Brij’s One More Idea

Gas pump adventure continues.  With gallon costing close to $4.60 in California, this everyday pain is now ready to generate serious comedy (and political campaigns as well). 

I received this email (see below) from ConsumerWatchDog.org organization urging me to send complaints to  local congressmen. Which I am not sure I will do.

Email campaign is a good move to get citizens involved in the issues but urging elected representative to act for some short term fix is not something we need. What we need is a good long term strategy around changes in consumption model, investments in alternative forms of energy, incentives for people to own less number of vehicles and incentives for using public transport. While congress needs to go tough on tax rebates, and getting oil companies to pay their part, ordinary citizens cannot continue drunken sailor consumption pattern.

While reading this campaign I noticed interesting Google ads for oil related keywords. Some of these ads are funny and some are plain old hustle. Should Google allow this kind of ad - "Run your car on water"?  To his credit this fellow succeeded in outbidding VW and ABCNews!

Send Your Gasoline Bill To Congress! I'm sending my maddening gasoline bill to Washington and inviting you to do the same. Elected representatives don't pull into the corner gas station and pay from their own pockets. They need to know what it's doing to you. I had my own harsh moment this week at the gas station, pumping $4.60 gasoline: My 50 mpg Prius now costs more to run than my old 15 mpg sedan did in 2002, when gasoline sold around here for as little as $1.13 a gallon. My salary sure hasn't kept up. Click on the Send Your Free Message button below to tell the president, your Senator and your Representative in Congress what gasoline is costing you and what it's doing to your budget. Just fill in the short form (cost of your last fill-up, where you bought it and what gasoline is costing you each month) and send it. Then forward this message to your friends. Gasoline prices are hitting record highs every day ($4.075 nationally today, and $4.607 in California, per AAA) Oil company profits are out of sight, as you can tell from looking at our "Oil Profits Monster" database. Yet Congress hasn't even acted to regulate out-of-control oil trading markets. Or to put oversight on refineries that restrict their gasoline and diesel production to keep the retail price high. Thanks so much for helping us get the message to Congress: If they don’t feel their own pain at the pump, we have to tell them about ours. Consumer Watchdog is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer protection organization. Your contributions are tax-deductible

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