Editorial: Will work for gasoline

Monday, April 24, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

As gasoline prices soar to post-Hurricane Katrina levels, making even a cup of designer coffee look cheap, it is little wonder that even those who wholeheartedly support free enterprise bristle at news that Exxon Mobil chief executive Lee Raymond received a whopping $686 million in pay during his 13-year tenure.

Certainly, the guy deserves to make a handsome living for, as The New York Times reported, increasing his company's market value fourfold - to $375 billion. But does he deserve to earn what amounts to $144,573 a day? That's not a salary. It's a kingdom. Raymond, who retired from Exxon Mobil in December, received $400 million in 2005 alone.

Certainly, other CEOs have left with more in their well-lined pockets. Apple Computer's Steven P. Jobs received $775 million in 2000. Michael Eisner took home $577 million in 1997 as the head of Disney Company. But most Americans can get along without an iPod or another "Snow White" video. Going about our daily lives without buying gasoline is an impossibility for most of us.

And the prices of Apple computers or Mickey Mouse dolls aren't inflated by America's war in Iraq, fear of nuclear proliferation in Iran or the Gulf Coast being slammed by a series of hurricanes. Oil companies can charge what they are charging because of what we fear, as tensions increase overseas and we worry that the approaching hurricane season will wipe out domestic refineries again. Add to that the need to use additional ethanol in summertime gasoline, and the prices at the pump go into overdrive.

Raymond, it seems, will have no trouble buying all of the $3-a-gallon gas he wants. Maybe that's the rub. And maybe it will make Americans angry enough to demand that Congress put some momentum behind efforts to develop alternative fuels.