Progress Pond

What’s happening with gas prices?

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.

Under The LobsterScope

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