BIDEN TO INVESTIGATE COMPANIES FOR PRICE GOUGING IN THE WAKE OF HURRICANE IAN

While speaking at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, President Biden warned  oil and gas executives  about doing gas hikes during Hurricane Ian.  If they  do raise the prices of gas he threatened to order investigations into their actions. 

BIDEN: “Do not, let me repeat, do not, do not use this as an excuse to raise gasoline prices or gouge the America people. Price of oil has stayed relatively low, it kept going down. The price of gas should be going down as well. My experts inform me the production of only about a hundred ninety thousand barrels a day as have been impacted by the storm thus far. That's less than 2% of the United States daily production impacted for a very short period of time. This small temporary storm impact on oil production provides no excuse, no excuse for price increases at the pump. None. If gas companies try to use this storm to raise prices at the pump, I will ask officials to look into whether price gouging is going on. America's watching, the industry should do the right thing.”

With tHe price of gas being up across the country, Biden approved a gas tax holidaY through the end of September to provide federal gas tax relief. 
Wen te effort was anounced in June, In addition , the President asked state and local governments to do what they could to  provid consumer relief. In Connecticut and New York, governors temporarily suspended their gas taxes, and in Illinois and Colorado, governors delayed planned tax and fee increases. InFlorida, te as tax oliday begins on 0ctober 1 but may be affected b te storm.