the New York Stock Exchange.

Conoco, the No. 4 U.S. oil company, also reported profits that were better than most expected. The Houston-based company said its earnings rose 58 percent to $616 million, or 97 cents a share.

Calling it a blowout quarter for the oil industry, Fahnestock & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit said profits this year could even top those from a year ago.

"This is one of the best periods for the oil industry," he said. "But it gets very little respect -- oil companies are the Rodney Dangerfield of the economy."

While Exxon Mobil's stock outperformed the broader market in the first quarter, it still fell about 7 percent as investors expected red-hot commodity prices to cool down.

Prices for benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil, however, averaged about $28.75 a barrel in the first quarter of this year, similar to the strong $28.82 it averaged during the period a year ago. And natural gas prices averaged $6.45 per thousand cubic feet, more than 2-1/2 times the $2.46 of the period last year.

Exxon Mobil's exploration and production unit, which feels the biggest impact from oil and natural gas prices, earned $3.8 billion in the quarter, up 37 percent from a year ago.

Crude oil and liquids production rose slightly to 2.619 million barrels a day, while natural gas output slipped after the company shut down wells in Indonesia for security purposes.

THROWING IN THE TOWEL

Its downstream -- or refining, marketing and transportation business -- showed better results too, thanks to improved profit margins on fuels such as gasoline from its refineries.

"Refining is clearly a plus in this quarter," said Gene Nowak of ABN Amro. "The balance of Exxon Mobil really came to the fore."

The chemicals business, however, hurt Exxon Mobil and promises to take a bite out of results at other integrated oil companies. Rising costs for crude oil and natural gas have made feedstock for chemicals expensive, while sales of chemicals have also slowed throughout the industry alongside the faltering U.S. economy.

Overall, net income rose $1.520 million, or 44 percent, to $5 billion, the company said. Results included an after-tax gain of $40 million from asset sales, required as part of Exxon's takeover of Mobil, and $90 million of merger expenses.

Excluding items, Exxon Mobil's $1.44 a share beat the consensus estimate of $1.35 a share, and was at the high end of expectations ranging from $1.05 and $1.45 a share, according to Thomson Financial/First Call.

"If oil companies continue to beat earnings estimates, finally bearish investors will throw in towel and believe," said Fahnestock's Gheit. "Investors basically have not given oil companies a fair shake."

But oil companies, themselves, have showed no hesitancy in buying back their own stock with the blockbuster profits they've posted in recent quarters. Exxon Mobil Chairman Lee Raymond said the company bought back some 17.5 million shares during the quarter.

The oil major also raised its spending in the quarter, with capital and exploration expenditures of $2.5 billion, up $292 million, or 13 percent, from the corresponding period a year ago.

Exxon Mobil shares rose $1.58 to $86.75 on the New York Stock Exchange. Conoco's (COCb) class B shares were up 60 cents, or 2.12 percent, at $28.85.



©2000 Reuters Limited.

[Dria El]

Originally posted by bluecat


I still find it hard to believe that 'everyone' believed his lines of BS. :( We're in for a loooooooooooooooong 4 years :(

Sadly,
Dria El

[Dria El]

Originally posted by bluecat


I knew they were 'bending us over a barrel'!!! :mad: Those b@$+@rd$!!! :smash: Ok, everyone say, "Thanks shrub!!!" :uzi:

Grrringly,
Dria El

[Amora]

:uzi: I need to add this in :uzi:

The urge to kill over this matter is still there:smash: :smash: :smash: :smash:

[bluecat]

Here is the latest broken promise (he just made the promise and will no doubt break it ... with an excuse of course).



Bush Vows to Fight U.S. Gasoline Price Gouging
April 25, 2001 6:52 pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Wednesday his administration would fight any gasoline price gouging that may hit consumers at the pump this spring and summer.
"I think people who are thinking about spring and summer, hopefully the price of (gasoline) product will decrease," Bush said in an interview with CNN. "If anybody is gouging anybody, we'll find out about it."

"We don't want price gouging and I think we need to make sure that that doesn't occur," he said.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Robert Pitofsky said Wednesday that his agency is not now investigating any charges of gasoline price gouging.

"Ordinarily, we get into these issues when Congress or the White House asks us to investigate. And that's what happened last summer. We have not been asked to investigate," Pitofsky told reporters after testifying to Congress about West Coast gasoline prices.

During the congressional hearing, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer complained about retail prices in San Francisco hitting a $2.19 to $2.39-per-gallon range at some stations Tuesday, a level she called "an outrage."

U.S. retail gasoline prices increased over the last week to the highest level since July 4, with the cost for cleaner-burning gasoline in the Midwest alone soaring more than 15 cents a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

The national price for gasoline at the pump jumped 4.8 cents to $1.619, up 18 cents from a year ago, based on the department's weekly survey of 800 service stations.

The latest price already exceeded the $1.52 summer peak the department forecast would be reached in June.

Prices are said to be up due to historically low gasoline supplies and strong consumer demand, even though the economy has slowed.

Bush said the solution to lower fuel prices is to increase domestic energy supplies, including more refined petroleum products. He pointed out that it has been more than a decade since a new U.S. refinery was built.

A White House panel will make recommendations to Bush in mid-May on how to boost energy supplies.

Bush also said the United States needed to take steps to conserve more energy, including developing new technologies to save energy and requiring cars to have better gasoline mileage.

"We've got to do a better job of developing new technologies, more mileage for cars," he said.

Bush's comments on increased fuel efficiency for vehicles conflict with views among Republican lawmakers in Congress, who have blocked the Department of Transportation from even studying higher vehicle fuel mileage.
:smash: :smash: :smash: :smash: :smash: :smash: :smash:

Blue

[Earth Walker]

Where's the Secret Service? :confused:
I will squat behind a Bush and have a pee. hehehe
8O
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.:crazy:
---Isaac Asimov - Foundation