John Conyers: Fed Up with Gas Prices? Blame the Bush Administration for Not Enforcing Anti-Trust Law

[babylonsister]

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=35842

John Conyers: Fed Up with Gas Prices? Blame the Bush Administration for Not Enforcing Anti-Trust Laws

Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2007
By: Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

In recent weeks, prices at the pump have hit an all-time high. The average price for a gallon of gas in the United States is currently $3.036, just two cents short of the record high reached in September 2005 after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast.

Paradoxically, this year, rising gas prices are not being driven by increases in the cost of oil. In fact, a barrel of oil is actually $7 cheaper than it was this time last year. How is it possible for gas prices to reach record highs while the price of oil remains relatively stable?

We examined this and related questions during a House Judiciary Committee Antitrust Task Force hearing titled, "Prices at the Pump: Market Failure and the Oil Industry." We found that America's pain at the pump has three possible causes:

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In response to these findings, last week I introduced a bill that would address America's skyrocketing gas prices -- The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act of 2007, or NOPEC. I was joined by bipartisan cosponsors, Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Steve Chabot. NOPEC will make participation by foreign governments in oil cartels engaging in conduct designed to fix the price of oil illegal under U.S. law. Under the bill, OPEC nations will no longer be able to hide behind the dubious doctrines of sovereign immunity and act of state, policies that originated to accord proper respect among nations for each other's core governmental decision-making. These doctrines have no place in shielding state profit-making enterprises from accountability for anti-competitive marketplace conduct that, when engaged in by private enterprises, subjects the wrongdoers to heavy fines and time in prison. The bill makes clear that foreign governments are persons under our antitrust laws, and subject to suit, and specifically authorizes the Department of Justice to bring lawsuits in federal court against oil cartel members.

We don't have to continue to stand by and watch OPEC dictate the price of our gasoline without any penalty or recourse. By passing this bill, we can put our antitrust laws to work against OPEC, just as we would against any other cartel that is fleecing American consumers of their hard-earned money.

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Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan) is serving his 20th term in Congress.

[Greeby]

1. NOPEC? Nice one nt

[madrchsod]

2. great idea...but-

who`s going to pass it and who`s going to enforce it? certainly not this congress and administration.

[SpiralHawk]

3. And blame also the republicon oil cronies for screwing Americans at the gas pump

to line their own greedly republicon pockets...

For this they lied us into a war, and sacrificed our sons and daughters in uniform?

I have no respect for the republicon chickenhawk war-profiteering cronies...