FL: Gouging Investigations

With gas priced at $4.19 a gallon Tuesday afternoon, pumps at the BP gas station at Pace Boulevard and Garden Street went largely unused.

The Garden Street BP is among 14 Escambia and four Santa Rosa gas stations under investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office after it received 26 complaints of alleged price gouging at area gas stations. The state did not provide exact locations for all stations being investigated due to incomplete information provided in the complaints.

Statewide, more than 5,500 complaints were filed as of Tuesday afternoon. Of those, 1,841 complaints are being investigated by the state’s Economic Crimes Division.

Consumers filed complaints with the Attorney General’s Office by calling a statewide hot line; however, many of the complaints contained incomplete information about the location of the suspected gouging or the price paid for the fuel.

Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman Sandi Copes said it is illegal after declaration of a state emergency to charge excessive prices for essential items like gasoline unless the increase is attributable to additional costs for supplying the items. But she said there is no specific increase that determines if a gas station is price gouging.

MS: AG Gets Lots Of Gouging Complaints

The attorney general’s office says it has received more than 500 complaints of alleged gasoline price gouging since last week.

Meanwhile, Joe McCaskill, owner of Mac’s Gas in Jackson, says he didn’t gouge anybody when he posted a price of $5.17 a gallon last Friday.

McCaskill says he paid $4.77 a gallon for 8,000 gallons from a fuel distributor. With tax and freight costs added, McCaskill claims he was selling his gasoline at cost.

McCaskill says corporate gas stations like Shell, Exxon and others receive better deals from their distributors.

On Monday, McCaskill was charging $3.67 a gallon.

The attorney general’s office says investigators are looking into every complaint. No citations have been issued.

Think what the price would have been if the Hurricane had come this way.

AL: Ike Hits Gas Prices

Statewide gas prices jumped nearly 20 cents a gallon overnight and rose even more in some spots throughout Mobile this weekend as Hurricane Ike made landfall in Texas.

The average price for regular grade gasoline Saturday in Mobile was $3.76 per gallon, 9 cents higher than Friday’s average but still almost a quarter lower than the city’s record of $3.99, according to the AAA’s online Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

Across the state, low-grade gas was $3.82 a gallon. That’s about 15 cents cheaper than the highest average ? recorded in July at $3.97 ? but well above the average $3.65 recorded Friday, according to the site.

The state’s anti-gouging law bars “unconscionable” prices that rise 25 percent or more above the average price in the same area over the last 30 days unless increases stem from “reasonable” costs. The law applies only in a state of emergency.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King said last week that his office had received hundreds of calls about the increase in prices.

Looks like they found a way to get more money from the consumer and it may be legal.

FL: Public Transit Gets a Lift

With rising gasoline prices and a sliding economy, riding a local public bus to work, school or the grocery store is quickly becoming more popular.

Escambia County Area Transit ridership figures show 3,500 more rides were given by the subsidized bus service in May, nearly 11,000 more in June, and 3,200 more in July, compared to the same time periods the previous fiscal year, according to ECAT data. ECAT gave nearly a million rides that fiscal year.

The jump in business means ECAT could be getting a foothold in the market that would allow it to ultimately expand service and popularity.

FL: What Is A Hypermiler?

Hypermilers are known to turn off their engines at long stop lights, drive under the speed limit, coast on highways in neutral, time stoplights, drive without air conditioning, overinflate their tires and follow closely behind semi-trucks to reduce drag.

Environmentally friendly

For Shelton, road rage is a hill or a red light — anything that brings down the miles-per-gallon reading on the scanner above his dashboard.

He even admits he coasts through stop signs if he thinks it’s safe, because stopping leads to accelerating, and accelerating eats gas.

In his 10-year-old truck, he can get up to 34 miles to the gallon in town, almost double its EPA rating.

In addition to being a textbook hypermiler, Shelton converted another truck to biodiesel and ordered a converter to change vegetable oil waste to biodiesel.

Tom Wiley is another Pensacola hypermiler. He says he’s environmentally friendly.

His wife says he’s cheap.

Gulf South: What Of Off Shore Drilling?

Democratic congressional leaders refused Monday to go along with President Bush’s plan to end a ban on oil and gas drilling off the U.S. shoreline.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, noted that oil companies already control 32 million acres of lease land in the Gulf of Mexico but have yet to start drilling.

“The fact is, the industry should be sinking wells in areas already under lease before demanding control of millions of new acres or destroying long-protected lands,” he said.

Bush said Monday he’s lifting a presidential ban on drilling for oil and natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf, but Congress has its own ban that it would have to lift independently of the president’s action.

As a result, the president’s decision won’t immediately affect Florida’s coasts.

In 2006, Nelson and Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Orlando helped craft legislation — separate from the measure that banned drilling off the entire U.S. coastline — that prohibited drilling within 125 miles of Florida’s Gulf coastline.

