Mr. Doyle goes to Washington

Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pittsburgh, joined other congressmen last week in pressuring President… Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pittsburgh, joined other congressmen last week in pressuring President George W. Bush to take action against rising gas prices.

Doyle, who called the gas prices “unsustainable,” wrote a personal letter to the president urging him to meet with the country’s top fuel executives.

In some parts of the country, gas prices exceeded $6 per gallon during the Labor Day weekend.

Critics of the oil industry are now accusing it of price gouging. They say that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, oil companies hiked gas prices to unfair levels to take advantage of consumers.

“We know places well outside of Katrina’s emergency area that sell or sold fuel at $6 per gallon,” Matt Dinkel, a spokesman for Doyle, said.

On Sept. 9, the letter was sent to the president asking him to act quickly.

It calls for the executive branch to instate a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to price gouging.

“This never happened during the energy crisis in the 1970s,” Dinkel said. “The people are calling for an investigation.”

High prices may be a pain in the purse, but according to one Pitt economics professor, its effects locally won’t be so drastic.

“All this does is frustrate a lot of consumers,” professor Steven Husted said. “I doubt it will have an effect on the local economy.”

Nationally, both sides of the political aisle have started movements for change.

Congress recently issued a bipartisan warning to oil companies on the implications of price gouging. A House of Representatives caucus held hearings on the price gouging issue, and some are seeking to make it a federal crime.

The Federal Trade Commission Act already forbids some practices in interstate trade of gasoline.

Doyle’s letter – and similar ones sent by 80 other congressional members – is only a small step in what could be a long road ahead.

He co-sponsored an amendment to an energy bill in April that doubled the amount of federal money given to alternative energy research.

The research – which focuses primarily on hydrogen fuel cells – will receive $4 billion during the next five years in an attempt to make fuel more affordable and efficient.