Oil prices: Who’s really the big bad here?

With prices at the pump rising daily, it’s very fashionable right now to blame oil companies, OPEC or even President Bush for our situation, but is that really placing blame where it belongs? Consider:

• Oil companies only make about 8 percent profit on gasoline, far lower profit than many companies make on their products.
• About 20 cents of the cost of each gallon of gasoline is federal taxes.
• Between 10 percent and 30 percent of the cost of gasoline is state taxes, depending where you live. In California, for example, each gallon has tacked on state and local sales tax, an excise tax, and an underground storage tank fee, for about 50 cents per gallon.
• Besides taxes, states and the federal government add to the refining costs with mandates about different fuel mixes at different times of year to try to moderate air pollution.
• The Democratic Party, in league with the environmentalist lobby, has been the primary source of laws blocking development of new, more efficient refineries.
• The cost of oil had been fairly stable for much of President Bush’s term in office. It began going up about the same time Congress was handed over to the Democratic Party majority, which has as a major policy plank the reduction of the oil supply to “save” the planet from global warming.
• The cost of crude oil has risen more than 60 cents per gallon since January, largely due to commodities traders speculating that the future oil supply will be reduced.
• It is estimated that more than 90 percent of oil fields in the world are controlled by governments, while oil companies own only about 9 percent.
• Democratic lawmakers, at the urging of environmentalists, have blocked any oil drilling in Alaska, off the West Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, requiring us to import most of our oil.
• The largest sellers of oil to the United States are Canada and Mexico, non-OPEC nations.
• Democratic lawmakers have been the primary blockers of nuclear power and new hydroelectric dams, both of which are clean energy sources that would greatly decrease the national need for oil.
• Lawmakers have an incentive to keep oil prices high, both for the revenue and as a “stick” to help pass global warming legislation, which will further raise energy prices and increase legislators’ control over citizens’ private lives.
• The people who created this mess keep getting re-elected by US. …

So, now, who’s to blame? …