On the recordJanuary 24, 2011
Two-thirds of the refining capacity is in Texas. And all of a sudden as this dispute between EPA and Texas rises its ugly head, and we see that the EPA is taking over this permitting, and industry itself is saying, look, we just want to know what to do. We are at a loss of what to do. And we are willing to work. Industry is saying to them, tell us what the new permit is. Tell us how to do this. What's going to happen? And there's a lawsuit pending, and all this stuff. Now the speculators, I think, are starting to say, oh, the price may be going up again. You tell me. Has the price of gasoline gone up in the last 3 months? Does it look like it's going to continue? I'm not saying this is the cause, but I think I can argue it's one of them. What Texas does with industry is the perfect example of government and industry working to fix a problem together. That's what we thought we were going to get from the Obama administration when he started out. Instead, we have government working against industry in this present administration, and because of that we start to see it at every level. And by the way, if you think it's just in this particular area, just a little fact: Last year, the Federal Government issued a total of 3,316 new rules and regulations, an average of 13 rules a day. Seventy-eight of the new rules last year were major rules.
