Consumers must take charge

Sunday, May 25, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

It is hard to judge what is really going on with oil prices right now because so many differing opinions are being expressed.

Some Wall Street analysts predict the price of oil, now hovering around $135 a barrel, will fall fairly soon to $70 a barrel. Other analysts say the price is on its way to $200.

It is no use looking for definitive answers from Congress, either. Its members are reduced to periodically grilling the top executives of the country’s five largest oil companies.

As the executives sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked: “Why has the price of oil increased 400 percent since President Bush took office?”

Of course, the executives never directly answer such questions. They instead stick to prepared remarks about the world market and supply and demand.

Sometimes Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is front and center before Congress, as he was Thursday during a House hearing. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., told him, “The American people are being tipped upside down and having money shaken out of their pockets.”

Bodman was as dispassionate as the oilmen, responding that flat global production means demand is outstripping supply.

It is possible that price manipulation on a worldwide scale is a cause of the high oil prices.

And it is possible — actually, certain — that the supply of oil just isn’t what it used to be. Scientists and energy experts have been warning for decades that the oil age is nearing its end.

Either way, there is no escaping the current reality that record gas prices are bringing hardship that neither oil barons nor government leaders are going to be relieving anytime soon. It is mostly up to individual consumers now, to reduce demand by conserving until it hurts.