Senators Grill Refiners Over High Prices Amid Oil Boom - Bloomberg

Senators Grill Refiners Over High Prices Amid Oil Boom - Bloomberg:

'via Blog this'

My dismay with our elected representatives comes again to the fore. In the linked article above, we find Ron Wyden, Democratic Senator from Oregon and Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee saying "Our people want to know why the flood of new domestic crude oil isn't lowering prices at the pump. There is no question that the lower oil costs are not getting through to Americans' wallets."

To the left is a plot of oil prices (WTI) over the last five years. I'm having a very difficult time spotting Wyden's "lower oil costs." There are so many supply and demand issues that play into not only the price of crude oil (which is a world wide market and cannot be affected in any reasonable way by the Senate) but on the price of finished products from oil such as gasoline. These sorts of speeches constitute pure political pandering. But he's a politician so I guess it's to be expected (a la the scorpion in the fable of the scorpion and the frog)

Do I enjoy paying $4.099/gallon for my gasoline? No, but I'm averaging 51 m.p.g. so it doesn't hurt me as badly as many others and, were I King, I'd increase gasoline taxes by $0.25/quarter for the next three years. Many who read this will be relieved that I'm not King.