Pricey gasoline costs U.S. consumers extra $20 bln in one year.

[IChing]

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The jump in U.S. gasoline prices this year has so far drained consumers of an extra $20 billion, or about $146 for each passenger car in the country, the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Tuesday.

The national price for regular unleaded gasoline hit a record $3.22 a gallon this week, and is up $1.05 since the beginning of February, according to the Energy Department.

The added expense is taking money away from consumers to spend on other goods and services.


"Spending billions more on gasoline constrains consumers' budgets, leaving less money available for other purchases," GAO's Thomas McCool said in written testimony to a House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on the cause of record prices.

Officials from oil giants Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell Oil, along with major oil refiner Valero Energy Corp., were asked to testify at the hearing but declined to appear.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2244355620070522?pageNumber=2

[phantom power]

1. I'm thinking of a word...

and that word is "subpoena"

[Botany]

2. Go figure

start a war and decrease the supply of oil and have China & India grow their
economies to the point that they need more oil .... greater demand on a
finite resource and gas goes through the roof.

[Deja Q]

3. Declined to appear?

Cowards.

Seems money can't buy them a spine.

Oh well.

[IChing]

4. So much for participatory democracy

We don't need to go to your stinking little hearings
we are multi-international oil companies.

[kenny blankenship]

5. That's OK I'm sure the oil companies will put it to good use

they're just safe-keeping our money for us. As some of the richest corporations on earth, who else could be a better shepherd and mentor for our dollars?
Of course I say "our dollars" but it's really their money: without them we'd have no jobs in the first place. They were here before any of us were born and they'll be around long after we're gone. Who are we to get sticky fingered around their money? If we want our country to be strong and protect us, we must let our system be strong and rob us. Only that way will future generations enjoy the cradle to harness to unmarked grave security that immortal corporate dictatorship can provide.

[DemoTex]

6. It's an oilman's wet dream.

This administration could not have turned out better for the oil companies if they had payed for it. Know what I mean, Vern?