Cantwell skeptical of gas-price findings

Spokane may have some of the highest gasoline prices in the country because of market forces involving Rocky Mountain refineries, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell said Monday. But she doubts it.

” ‘Market forces’ is exactly what they told us at the beginning of the Enron investigation, too,” Cantwell said at a rally before campaigning door-to-door on Spokane’s South Hill. “Why isn’t the whole region having the same impact if that’s the case?”

Cantwell called earlier this year for a Federal Trade Commission investigation into gas prices in Spokane, which are higher than Seattle’s or Coeur d’Alene’s. Last week the FTC attributed it in part to refineries having to meet new environmental standards and a shift to diesel production to take advantage of higher prices for that fuel.

At her rally, at the Steam Plant building downtown, Cantwell talked about pushing the country toward alternative fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, and alternative energy, such as wind-generated electricity. But she acknowledged in a later interview that those changes wouldn’t quickly solve the problem of high gasoline prices in Spokane.

A bill she sponsored would give the FTC and the Justice Department more oversight of oil markets, she said. It would go beyond anti-trust to “manipulative devices and contrivances.”

Those investigations would also take time, she said, but they could at least provide answers for a community that wants to know why prices are so different.

Cantwell and her Republican opponent, Mike McGavick, have clashed on energy policy. Although he’s agreed that alternative energy production needs to increase, McGavick has said it would be no substitute for drilling in the United States to cut down on foreign imports. Cantwell has opposed new drilling on the outer shelf and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.