Pence Plays Politics with Storm, Looks Silly

Linda Pence had a press conference demanding that Attorney General Steve Carter investigate allegations of gasoline price gouging in the wake of the remnants of Hurricane Ike battering much of Indiana.

Steve Carter’s response is priceless.

From the Courier-Journal, she asks:

“It is the job of the attorney general not to turn a blind eye to big oil,” Pence said. “In this situation, the attorney general should actively investigate the pricing practices in Indiana and why our consumers are treated differently.”

Steve Carter answers:

Carter said there are good reasons for some of Indiana’s increases. The wholesale price that Hoosier stations were paying for gas recently spiked higher than their retail prices, although the wholesale price has dropped in the past two days. Also, many crude-oil operations in the Gulf, where Indiana gets much of its gas, remain shuttered and a major pipeline to the region is not pumping gas.

After laying out the market situation, which sort of makes Pence’s claims and demands look absurd, Carter suggests that all of those facts might still be wrong, and says that Linda Pence can provide any information she might have to aid with an investigation:

(Read more after the leap)

Carter called on Pence to release whatever information she has about higher prices that could aid an investigation.

“If she’s got evidence of price fixing and collusion, I don’t want her to hold that back,” Carter said.

I somehow doubt any information will be forthcoming from the Pence folks.

Granted, Linda Pence is a liberal trial lawyer. The market is not her area of expertise. Suing people and businesses (and especially defending shady characters) is her bailiwick.

Linda Pence shouldn’t play politics with Hurricane Ike. She also shouldn’t play politics with things she obviously does not understand, like gas prices.

The Chicago Tribune has a more thorough treatment (surprise, surprise) of this issue, including specific numbers provided by the AG’s office:

Pence suggested that oil companies were simply using Ike as an excuse to boost prices, and said they were now higher in Indiana than in 45 other states.

She suggested one reason for that was that oil companies do not fear any threat of an investigation by the Indiana attorney general’s office.

But Carter’s office provided information that 498 oil production platforms remained evacuated, and a pipeline that provides 700,000 barrels of fuel a day to Indiana is shut down. Carter also noted that gasoline prices in Michigan and Illinois are about the same as they are in Indiana.

Carter’s office investigated more than 3,000 complaints of excessive pricing immediately following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and of 125 gasoline retailers investigated, 58 were found to have priced fuel at what Carter’s office considered too high then.

Carter’s office took no legal action against those retailers because all but four made restitution through refunds or charitable contributions that exceeded what they took in through excessive pricing.

He said the office still investigates individual complaints of excessive pricing, but in warranted cases, has sought restitution instead of litigation because it provides more immediate relief to consumers.

Linda Pence probably needs to stick to making campaign issues out of things that she understands, such as defending corruption… err, ah, uh, I mean, fighting corruption… yeah, that’s right… “fighting” corruption.