Bush noted in his announcement Monday that states would “have a say in what happens off their shores.” Martinez said that means the president’s plan would not affect protections for Florida shores.

But Martinez said the energy crisis forces lawmakers to “take steps to develop domestic resources while encouraging conservation.”

U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Chumuckla, said lifting the drilling ban almost has become a necessity.

“Increasing domestic production of oil and gas is not only an economic issue, it’s a national security issue as well,” said Miller, who supports lifting the ban as long as it does not interfere with the training exercises conducted in his district by Eglin Air Force Base.

Miller called Bush’s action will be important in stepping up pressure on drilling opponents in Congress.

“We will pressure the Democratic leadership and their membership until they do something that truly helps bring down the price of fuel,” he said.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Bush’s plan “a hoax” that would “neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence

AL: Results From High Gas Prices

In June, the system gave nearly 92,000 rides, up more than 20 percent from last year. If the current pace keeps up through the end of the fiscal year, the Wave will surpass the 1 million-ride mark for the first time.

The Press-Register requested monthly ridership figures from the Wave in early June and received them Wednesday

In the first three months of 2008, people across the country took 3.3 percent more public transit trips than in 2007, according to a study the association published last month.

FL: Meals On Wheels In Dire Straights

Thanks to the cost of gas this outfit that serves so many shut-ins is having a problem.

According to Meals on Wheels Association of America, 58 percent of programs surveyed reported losing volunteers due to gasoline prices.

More than one-fifth of the programs reduced the number of meals they offered, and almost 40 percent reduced their clientele.

“It’s devastating,” said Meal on Wheels association president Enid Borden. “We’re taking a double whammy. Gas prices are going up, and food prices are going up. We’re dependent on both of them.”

Meals on Wheels is a government-subsidized national program that relies mostly on volunteers to deliver food. The Council on Aging of West Florida heads the program in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.

Locally, about 400 seniors receive aid from the program, council spokesman Jeff Nall said. Hundreds more people are on a waiting list.

The council employs three part-time drivers and uses 40 volunteers. Nall said in the past few months the council has lost six volunteers who could no longer afford the fuel. Their routes have been picked up mostly by council workers.

Nall said the council is going to great lengths to avoid reducing its clientele, despite having fewer volunteers.

Please, if there is anyway that you can help this organization , do so.  This group helps so many people, especially the seniors that it cannot be allowed to fold.  If you are capable, lend a hand.

Gulf Coast: Drill or Not To Drill?

Gov. Charlie Crist and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain are betting Florida’s 27 electoral votes that the answer will be a resounding “Yes” by Nov. 4.

On the other side of the aisle, Florida Democrats, capitalizing on what they see as a flip-flop by both men, are telling voters that oil companies and their GOP allies are using economic hard times to gamble with Florida’s pristine beaches and tourism industry.

When President Bush and McCain last week asked Congress to lift a federal ban on offshore exploration, and Crist changed his position to support the idea, reaction was swift and intense in Florida.

Democrats accused Republicans of caving in to oil interests, while the GOP said the Democrats were blocking exploration that could help working families fill their tanks.

Democratic and Republican members of Congress from Florida generally fell into line on predictably partisan sides of the issue.

Coastal Congressman Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, said the states should be allowed to decide where to drill.

Now that we have established who thinks what I would like to ask, How many capped off gas wells and oil wells are there? Why is no one talking about using them? Would not opening these up, if the benefit for the people is truly the aim? But my guess would be that there is other motives and each one entails cash in the form of subsidies and tax breaks. Something that they would not get from existing wells. Just a thought.

MS: Prices Will Remain High No Matter The Propsal

McCain and Clinton both offer to suspend the gas tax, not gonna happen, for it is NO help to control the price of gas.

Even in the unlikely event that all gasoline taxes were suspended, South Mississippi drivers would still be paying about $3.60 a gallon today.

And contrary to what many believe, local governments are not raking in money from the high cost of gas. In fact, they may suffer as consumption goes down.

Fuel taxes, for which governments depend heavily to fund highways, are slightly higher than the rest of the state in Harrison, Hancock and Jackson counties. These Coast counties assess a 3 cents a gallon “seawall” tax. The Legislature approved the tax in the 1920s, but it’s also been spent on the Harrison County Development Commission and on work on industrial parks, among other things. The seawall tax began at 2 cents and has risen only a penny in 80 years

You want lower prices for gas–here is the way:

Economists say lowering the demand or increasing the oil supply, or both, are the keys to lower fuel prices. In Mississippi, roughly 140 million gallons of gas are sold each month, Waterbury said, but she believes consumption could slow because of high prices. If so, revenue would decrease because the assessments are based on gallons sold.