U.S. Federal Trade investigating gas price gouging

The US Federal Trade Commission is once again investigating to see if oil companies have been mainipulating oil / gas prices by constraining oil refinery capacity. A letter to President Bush from 8 state govenors precipitated this investigationThe letter was signed by the govenors of Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico, Iowa, Montana and Washington. The letter urged the investigation into excessive profits made by the oil companies during the recent national crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether gasoline price profiteering has occurred and if oil companies have constrained refinery capacity to manipulate fuel prices, an agency official said Wednesday.
“A determination that unlawful conduct has occurred will result in aggressive law enforcement activity by the FTC,” John Seesel, an FTC associate general counsel, told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing.
The FTC is responding to language in recently passed energy legislation that requires the agency to probe whether gasoline prices have been manipulated by attempts to reduce refining capacity, Seesel said.

FTC says it is investigating gas price gouging

I do not see how the oil companies will be able to deny that they are fixing the oil prices. A quick internet search shows that companies like Exxon have been making double and triple profits qurater over quarter.
www.billingsgazette.com... 1&display=rednews/2005/07/30/build/business/35-exxon.inc

The funniest prt that I found was the govenors calling for a refund to consumers. That is like the refund that the music industry "paid" for over charging music CD's and movie DVD's.

And to add to the above links.
They are expecting Hurricane Rita to push gas prices up over the $3 a gallon mark again!
Rita seen pushing pump price over $3

"We think gasoline prices ought to average $2.50 a gallon or less by November or December," he said. Even under the worse case scenario, three analysts said they did not see retail gasoline prices above $4 a gallon.

emphasis mine.

they should all hang til their deaths, all of them, at a public, televised, function for all to see. Then their bodies should be thrown into the sea and not given any proper burial so that they rot in hell.

the corruption runs so deep, nothing would be done about this. i seriously doubt any larger noise will be made out of this, though i do hope.

Not directly related, but it's interesting to note that in Russia the 6 largest oil companies agreed voluntarily to freeze gas prices until the end of the year, in response to public demand.

-koji K.

it's time for the citizenry of this country to take matters into their own hands. Maybe somebody who was down in New Orleans will decide to take an oil company exec out for a nice hanging party to get the point across. We can only hope.

Now possible $5 per gallon along with lines at the pumps similar to the "gas shortages" of the 70's This is due to the track and strength that Rita now has.

"We could be looking at gasoline lines and $4 gas, maybe even $5 gas, if this thing does the worst it could do," said energy analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover. "This storm is in the wrong place. And it's absolutely at the wrong time," said Beutel.

Rita could equal $5 a gallon

kenshiro says:

I do not see how the oil companies will be able to deny that they are fixing the oil prices. A quick internet search shows that companies like Exxon have been making double and triple profits qurater over quarter.

That doesn't necessarily follow. A company making profits -- even big ones -- doesn't imply they're fixing oil prices. If you can show that the companies have shut down production or refineries, or that they have all colluded to not compete with each other -- then you can talk about price fixing.

But I certainly haven't seen any evidence of that.

What I think is interesting is that the governors listed in your source -- Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Brian Schweitzer of Montana, and Christine Gregoire of Washington -- are all Democrats, which leads me to believe that they're trying to make a little political hay by embarrassing a Republican president with ties to the oil business.

OTS,
That is exactly what the FTC is looking at

The FTC is responding to language in recently passed energy legislation that requires the agency to probe whether gasoline prices have been manipulated by attempts to reduce refining capacity, Seesel said.

As for all the siging govenors being Dem's.... well at least someone is hollering. Rep's have been notorious for being pro-buisness