Keta,

That's what a few of us have been saying in this thread...price manipulation by the industry.

Enron had plenty of electricity to sell during the "energy shortage" in California...they just banked it, and speculated on it instead, and got rich...while Californians got less power than they needed, and payed more for it.

This is the exact same scenario playing out again...the oil industry is purposely NOT using the 10,000 oil leases it already has, is not running its refineries at full capacity, is not looking to build any new refineries, and is trying to parlay this into an excuse, with BushCorp leading the way, to drill offshore and in ANWR.

They speculate on the oil futures to get rich, at our expense, rather than provide us with the public benefit we deserve in exchange for the private privilege we taxpayers give them to extract a public resource from public land for profit.

And BushCorp and Cheney, Inc., are leading the charge.

Fish on...

Todd