Pols slam oil companies over skyrocketing prices

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

The developing fuel crisis is important because it may provide indirect evidence concerning y2k related problems in the petroleum industry. It is also possible that we are merely witnessing greedy behavior. However, prior to the y2k roll over these sorts of events were predicted as likely outcomes of embedded system and computer software problems. See the two previous stories posted on GICC on Senator Dodd's call for a release from the petroleum reserve and skyrocketing diesel costs and the impact on the trucking industry.

Pols slam oil companies over skyrocketing prices

by J.M. Lawrence

Tuesday, January 25, 2000

With the wholesale cost of home heating oil climbing 80 percent in less than two weeks, city leaders and members of the state's Congressional delegation yesterday accused oil companies of creating a crisis that's left poor elders choosing between eating and heating. ``When the temperature was 31 below zero with the wind chill, the oil companies were not thinking about the people they're serving,'' Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said. ``They were thinking about profits.''

Low-income residents who can't afford oil that soared from $1.17 a week ago in the Boston area to a record average of $1.75 per gallon are swamping service agencies with calls for help.

John Ingram, 84, who lives alone in Roxbury, ran out of fuel Saturday in the bitter cold and his bathroom pipes froze.

``I'm a praying man,'' said the retired minister who suffers from asthma. ``I started to pray.''

He also called Action for Boston Community Development and the anti-poverty agency got him enough oil to last about four weeks.

But the agency can offer only $440 in fuel assistance per family of four - not enough to get thousands of families through the rest of winter in the current market.

``We need help in getting the price down and funds to increase the benefit level,'' John Drew, ABCD executive vice president, said at a news conference.

Wholesalers charged 82 cents a gallon last week and now want $1.40, according to the nonprofit Citizens Energy.

Congressman William Delahunt and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy asked President Clinton yesterday to immediately release an additional $300 milllion in federal emergency funds to buy oil for the poor.

New Hampshire also is running out of fuel help for low-income people. Gov. Jeanne Shaheen yesterday said she fears hundreds more will be in the cold if prices don't come down and temperatures hit the deep freeze again.

``This dramatic price increase is having a significant impact on the ability of New Hampshire families to purchase enough oil to keep their homes warm,'' Shaheen said. Sen. John Kerry has asked Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson to hold an emergency meeting in New England to investigate the crisis.

The price increases, Kerry said in a letter to Richardson, ``appear to be too fast and too large to be based on demand and supply alone.''

Faced with hundreds of consumers calls in the past few days, State Attorney General Tom Reilly's office has launched an inquiry. ``We're asking consumers to be very specific in their complaints so we can determine whether and to what extent price-gouging is taking place,'' Reilly said.

The trade association representing fuel sellers and suppliers in the state denied consumers are being ripped off.

``I don't believe there's anyone in the supply chain in Massachusetts who's price-gouging,'' said spokesman Mike Ferrante.

He blamed skyrocketing prices on a double whammy: OPEC oil ministers' decision to cut production in March of 1999 that sent crude oil prices soaring coupled with the latest blast of arctic cold rocking the Northeast.

But Larry Chretien, executive director of the Boston Oil Consumers Alliance, a 6,000-member cooperative, said oil companies can't blame the weather and foreign potentates. ``We want Congress to look at why did American oil refiners put such little heating oil into the system,'' he said. ``Don't just blame OPEC.''

Former Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy, chairman of the nonprofit Citizens Energy, yesterday called on the Department of Energy to establish minimum supply levels in the home heating oil industry.

Another step needed to quell the current crisis, Kennedy said, is for the president to release the nation's strategic reserves of oil to stabilize the market.

Companies that deliver fuel have spent days coping with shocked and angry consumers. ``The drivers wanted to offer them oxygen and a balloon,'' said Ginny McIntyre of McIntyre Oil of Dorchester.

Wholesalers have been increasing prices by the hour, some retailers said. ``They have to do something about this,'' said John Woods of Dorey Fuel in Dorchester. ``It's ridiculous.''

Link to story:

http://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/lonw/oil01252000.htm



-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 25, 2000

Answers

**The price increases, Kerry said in a letter to Richardson, ``appear to be too fast and too large to be based on demand and supply alone.''**

An insightful statement! Good find Carl!

-- slza (slzattas@erols.com), January 25, 2000.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