Oil profiteering

This link to the NY Times is via TalkLeft. I heard a report earlier today on this on NPR as well. Seems oil companies have been having a good time cranking up prices all by themselves. Tax breaks just aren't enough to get by these days.

CHICAGO, Sept. 20 - The governors of eight states sent a letter on Tuesday to President Bush and Congress calling for an investigation into profits made by oil companies after Hurricane Katrina and asking for legislation that would require the companies to refund to customers any profits deemed excess.

"When the wholesale price of gas went up by 60 cents almost overnight, oil companies were obviously using the most devastating natural disaster in our nation's history to reap a windfall at the expense of American consumers," said the letter, which was initiated by Gov. James E. Doyle of Wisconsin and was signed by governors from Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.

"To price-gouge consumers under normal circumstances is dishonest enough," the letter stated, "but to make money off the severe misfortune of others is downright immoral."

The letter cited an analysis by Donald A. Nichols, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who reported that gas prices surged disproportionately compared with crude oil price increases. The price markup from crude oil to gasoline has almost tripled since the hurricane, the report said.