Causes of High Petro Prices

Many people -- Lefty and Righty alike -- charge "greedy" petro execs of fixing petro prices high. Yet petro companies report a constant profit margin of only 10% both during their lean, low-price years of the 1990s and today's reality of high prices and high profits. Meanwhile, consumer taxes from local, state, and federal agencies nab about 30% of what consumers pay at the pump. And we all know that a lack of refineries in the US, due to environmental regulations, contributes as well to US pump prices, surely more than the profit margin. This article explains how complicated government regulations also adds substantially to the pump price.