Vermont Attorney Lawyer

MONTPELIER, Vt. - The Senate has asked the state Attorney General William Sorrell, the opening of a criminal investigation of the major oil companies to see if recent oil prices, price increases, consumers from fraud or Other rights violations “.

“At the same time, we pay $ 3 and $ 4 per gallon for gas and oil, oil companies are making record profits, billions and billions of dollars,” said the president of Senate Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham. “It is puzzling to us that there are so few that it is the politicians and government officials at the national and say enough is enough.

Shumlin, Majority Leader John Campbell, D-Windsor, and other Democrats met on Thursday, the National President of Truckern a “group and an official with a community action agency Burlington, which will help in making in charge of heating for low-income Vermonters recent burst of oil - price increases.

Senators of his proposal in the form of a joint House-Senate resolution, which the Senate last Thursday on a vote of 30-0.

It called on the other hand, the Prosecutor-General to take “immediate steps and aggressive at the opening of an investigation into the likely anticompetitive and illegal activities by oil companies.”

Sorrell said later that he was glad that other part of the resolution prompted his office to seek assistance from other states which, on the fat and oil.

They all had a resolution of 30 senators seriously, “said Sorrell.” However, with regard to the market, we are two-tenths of 1% of the population (United States). We are the chip-on-the-fly on the back of an elephant. ”

Sorrell said he has 2 1 / 2 investigators on his staff for all matters related to consumer fraud and antitrust law. “California 3000 Assistant Attorneys General,” he said.

Both Sorrell, a Democrat, and Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, said the solution was the most likely in Washington. And Sorrell said, was as often as possible, after the words “in January of next year, if we are not more about the oil of a man in the White House.”

Where is that the solution to this problem is real and perceived, in Vermont, “said Roland Bellavance, head of a bar Trucking and president of the Vermont trucks and buses club, and Tim Searles, director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity.

Bellavance said the truck in its fleet averaged 5.3 miles per gallon of diesel fuel which has more than $ 4 per gallon. The heavyweight costs more than $ 1200 to complete, he added. “We are spending $ 1.5 million more for fuel in this year alone.”

Searles said the man in his agency had its heating costs nearly twice as much $ 250 for a minimum of 125 gallons of two years up to $ 440 now. He said that many of them have resulted in a shutdown of electricity in the spring of this year to pay, given that fighting for oil was behind on other bills.

Petroleum industry, the leaders of today, they do not see a problem with a record result to merit a time when other Americans, including the problems described by Bellavance and Searles. Several top oil executives emerged there is a committee of Congress this week for their case.

“Our results, although in absolute terms, the high number, it is necessary, within the framework of the magnitude and the cyclical nature, the long-term nature of our industry and the huge investment needs,” JS said Simon, senior vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp, from a record of $ 40 billion over the past year.