If you've driven in Chicago lately and bought gas, you've paid the highest prices in the nation
If you’ve driven in Chicago lately and bought gas, you’ve paid the highest prices in the nation.
So, what are we doing to bring gas prices down? Not much. We want cheap gas, but we want to get it from someone else’s country because drilling for it here seems such an unpleasant concept.
Congress at least ordered the government to stop buying oil to put in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Taxpayers currently pay for 70,000 barrels a day to stash away for use in an emergency such as a disruption in oil supply from a natural disaster or a war. (The reserve currently has 703 million barrels. The U.S. uses about 19 million barrels a day.)
President Bush said he’d veto the bill, but it passed both houses by near-unanimous margins and he signed it. The law could result in a five- to 10-cent per gallon price reduction. Problem is, this is a short-term fix that expires at the end of December.
The House also voted to allow the government to sue the Organization of Oil Petroleum Exporting Countries if it believes the cartel is manipulating oil supplies to spike the price of crude. I’m not sure how you prove that in court. OPEC leaders and oil company execs say the price of crude is high because it reflects increased demand around the world, particularly in the fast-growing economies of China and India.
Congress and Bush finally boosted fuel economy standards, the first time that’s happened in three decades. Automakers are required to gradually increase fuel economy to a corporate fleet average of 35 mpg by 2022.
