Letters to the Editor: Oil Price Gouging

am an independent trucker and have been for the past nine years. Since the present administration got into power, this business has gone rapidly downhill.

The president’s buddies — the oil companies — have run amok in America, my wallet and the rest of the world. They have driven oil prices up to the point of putting many independent truck drivers out of business because they are making it impossible to compete. Since Bush became president, diesel fuel has risen from an average of $1.15 to well over $3 a gallon.

Thanks, Mr. President; you ran every company you manned into the ground, and now you are doing it to us.

i>Chief Executive Officer

hevlines

vansville, Ind.

Why are we paying so much? You know why — because of

he retail merchants who sell the product. We call it “price gouging.”

Price gougers should be put in jail. They steal from the American public, but they are the first to cry to the government that they aren’t getting their fair share.

I’m tired of the politics. If I owned my own station and dropped the price below the pump price for the region, here in the state of Wisconsin I could be sued for forcing other stations to come down against their greedy minds.

So how do you get free trade if you can’t cut the price to force someone else to cut his?

Dan Gerster

i>Owner-Operator

AG Trucking

shkosh, Wis.

ot only have the environmentalists made it financially impractical to build refineries, they have effectively cut off much of the possible oil supply from this country. Right now, we’re only guessing how much oil we have, because the environmentalists say “no” to everything.

Instead of having a strategic petroleum reserve, it makes more sense to drill everywhere we possibly can where there might be oil — like Alaska — but then cap those wells until we need them. That way, when Iran cuts off our oil supply and Saudi Arabia falls in with them, we’re ready.

Knowing that the United States could uncap those wells at any time sure would put a damper on the price gouging we are experiencing today.

Jon E. McLeod

i>Retired Executive

ive Oak, Fla.

These letters appear in the Jan. 23 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.