Edwards Wants Probe of High Gas Prices

[draft_mario_cuomo]

==By RACHEL KONRAD Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO — Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says a wave of mergers in the oil industry should be investigated by the Justice Department to see what impact they have had on soaring gasoline prices.

During a campaign stop in Silicon Valley Thursday, Edwards planned to berate the oil industry for "anticompetitive actions" and outline an energy plan he says would reduce oil imports "and get us on a path to be virtually petroleum-free within a generation."

"Vertically integrated companies like Exxon Mobil own every step of the production process _ from extraction to refining to sale at the pump, enabling them to foreclose competition," says an outline of Edward's energy plan.

Edwards' call for a major shift away from oil use would include, according to the document:==

Read the rest at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4850940.html

[phantom power]

1. Not to speak ill of Edwards specifically, but...

politicians of all stripes make these noises about "probing high gas prices" every time they spike to some level that makes the natives restless. I've been reading this "we're going to probe high gas prices" story for years. So far, none of these "probes" has ever come back with a report, or action items. They just fall into the memory hole.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Nothing wrong with high gas prices; windfall profits are a problem

but higher prices force needed changes in behavior. Suffer, you gluttonous American SUV lovers!

[shallowthroat]

4. It's like most of the people I meet that fret over the environment...

and drive everywhere seemingly without thought or necessity. I take the bus and drive infrequently. Thank you very much.

[Rageneau]

3. We should establish a National oil company with pre-fixed prices.

A U.S. National Oil Company (Oh, the horror, the horror) would cure the energy thugs' profiteering and speed development of alternative fuels. Such a company could own its own refineries and agree up front to fix consumer prices at a certain level (at, or a little above the current rate). People wouldn't buy much of the National Gas until the profiteers attempted to gouge the public again, in which case, they wouldn't buy anything but. It would take less than a week for the other companies to lower their prices or lose all existing business.

Anyone dumb enough to believe that the price per barrel for oil is set by anything other than pure greed is the kind of dumb that is dumb enough to have initially supported Smirk's Iraq incursion. And for the same reasons, too -- gullible trusting of the proven-to-be-untrustworthy.

[shallowthroat]

5. Good luck with that.

They've gotten away clean with killing a US president while his brother was attorney general. I think its safe to say nationalizing the oil industry would be akin to... nationalizing the oil industry. Sorry. I couldn't come up with any practical or realistic analogy.

But it is an excellent idea.