In a Connecticut Capitol news briefing today, Thursday, September 1, 2005, Connecticut Congressman John Larson and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced the launching of an investigation and Congressional hearings on the rising gasoline and oil prices. Blumenthal is contacting other states’ AG’s in an effort to expedite the investigations into price gouging. In the briefing, he said that the figures speak for themselves as follows: Exxon-Mobil:7.6 billion dollars profit in the last quarter; Shell: 5.6 billion; Conoco: 3.4 billion. He also said that the refineries and pipelines put out of commission from hurricane Katrina amount to only 11% of supplies and that there is plenty of gasoline and fuel oil, and that prices have increased from a combination of “fear, greed and speculation.”

Larson is preparing to introduce legislation to charge a tax on excessive profits in the oil industry and launch hearings to "demystify" oil and gas pricing.

What you can do is contact your Congresspersons and State’s Attorney General to back Larson’s and Blumenthal’s efforts to curb the greed of these “oily” crooks.

The news briefing took place at a gas station that had regular going for $3.09 a gallon, with only two cents of that going to the station owner! In the short time that they held the briefing home heating oil went up another five cents per gallon!

I hope they can do something. I am so tired of gas going up...

Well, Cheryl, at the very least, it was a bit refreshing to hear politicians actually using words like "big oil greed" and speaking with apparent disdain about oil company lobbyists and lawyers.