It's now clear the EPA caused last summer's price surge. While some blamed Environmental Protection Agency regulations, many in the Clinton administration pointed fingers at the major oil companies. Over half a year later, the FTC investigation has come up empty-handed. The truth is now emerging that big government, not big oil, is to blame for the great gas crunch of 2000. While the FTC investigation, launched in early June, was underway, the real causes of the price rise started to become clear.
All analysts now agree that the increase in the cost of oil was a factor.
But high oil prices alone cannot explain all of the increase at the pumps, and they are certainly not the reason the cost of gas in Chicago and Milwaukee far exceeded the national average. The situation in the midwest was greatly exacerbated by environmental regulations. Midwestern RFG differs from that used elsewhere in that it contains ethanol. These new requirements initially proved very difficult to meet given the ethanol-containing RFG blends sold in Chicago and Milwaukee. Nonetheless, as long as the FTC investigation was still in progress, EPA bureaucrats could use it to divert attention away from the true culprit.