Oil Crisis

I just had to pause at the ridiculous protest of the Greenpeace flotilla surrounding the oil tanker arriving at the Port of Long Beach (Sept. 28). Protest coordinator Melanie Duchin remarks, “I think we have made our point: The country’s addiction to oil and fossil fuels is costly to Americans’ pocketbooks and their environment.” And yet the photo shows the Greenpeace raft powered by a gas-guzzling, smog-belching outboard motor.

Perhaps the answer to the fuel shortage would be for Detroit engineers to come up with an engine that gets 50 or more mpg. Perhaps refinery engineers could develop ways of tapping our own oil minus the spills. The technology is there. The U.S. should never be at the mercy of any country. It’s time for the politicians and the rest of us to stand up to the Greenpeace fuel-wasting people. Enough is enough.

ED DEUSENBERRY

Trona, Calif.

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How come the protesters prefer fossil fuel to power their boat rather than oars?

ARCHIE ACKROYD

Arcadia

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We are supposed to believe our huge gas prices are the result of oil supply and demand from foreign countries. Gas prices from one neighboring city or county to the next vary as much as 15 cents a gallon. Why? Could it be because some areas are more affluent, so they can make more money?

Forty years ago, every pump in the city sold gas for exactly 30.9 cents a gallon. I used to ask, wasn’t this price fixing, which is illegal? It couldn’t cost every gas company exactly the same amount to produce and sell the product. The huge gas companies have been shafting the public for over 76 years. We have now broken ground in stopping the tobacco companies and automobile manufacturers with penalties. The petroleum companies are way overdue.

DAVE SCHLENKER

Laguna Woods

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The oil reserve was created to be used in times of national emergency. The president’s sympathy for the public spending more on gas is commendable, but consider what the working class will pay when we are out of reserve. We will have used the supply, reduced emergency preparedness and will have opened the door for $5-per-gallon gas. Think it can’t happen? Ask the Europeans.

RICHARD W. PLAMONDON

Encino