Bush on Darwin

LOL!! I had to post it....
Thanks to Janell

Governors Urge Gas-Price Investigation

(CBS) MADISON, Wis. Eight Democratic governors asked President Bush and congressional leaders on Tuesday to investigate possible gasoline price gouging in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In a letter, the governors urged an investigation into "excessive profits being made by oil companies who are taking advantage of this national crisis."

The letter was signed by the governors of Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico, Iowa, Montana and Washington. It also urged Congress to refund any excessive profits to consumers.

The letter cited a study by University of Wisconsin economist Don Nichols that found the hurricane was not entirely to blame for high gas prices.

Historically, Nichols said, the markup between the price of a gallon of crude and a gallon of gasoline is about 85 to 90 cents a gallon, including refining, distribution and taxes.

The study estimated that for pump prices to reach $3 a gallon, the price of crude oil would have to be about $95 a barrel, but crude prices have been holding around $65 a barrel, and Katrina has not caused a surge in crude oil prices.

"The disconnect between gasoline and crude oil prices is quite remarkable," Nichols said.

Regardless, concerns that Hurricane Rita could smash into key oil facilities in Texas lifted crude-oil prices nearly $1 a barrel Wednesday as workers fled oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico less than a month after Hurricane Katrina tore through the same region.

As Rita gained steam, turning into a Category 4 hurricane early Wednesday, the Gulf Coast began bracing for swells and high surf, which could be seen as early as Thursday, The Early Show's Dave Price reports.

According to news reports, at least three oil companies are already evacuating workers from their Gulf Coast oil rigs.

An offer by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to make available an extra 2 million barrels of oil a day did not seem to quell the market as the focus remained on the storm.

Prices could also rise further Wednesday after the U.S. Department of Energy releases its weekly petroleum inventories snapshot, which could show declining crude and heating oil stocks because of Hurricane Katrina.

Ed Murphy of the Washington-based American Petroleum Institute said refining capacity was tight before Katrina and the storm reduced it further by knocking out some refineries.

"That put upward pressure on petroleum prices," he said. "It's a no-brainer."

White House spokesman Allen Abney said the president had not seen the governors' letter Tuesday, but Bush has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to handle any price-gouging allegations.

Last week, the Senate passed legislation requiring the Federal Trade Commission to investigate accusations of gasoline price-gouging.

Clinton launches withering attack on Bush on Iraq, Katrina, budget

Clinton launches withering attack on Bush on Iraq, Katrina, budget
Sun Sep 18, 3:43 PM ET
Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."

The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had," Bush said in an interview with an ABC's "This Week" programme.

Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort to put together an constitution that would be universally supported in Iraq.

The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so that they can cope without US support "I think is the best strategy. The problem is we may not have, in the short run, enough troops to do that," said Clinton.

On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29.

People with cars were able to heed the evacuation order, but many of those who were poor, disabled or elderly were left behind.

"If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out," Clinton.

He agreed that some responsibility for this lay with the local and state authorities, but pointed the finger, without naming him, at the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

FEMA boss Michael Brown quit in response to criticism of his handling of the Katrina disaster. He was viewed as a political appointee with no experience of disaster management or dealing with government officials.

"When James Lee Witt ran FEMA, because he had been both a local official and a federal official, he was always there early, and we always thought about that," Clinton said, referring to FEMA's head during his 1993-2001 presidency.

"But both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people."

On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.

"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.

"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."

Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."

Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.