Did anyone notice their gasoline prices going up in the past week. Ours in the Eastern Panhandle of WV went up around $.20 a gallon… and I’m not sure why (unless the oil and gas industry is trying to get us upset with the current administrations (state and federal) before any elections come up in 2010.
Then I got an e-mail with a petition to Congress in it from a group called “Stop Oil Speculation Now” blaming the increased price on unregulated oil speculators on Wall Street – you know, the guys who got us over $4.00 a gallon before the 2008 elections – and urging us to tell our elected officials that we are against this and want them regulated.
Then it turns out that this group is a front for the Petroleum Marketers Association of America. They are representing a coalition that includes:
Aerolitoral
Agricultural Retailers Association
Air Carrier Association of America
Air Line Pilots Association
Air Transport Association
Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp.
AirNet Systems Inc.
Airports Council International-North America
American Eagle Airlines
American Moving and Storage Association
American Trucking Associations
Atlantic Southeast Airlines
Cape Air
Chautauqua Airlines
Colgan Air
Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association
Comair
CommutAir
Compass Airlines
Empire Airlines
Era Aviation
ExpressJet
Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey
Gasoline & Automotive Service Dealer’s of America
GoJet
Grand Canyon Airlines
Great Lakes Aviation
Gulfstream Int’l Airlines
Horizon Air
Island Air
Jazz Air
Lynx Aviation
Mesaba Aviation
National Business Aviation Association
New England Airlines
New York Heating Oil Association
Petroleum Marketers Association of America
Piedmont Airlines
Pinnacle Airlines, Inc.
PSA Airlines
Regional Airline Association
Republic Airlines
Shuttle America
SkyWest Airlines, Inc
Trans States Airlines
Notice the large number of airline-related companies here?
And then there’s the Agricultural Retailers Association, which is pushing Corn products as fuel.
Notice there are no taxpayer representatives or consumer representatives on their list. This makes me wonder what, if anything, is really going on here and I am unusually suspicious.
Now I am NOT opposed to regulating oil prices and the petition was not one that went beyond those boundaries, so signing it may be a good thing. However, I want to keep my eyes and ears open here. It’s much too easy for Big Commerce to take advantage of us little guys.