Kucinich: Price Of Gas At The Pump The Result Of Profiteering
The following is a press release from May 15, 2004, by the Kucinich campaign
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Kucinich: Price Of Gas At The Pump The Result Of Profiteering
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 15, 2004
Contact: Matt Harris, (216) 403-3980, media@kucinich.us, Terre Lundy, (515) 988-5534
The record-shattering gasoline prices that Americans are paying at the pump are the result of two related factors, Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich charged today: the war in Iraq and the profiteering of major international oil companies.
"If we weren't at war, American consumers wouldn't be paying more than $2 a gallon for gasoline," Kucinich said, while campaigning in Oregon, where gasoline prices were reported as high as $2.43 a gallon. "The war, the occupation, and a foreign policy that creates fear, uncertainty and instability throughout the Middle East have created concern in the world market that the violence will continue to spread and affect the supply of oil." The result: crude oil reached a 21-year high of more than $41 a barrel. A year ago, it was trading at about $30 a barrel.
At the same time, Kucinich said, major oil companies are capitalizing on that uncertainty and are earning record profits. Five of the world's largest oil companies had combined earning of more than $17 billion in the first three months of this year*.
"It's an outrage that a working family has to pay $2.40 or more for a gallon of gas while oil company executives, speculators, and commodities traders are raking in billions of dollars in profits," Kucinich said. "First, the Bush Administration concocted reasons to go to war. Then, it began paying billions of dollars to private, hand-picked contractors to reconstruct what the war destroyed. And now, on top of that, it has created a climate that enables its friends in the oil industry to make billions more."
He also expressed concern that the situation is being deliberately manipulated to affect the November general election. Referring to recent disclosures that Saudi Arabian leaders had promised Bush that they would try to bring oil prices down closer to the election (Bob Woodward: "Plan of Attack"), Kucinich said he would not be surprised if gasoline prices started to decline in September and October. "But in the meantime, we'll continue to pay outrageous prices as long as the war profiteers think they can get away with it."
Kucinich said several steps needs to be taken immediately.
First, "The sooner we are out of Iraq and are not seen as a military threat to other nations in the region, the sooner stability will be restored. Our very presence there is creating the instability."
Second, "We need a windfall profits tax to stop oil companies and related industries from being allowed to profit from the misery and devastation of war."
Third, there needs to be an immediate investigation into whether "oil companies are gouging the American public and using the war as a convenient excuse."
Fourth, the United States must stop buying up oil and funneling it into the national strategic petroleum reserves. "The Administration created this economic and political mess, and now it's making it worse by hoarding oil that should be available to the general public.
Finally, Kucinich said the oil and energy monopolies created over the past several years "have consolidated too much power in too few hands." He said the federal government "must aggressively investigate the anti-trust implications of those recent mergers because they are clearly not in the public interest."
*ExxonMobil: $5 billion; Chevron Texaco: $2.56 billion; ConocoPhillips: $1.62 billion; BP: $4.7 billion; Shell: $3.43 billion.
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