Gas prices... Everybody should contact their Congressperson & Senators

[Lone_Wolf]

With oil companies making obscene profits, we should demand that Congress do something about this issue.

[coriolis]

1. Sounds like a plan. Uh, what exactly can they do?

:shrug:

[Lone_Wolf]

3. investigate, investigate, and investigate

They haven't done enough of anything yet.

[Javaman]

12. you mean investigate like they did with everything else that moron*

has lied to us about?

don't hold your breath.

there will be "hearings" aka carefully choreographed, no one under oath, lots of finger wagging and the usual feigned indignation, dog and pony show.

Have you not been paying attention for the last year and a half since the Dems have been in "control" of both houses?

sorry to burst your bubble, but nothing is going to be done, too much money is being made.

[taterguy]

13. Has there ever been a Congressional Investigation that led to substantive change?

I can't think of any on any subject.

Maybe Watergate but I'm not sure how much credit Congress should get for that one.

[w8liftinglady]

2. My congressman's response -it's the democrats' fault

http://www.thedailylight.com/articles/2008/04/22/opinion/doc480cd45fd371b722396035.txt
Getting a grip on gas prices
BY U.S. CONGRESSMAN JOE BARTON
Published: Monday, April 21, 2008 12:56 PM CDT
You see the signs everywhere from Mexia to the Metroplex. With summer vacations just around the corner, prices at the pump are at an all-time high and continue to rise. In fact, many experts predict a gallon of gas will soon cost $4.

This historic rise comes on the heels of many in the Democrat-led majority vowing to lower fuel prices.

Around the country, people are starting to call the difference between what gasoline cost when the Democrats took over and what it costs now — regular unleaded is up more than a dollar since then — the “Pelosi Premium.”

When the Democrats took control of Congress, new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, “Democrats have a common sense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.” (4/24/06)

Since that statement, AAA reports that the national average for a gallon of gas has risen from $2.33 in January 2007 to a record high of $3.42 this week. As you probably realized last time you filled up, gas prices in our area aren’t far from the record breaking average.

Skyrocketing prices are hitting truck drivers and farmers especially hard. A gallon of diesel is already more than $4 a gallon at some stations, which means filling up a big rig can cost more than $1,000.

So whether diesel fuel is being used to power farm equipment or haul goods across country, increased gas costs are being passed on to all of us through higher product prices.

There are two very different ideas about the future of our nation’s energy supply in Washington. I believe in exploring all energy sources.

We are making great gains in creating and producing renewable fuel sources.

Biodiesel and other bio blends offer great promise and can compliment our current energy supply. However, this change won’t come overnight and we can’t turn our backs on the fossil fuels that drive our economy.

Remember we aren’t the only ones who depend on oil and natural gas. Growing countries like India and China could soon replace the U.S. as the number one oil consumer in the world. Their hunger for fossil fuel helped push oil prices up over $115 a barrel earlier this week. The cost of that crude oil now accounts for almost 70 percent of the price you pay at the pump.

To offset this problem we must increase our domestic energy production. I have long been a supporter of oil and gas exploration.

We have large, untapped reserves off of the east and west coasts and in Alaska. Some experts estimate that there are more than 100 billion barrels of oil in these areas, enough to supply the U.S. for decades.

But some in the Congress won’t let us find out for sure. I have supported efforts to expand domestic exploration, but each time members of the majority have led the charge to shoot down the proposals.

Often they argue that energy exploration and production would destroy environmentally sensitive areas, but in Alaska’s Artic National Wildlife Refuge, for example, the process would only use 2,000 of 19.6 million acres — that is just .01 percent.

But as today’s gas prices prove, “NO” is not an energy policy for America.

Some in Congress have recently proposed raising the gas tax by 50 cents a gallon. They say that adding another half-dollar to the price of gasoline will finally force people to cut down on their driving.

I don’t understand this logic. Texans will still need to use their cars, trucks and SUVs to go to work, pick up their kids from school and go to the grocery store. Raising the gas tax will only make these everyday tasks more expensive.

So until some lawmakers change their views, higher gas taxes and an unwillingness to explore and use our own reserves will continue to handcuff working families who are struggling to make ends meet.

