Here & There Column 5-22-07

Coffee Clatch Debates High Gasoline Prices

Eventually I knew that one of these days our Sullivan County Coffee clatch would get into some heavy discussion on gas prices and hopefully the seven of us have come up with some constructive thinking on this subject.
At we took our first sips of fresh home brewed coffee and bit into tasty home made donuts conversations began flying about the possibility that this is all because of fuel price gouging and that everyone is suffering and battered by surging gasoline prices.
We all totally agreed that gas prices have put a serious drain on consumer dollars but we also concluded that folks who don't have public transportation and depend on their vehicle to get them from here to there have to pay the price to get from here to there.
Several of us also noted that not too much change in the amount of vacation and leisure travel is taking place as a result of the high gasoline prices.
None in our group had any answers to the various media reports that take place on a daily basis and say . "oil prices rose above $62 a barrel Friday after a report from the International Energy Agency raised concerns about the market's ability to meet an expected jump in demand for oil-bases products."
Then we hear on the news, "oil prices edged up Friday as traders weighed concerns of tight U.S. gasoline supplied against increased crude stockpiles and signs that tension might be easing over Iran's nuclear program,."
By the time we got to our second cup of coffee some of us gave strong indications that these news reports are generated just to throw us off and none of these reports are true because all the oil companies are doing is gouging us for all we're worth.
"But wait", one in our clatch said, :"a number of lawmakers have introduced a bill that would impose stiff penalties on oil and gas companies for price gouging." Most of us chuckled about this saying that this was nothing but political BS.
And why is is that when the price of a barrel of oil goes up, gasoline prices go up, but when the cost of a barrel of oil goes down, gasoline prices still go up........we agreed that this subject is getting beyond ridiculousness.
Our coffee clatch conversation led to the use of bio fuels production and the manufacture of cars that can use a variety of fuels and hybrids that use electricity.
We unanimously agreed that auto makes know how to make their vehicles more fuel efficient but have been slow to do so, in part because American minimum gas mileage standards for cars haven't been updated in more than 20 years.....so we agreed that Congress should update gas mileage standards.
U.S. auto makers, we all agreed, pay lit service to fuel economy, but have not made real strides.
Our coffee clatch all agreed that our government must act to increase corporate fuel economy standards that would require vehicles to give us a much improved mile per gallon.
This coffee clatch says its time to make fuel efficiency a national priority.......and if government officials refuse.....throw them all out of office until results are achieved.