How Are Those Groovy Price Controls Working Out, Hawaii?

According to the Pacific Business Journal,

Hawaii again has the most expensive gasoline in the nation, with a statewide average price of $3.45 7/10 that far exceeds that highest levels reached by any Mainland state in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

For a Hawaiian who's not full of gas, try here. Meanwhile, you'll be happy to know that the home page of the Dept. of Energy—wait, didn't some political party want to abolish that?—still features prominently a link to the Gas Price Hotline, where you can fink on gougers. Funny, there's no room on the form to list politicians who make policies that inevitably result in price-hikes….

And in the read-it-and-weep category, comes this Houston Chronicle article from Sept. 7. Excerpt:

Just weeks after shepherding through a massive, comprehensive energy bill, members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee were grappling Tuesday with ways to lower prices at the pump.

"The things that were not politically possible two months ago are still before us and require an answer," Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said.

"We can either ignore them or we can act. I say we act," he added. […]

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., for instance, will introduce legislation today that would impose a windfall profit tax that would hit oil companies when the price of crude tops $40 a barrel. […]

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is calling on Congress to reinstate an authority the president had until 1981 to impose controls on gas prices. […]

Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., wants to explore the idea of lowering speed limits, a notion reminiscent of the time when Congress reduced interstate highway speeds from 70 to 55 mph.