Home heating oil supplies dried up in the Northeast last winter, and some families found themselves shelling out two or three times the price per gallon for heating oil than they had become accustomed to paying. The scenario stands to be repeated this season, observers say, and could be extended to other regions across the country that rely on heating oil for winter-time heating. Natural gas supplies have also dwindled as demand driven by economic good times has risen steadily. OPEC Gasoline prices also threaten to stay high, with some minor downward adjustments seen since the summer's prices and supply crisis in the Midwest. OPEC, the Democratic presidential hopeful said, should be held to their summertime promise to boost oil production.
Big oil needs to stop the profiteering.
We know what is going on here, and we have to end it. The campaign of GOP candidate George W. Bush has warned the administration not to concede tapping the reserves just to help Gore's campaign. But, Bush's connections to the oil industry, and those of his running mate Dick Cheney, have been called into question by the Democrats. Bush was once an oil executive, as was Cheney, who recently resigned as chief officer of the influential Texas-based Halliburton Co. oil firm. Rather, Bush said, plans must be implemented to make the United States less dependent on oil imports.