Good news: Democratic governors have embarrassed the federal government into acknowledging the oil price gouging issue, as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced a formal probe. Bad news: President Bush made sure to preempt any real investigation into price gouging by his financial backers in the oil/gas industry when last year he appointed a former ChevronTexaco lawyer, Deborah Majoras, to head the FTC.

Some would argue that any investigation - no matter how rigged - is better than no investigation. But, then, I'm not so sure, especially when we inevitably see in a few weeks an oil-industry-written FTC report that gives a government stamp of approval to oil industry profiteering. Undoubtedly, that's in the Bush administration's calculation: the White House's use of the FTC (instead of an independent commission) to be the government's one and only public face in dealing with this issue clearly has something to do with that agency being headed by an oil industry crony.

Thus, the question of the day: Will Majoras recuse herself from being involved in the probe?

frim sirota blog