High Gas Prices And Refinery Capacity

So with the nation up in arms over high gas prices the congress cannot come up with a bill to address the problem. Most answers to this are bandaid solutions but the core problem is refinery capacity which has been neglected for so long because of course keeping supply down helps raise the price of the commodity for the oil companies. Global demand accounts for about 30% of the rise in prices. Exaggeration of global events, price gouging and investor speculation account for some but lack of refinery capacity is the main culprit. In the U.S. we would have increased supply of gas if the oil companies built more refineries but they will not. The Republicans in congress offered a bill to give incentives and remove roadblocks to building them but the roadblocks were environment related so the Democrats resisted this strategy but creating more gas from oil is the answer that must be addressed. We must realize, as we do with utilities which everyone needs, that everyone needs gas and nearly every aspect of the market is effected by this. We can no longer just take a wholly free market approach to this and oil companies cannot refuse to build refineries just because they do not want to. Demand is increasing and the capacity to turn oil into gas must be increased. Skyrocketing gas prices because of bottlenecks at the refinery stage cannot be justified especially with the increasing record profits of oil companies. There will have to be more done than just trying to entice oil companies to build more refineries and with the incredible profits that have been made steps must be taken to get it done.