LANSING – Sen.
John Proos late Wednesday called on Attorney
General Bill Schuette to open an investigation into the gas price jump that
has hit Proos’ region of southwest Michigan in the past several days.
According to a statement by Proos
(R-St. Joseph), a British Petroleum (BP) oil refinery in Indiana has reportedly
experienced a “mechanical breakdown” and, as a result, is passing on
the higher expenses to local retailers and their customers.
“I am calling into question the
approximately 80-cent increase in a matter of days that southwest Michigan
residents are being forced to pay at the pump,” Proos said. “A single
glitch at a regional plant is causing a drastic and sudden increase in gas
prices when the 2015 average price of a barrel of crude oil is projected at
$49.”
Gas prices are expected to spike in
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, his statement indicated, and
BP has said it could take a month to fix the malfunction.
This comes at a time when the
federal Energy Information Administration recently lowered its 2015 forecast to
a $49 per barrel average – a six-year low – Proos noted.
“As our state continues down
the road of an economic comeback, we cannot allow the hard-working people of
southwest Michigan to be taken advantage of by artificially high gas
prices,” he said. “For this reason, I am calling on Michigan’s
attorney general to investigate the necessity of the price increase on our
citizens.”
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