Unhappy public not sure who to blame for high gas

Rosahn Buchanan fills her tank with gas at a sta­tion in Arca­dia, Calif., Tues­day. From all cor­ners of the coun­try, Amer­i­cans are poorer and angrier these days, thanks to the record fuel prices that have soared above $4 a gal­lon in some states and could top $5 by sum­mer.
(Asso­ci­ated Press | Nick Ut)

JOHN ROGERS

Asso­ci­ated Press

LOS ANGELES — Fam­i­lies can­cel­ing vaca­tions. Fish­er­men watch­ing their prof­its burn up along with their boats’ gaso­line. Dri­vers buy­ing only a few gal­lons of gas at a time because they can’t afford to fill the tank.

From all cor­ners of the coun­try, Amer­i­cans are irri­tated these days by record-high fuel prices that have soared above $4 a gal­lon in some states and could top $5 by sum­mer. And the cost is becom­ing a polit­i­cal issue just as the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign kicks into high gear.

Some blame Pres­i­dent Barack Obama. Some just cite “the gov­ern­ment,” while oth­ers believe it’s the work of big, greedy oil com­pa­nies. No mat­ter who is respon­si­ble, almost every­one seems to want the gov­ern­ment to do some­thing, even if peo­ple aren’t sure what, exactly, it should or can do.

A Gallup poll this month found 85 per­cent of U.S. adults believe the pres­i­dent and Con­gress “should take imme­di­ate actions to try to con­trol the ris­ing price of gas.” An Asso­ci­ated Press-GfK poll last month showed 71 per­cent believe gas prices are a “very” or “extremely” impor­tant matter.

Chris Kauf­man, who spends $120 a week on gas to travel the 60 miles between his two jobs, at the Uni­ver­sity of South Dakota in Sioux Falls and at a hotel in Ver­mil­lion, S.D., blames the price spike on threats from Iran to cut off oil ship­ments through the Strait of Hormuz.

“I think the can­di­dates run­ning for pres­i­dent need to take a good hard look at that and deter­mine what their for­eign pol­icy is going to be for coun­tries that threaten to do that,” he said. “It’s going to affect every sin­gle cit­i­zen in the United States.”

Still, he believes the pres­i­dent has lit­tle con­trol over gas prices, adding that it is com­modi­ties traders who really dic­tate prices.

Trucker Cory Nis­sen of Ruther Glen, Va., agrees.

“The pres­i­dent is noth­ing but a fall guy,” Nis­sen said as he took a break from his rig at a stop in Wilton, N.Y., ear­lier this week.

Nis­sen, who is paid by the mile, said he has seen his pay­checks shrink because his employer has cut back deliv­ery runs in reac­tion to the ris­ing cost of fuel. “It needs to change and change quick,” he said. “I got bills I got to pay, and half the time I can’t pay them.”

On the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign trail, Mitt Rom­ney called on Obama last week­end to fire his energy sec­re­tary, inte­rior sec­re­tary and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency admin­is­tra­tor, dub­bing them “the gas-hike trio.” Fel­low Repub­li­can Newt Gin­grich promised to roll the price of gas back to $2.50 a gal­lon if he is elected.

Obama mocked Gingrich’s promise, say­ing, “They start act­ing like they’ve got a magic wand and will give you cheap gas for­ever if you elect us.”

Amy Lis of Buf­falo, N.Y., and her boyfriend can­celed their vaca­tion to Florida this spring in favor of a three-hour drive to Cleve­land for an overnight stay and a visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Even that trip will cost more than $100 in gas.

“It’s more than our hotel,” she said as she filled up her boyfriend’s Ford Ranger pickup.

In truth, there is not a lot the pres­i­dent and Con­gress can do in the short term to push down gaso­line prices. They are tied to oil prices, which have climbed in recent months, pushed by increased con­sump­tion from devel­op­ing nations in Asia, Latin Amer­ica and the Mid­dle East and by con­cerns about sup­ply dis­rup­tions in Iran and elsewhere.

Mike Siroub, who has oper­ated a Union Oil sta­tion in the Los Ange­les sub­urb of Arca­dia for 25 years, said cus­tomers who used to fill up their tanks now put in just $10 or $20 at a time, telling him that that’s all they can afford and that they are dri­ving less or using more fuel-efficient cars.

He him­self has joined them.

“I used to have a car with a big V-8 engine,” he said. “I traded it for a four-cylinder Toy­ota Camry.”

Among the things the gov­ern­ment can do to bring relief to dri­vers is reduce gaso­line taxes or push to get more fuel-efficient cars on the road. The first new fuel stan­dards since 1990 are just now going into effect, and the U.S. auto fleet is more effi­cient than ever.

Peo­ple are still feel­ing the pain.

“When I go out to change the prices, they honk their horns and yell at me,” said Siroub whose station’s cheap­est grade of gas, reg­u­lar unleaded, was sell­ing for $4.44 a gal­lon ear­lier this week. “The other day one per­son even gave me the finger.”

In New York City, some cab dri­vers say the high cost of gas is prompt­ing them to race through the streets of Man­hat­tan even more reck­lessly than usual to pick up more pas­sen­gers dur­ing a shift.

“When the gas is up, the money you make is going down,” said Less Sylla, who paid $4.17 a gal­lon ear­lier this week. “You see a lot of dri­vers, they’re dri­ving, boom-boom-boom, because the lease is too high and it’s work­ing on their minds. So that’s why they go like that, and it causes a lot of accidents.”

Sylla, who said he will vote for Obama, blames greedy oil companies.

In Anchor­age, Alaska, gen­eral con­trac­tor W.M. Lewis said he has had to raises his prices to keep his half-dozen trucks run­ning. “It affects your bottom-line pric­ing,” he said as he put $90.13 worth of gas, at $4.25 a gal­lon, into one of those trucks.

Mil­ton Walker Jr., whose Louisiana tour com­pany takes vaca­tion­ers on boat rides through the alligator-infested swamps, said he raised prices last year because of the increased cost of fuel and will do it again if gas hits $5 a gal­lon. He blames the Fed­eral Reserve, say­ing it hasn’t kept infla­tion in check.

“I don’t think it mat­ters who’s pres­i­dent,” he said.

Shrimpers in Louisiana and lob­ster­men in Maine com­plain that high fuel prices are cut­ting into their prof­its. Craig Rogers, who burns through 50 gal­lons of gas a day tend­ing his lob­ster traps along Maine’s rocky coast, blames com­modi­ties traders, though he ques­tions whether politi­cians are doing enough. He said politi­cians are too well off to really grasp what ordi­nary peo­ple are going through.

“They can say they feel for us, they can say they under­stand us, but when you have that kind of money, there’s no way you can truly under­stand what we’re feel­ing,” he said.

Posted by AP News on Mar 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.