Regional home heating oil prices have risen more than 30 cents in recent days, said Rudy Ballard, president of Reinhardt Home Heating in Oneonta. Seward and Boehlert called on President Clinton and U.S. Energy Secretary William Richardson to draw down a portion of the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to stabilize prices. My constituents can't afford these price hikes and they are calling to get help.
Cold weather is a bad time for people to have to choose between food and heat.
In fact, regional home heating oil prices have increased more than 30 cents in just the last few days, Ballard said. The pricing started to go up from the major suppliers, and last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, it skyrocketed. There are a number of factors driving the price spike, said Ballard, who noted the recent cold snap has been the biggest culprit of late. He said the cold weather has increased demand by regular customers of heating oil, and the freezing temperatures have also forced large commercial natural gas customers to switch over to oil in the interim. This, he said, has caused even more depletion of the heating oil stockpiles across the Northeast.