Oil Watchdog

Santa Monica, CA — A weekly national increase of more than a nickel
a gallon for regular gasoline has motorists paying a "speculative
bonus" to hedge fund traders and others who have kept the price of
crude oil near $100 a barrel, said the Foundation for Taxpayer and
Consumer Rights (FTCR). With pump prices up nationally to $3.109 from
$3.054 over the past week, at a time of year when prices are
historically at their lowest, spring is all but certain to bring new
record prices.

"Today’s rising energy prices as the U.S. slides into
recession are not a slow-moving disaster, they’re a dive out the
high-rise window," said Judy Dugan, research director of FTCR and its
OilWatchdog.org project. "Government can’t sit idle until the splatter
hits the sidewalk."

FTCR said Congress should call immediate hearings on energy
price manipulation, questioning energy traders from hedge funds to oil
companies themselves. FTCR has called for federal oversight of
unregulated electronic energy trading markets, and for more cost
transparency and regulation of refineries.

Oil companies that reaped the benefit of crude oil at $90-plus
per barrel in the last quarter of 2007 are now pushing to match that
windfall when they make the crude oil into gasoline, said FTCR. Last
May, as motorists nationally paid a record $3.227 a gallon at the pump,
and $3.49 in California, oil companies made up to $1 a gallon just on
refining. Similar refining profits this spring would spike gasoline to
well over $4.00 in California, and near $4.00 nationally.

Gasoline is now nearly a dime more than it was a month ago and up 69 cents a gallon from the same time last year.

"While the speculation-driven price of oil could be blamed for
$3.00 gasoline in January, $4.00 gasoline in May will again be laid at
the door of oil companies and refiners," said Dugan. "Oil companies
refuse to expand or even modernize their refineries, then every spring
they blame their self-caused shortage of gasoline for price spikes. The
economic effect of a price spike from $3.00 to $4.00 would be far more
serious than a spike from $1.99 to $2.50, which seemed outlandish only
a few years ago."

– 30 –

FTCR is a leading public interest watchdog. For more information, visit us on the web at www.ConsumerWatchdog.org and www.OilWatchdog.org.