House OKs penalties for gas price gouging
WASHINGTON - The House approved criminal penalties and fines of up to $150 million today for energy companies caught price gouging as lawmakers responded to public anger over high gasoline prices and huge oil industry profits. The legislation, receiving broad bipartisan support, passed 389-34, and must now be considered by the Senate.
It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Watching Congress do the People’s Work, protecting the American Sheeple, making this great country a better, safe, more pleasant place to live. Well, it WOULD be a beautiful thing, if that’s what they were actually doing here. The problem is, this latest attempt to pander to the lowest common denominator is little more than an attempt by Congressional Republicans (with ample support from Democrats, sadly) to look as if they are doing something- ANYTHING- about the high price of gasoline.
The problem with this bill is defining exactly what qualifies as “price gouging”. The bill doesn’t even come equipped with a definition of “price gouging”. No, it passes the buck to the Federal Trade Commission, who will take the blame if the definition is held to be too broad or too narrow. In the meantime, Congress can beat its collective breast and claim “victory” against those who would price gasoline unfairly. All the while, NOTHING of any value will have happened to address the very real problem of high gasoline prices.
Your tax dollars at work, eh? Or not….
With gasoline topping $3 a gallon across much of the country, lawmakers have been scrambling to put together legislation aimed at soothing public anger, hoping to demonstrate that Congress was doing something about high energy costs…..
President Bush, after meeting for more than an hour with more than a dozen Republican and Democratic members of Congress, said it was important “to make sure our consumers are treated fairly” by the oil markets.
“The price of gasoline should serve as a wakeup call … that we’ve got an energy security problem,” Bush said after the meeting.
The White House has not given a position on the House-passed gouging legislation.
Well, of course not, silly. You don’t really think that Our Glorious Leader would bite the hand that feeds him, do you? Being an oil man himself, Bush certainly understands the power and value of a good windfall. The idea here is to be specific enough so that it looks like you’re actually taking a bold stand on behalf of the American sheeple, but still deliberately vague enough so that no one could actually ever be prosecuted under this new law. The way the bill is crafted is truly brilliant. If no one is ever prosecuted, Congress and the White House can point the finger of blame at the Federal Trade Commission, who are responsible for defining “price gouging”. (You know, if the FTC had just done their job and come up with a workable and legally defensible definition of price gouging, we could have gone after some people….)
WE DESERVE BETTER…don’tcha think???
It would be nice to be able to think that our elected representatives would be looking to do something besides posturing when it comes to what is well on its way to becomeing a full-fledged crisis. Yeah, like that’s going to happen….