We have the knowledge and resources right now to help beat back record prices at the pump; I hope my colleagues in Congress believe it’s time to use them.

U.S. Congressman Joe Barton, R-Ennis, represents the Sixth Congressional District of Texas.

[Lone_Wolf]

5. Respond back... tell them to quit trying the blame game

Tell them that you aren't falling for it and you won't be voting for someone who tries to pull the wool over your eyes.

[northzax]

4. yes, everyone should do something

like get a fucking bicycle and stop bitching about oil prices. they ain't coming down.

[earthside]

6. True.

Congress cannot create more oil ... and at the bottom, that's what this is really all about: depletion.

Conserve, conserve, conserve -- that is the only plan.

[reformedrethug]

7. Thats great

IF you live in the city, live close to work, live close to school, live close to shopping. Many of us dont live close OR live in the city, and honestly I have no desire to either. I ride my motorcycle which gets around 45 mpg and that works for me.

[northzax]

8. ok, then you choose to depend on petrofuels

I get that. you have structured your life around gasoline. Well, when your entire lifestyle is based on easy access to a certain commodity, you leave yourself vulnerable to changes in the price of that commodity. when did you think would happen when the 2 billion people in China and India decided they wanted Air Conditioning, fresh food and TVs as well?

[reformedrethug]

10. its not so much a choice

my wife and I both work in different cities and right now we are pretty much centrally located, we both drive the same amount. I am looking for a job closer to where she is, and if I get one we plan on moving. Not IN the city but close enough to where the drive times will be much smaller. I grew up in the city and grew to hate it. The smells, the noise, the congestion, bleh dont want it again.

its not nearly as simple as some try to make it sound. Sure if you live in the city its easy to say "ride a bike, walk, take the train" well that does not work in the smaller towns and I personally think its pretty arrogant for somebody to say "move". We chose to live here, my wife grew up in this small town, we like it and yea it sucks when it comes time to get gas but its the price we chose to pay for living where we live.

[Lone_Wolf]

9. I'm in a wheelchair

You tell me what the hell I'm suppose to do with a bicycle?

[TommyO]

11. Tell me, how is a bicycle going to help me on my commute to work?

It's a 96 mile round trip that I do three days a week. There is no mass transit, and the one person who lives near me that works in the same building is retiring, not to mention that we work different days.

Don't tell me to move closer to work either, unless you plan on subsidizing the move, I can't afford to live near where I work.

Mass transit could work, if there were any buses or trains that ran from near my house to my corporate office, but there isn't at this point.

[northzax]

14. well, I am sorry

I really am. There is a reason that the only people in the world who commute such distances on a regular basis (without being wealthy) are Americans. There is really only one time in history that energy has been really cheap, and that is the US in the latter half of the 20th century. And that was because of serious flaws in the demand infrastructure.

You say you 'can't afford to live closer' which may, in fact, be the case. And for that, I am sorry as well. but consider something else: based on legal mileage reimbursement rates, your commute will cost you $6,000 this year (and change) without taking into account the 6 hours a week you spend sitting in a car. think about that for a second. Even for $500 more a month, you can't live closer?

So yes, I am sorry. It is painful to live at the end of a paradigm, when the life we were promised, based on easy access to cheap energy, turns out to be a chimera. it must be awful to have things set up going well and have the ground rules change in the middle of the game. It's a lot like the end of the plantation era in the South, when you think about it, one day, people woke up and realized that Tara just wasn't sustainable for all but the very wealthy. Must have been sad for them at the time, to see it all fade away into the past, don't you think? Epics have been written about it, as they will about this change. The days of $3.00 gas are gone, and they ain't coming back. $2.00 gas is but a pipe dream now. If you had known five years ago that fuel would be triple the price it was then, would you still be living the lifestyle you are living? what if I told you that in 2010, gas will be $4.50 a gallon? $5.00? what's the price point, at a certain period in the future, that will convince you to do something else? no amount of wishing can bring back the past, I am sorry to say. our lives were structured around unreasonably cheap energy, historically cheap energy. it's not your fault, we were sold a bill of goods. At the time it was a great idea.