Supply and demand or is it price gouging and greed?

Editor,

Gasoline prices in our small community rose 19 cents per gallon yesterday, and we were told by the people at the gas station that we were lucky that it wasn't 60 cents. Might we examine that?

Is this a case of a shortage of supply, or of monumental greed?

We are told that as a result of Hurricane Katrina, the supply of oil and gas from the Gulf has been shut down. That supply, we are told, accounts for 25-30 percent of the oil and gas in the United States.

That may be so, but one needs to ask, "Just how much oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico do we depend on here in Montana?" The answer? None. The gas and oil you and I use comes from the oilfields in the northern tier and/or Canada is refined in the northern tier and/or Canada, and has nothing to do with the supply and demand formula relating to the Gulf of Mexico.

Our oil and gas should, in fact, be going down in price as our Canadian friends pay no heed to environments. They drill where they want, build refineries where and when they want, and are more than willing to sell us their surplus, and there is an abundance of surplus in Canada.

I have called the Attorney General's office and the Governor's office and officially requested an investigation into what I consider to be price gouging in Montana. I am only one person. Should you and I really want to see the price of gas and oil go down, we need in massive numbers to insist that our elected officials do an immediate investigation into the price of gas and oil in our state.

The governor's telephone number is (406) 444-3111. The state switchboard number, through which you can be routed to the Attorney General's office, is (406) 444-2511. Stand up, speak up, and be counted, or you may be paying $3 or $4 per gallon all winter long.

Rev. M.J. Nicolaus, Ph.D.

Ronan