Calif. Demands Answers On Oil Prices (AG puts CEOs under oath)

[Rose Siding]

(CBS) California's Attorney General has begun hauling the CEOs of major oil companies into his office - demanding, in closed door sessions, that those executives tell him, under oath, why gas prices are higher in California than almost anywhere else in the nation.

"This is legal thievery in my view," California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer told CBS News correspondent Sandra Hughes. "It's because it's an oligopoly: it's when you have a handful of companies, seven exactly, that control almost the entire California market."

Those companies insist they're operating within the law, and not trying to gouge their customers. California drivers pay an average of $3.31 a gallon, up more than a dollar since early January, when they were shelling out an average of $2.25 a gallon.

The attorney general is also taking a hard look at refiners' profit margins, which soared by 130 percent at a time when the price of crude oil increased by 14 percent.

"Their claim is 'Oh, we're just passing along the world crude oil increase.' That's clearly not true," says Lockyer.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/06/eveningnews/main1685231.shtml?source=RSS&attr=Politics_1685231

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. Putting them under oath is more than our Senate did!

:grr:

[UpInArms]

2. It's a vertically integrated market -

they are making money on every step of the ladder.

[Vidar]

3. Cool, an Attorney General with ethics and balls.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

4. Also...

... looking into refinery operations where they "refine just enough to keep the tanks empty" and the demand high. I watched the segment on CBS Evening News last night. They went from 30 cents a gallon profit to $1 gallon a profit in one year.

[redqueen]

5. Thanks Bill Lockyer! For doing what our bought-off Senators wouldn't!

:applause:

[doodadem]

6. I love Lockyer!

He's gone after the Bush admin on several issues, such as logging in the Parks.

I would have voted for him for governor in a heartbeat.