Hank Johnson: “It is an issue that has been creeping like a thief in the night into the pocketbooks and into the pockets of Americans…”

“It is an issue that has been creeping like a thief in the night into the pocketbooks and into the pockets of Americans, everyday working Americans. We have seen the price of gas escalating quietly but steadily ever since 2001... But what we have seen since that administration came to power is prices going through the roof. And, like a thief in the night, people have now awakened to see that they have been gouged and stolen from by the oil industry, and it has all been while we were enjoying a deregulated and unregulated market and we were allowing the speculators, instead of the producers, to get a stranglehold on the American economy. So these speculators are driving up the price of gas, driving up the price of oil. It has become the number one issue in this country.”