Washington Post

Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Gasoline prices once again soared across the country Sunday as federal officials said a preliminary survey of damage found that a number of production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico had been destroyed by Hurricane Ike.

The average price per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline climbed from $3.73 to just shy of $3.80 Sunday, according to the auto club AAA. That followed a 6-cent jump Saturday, when Ike ravaged the Texas Gulf Coast, home to 23 percent of U.S. oil refining capacity.

Prices broke the $4-a-gallon barrier in seven states, including some as far from the storm’s path as Alaska and Hawaii. In some parts of the country, there were reports of gouging, with prices reaching $5 a gallon. A flood of complaints — more than 549 since Thursday — led Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum to issue subpoenas to four companies seeking documentation on what they paid for the gasoline they were selling to consumers.

To ease the gas crunch, the U.S. government agreed Sunday to release 309,000 barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Conoco Phillips refinery in Illinois and a Placid Oil refinery in Louisiana because of supply disruptions from the Gulf.

For the second time in two days, President Bush said the government would be on the alert for any exorbitant price increases in the wake of a shortage.

“The federal government, along with state governments, will be monitoring very carefully as to whether or not consumers are being mistreated at the pump — in other words, gouged,” Bush said from the White House.

It was unclear Sunday how badly the storm had crippled the Gulf oil infrastructure. Eileen Angelico, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, said flyovers Saturday and Sunday showed 10 destroyed oil platforms. There are 717 manned platforms in the Gulf, and as of Sunday 591 of them had been evacuated in anticipation of the storm.

Angelico said the assessment was preliminary and that there were no further details available. The agency was working with oil companies and the Coast Guard to confirm other reports of damage, she said.

Meanwhile, the nation’s leading oil companies began returning crews to some of their facilities to assess structural damage. But already, the loss of power to many refineries and offshore platforms and pipelines remained a top concern.

Tickets for John McCain’s campaign rally in the Valley on Tuesday are still available.

YOUNGSTOWN Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden will lead a public campaign event Thursday evening at Stambaugh Auditorium, a source close to the campaign said Sunday night.

Biden is returning to the Buckeye State on Wednesday to kick off a two-day bus trip across northern Ohio. The tour includes Change We Need Rallies in the Toledo area and in Wooster on Wednesday.

Thursday’s events have not been publicly announced, but the source said the event should take place at 6:45 at the Fifth Avenue auditorium.

Meanwhile the Mahoning and Trumbull County Republican headquarters reported a steady demand for tickets for the John McCain/Sarah Palin appearance Tuesday at Winner Aviation at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna.

Neither headquarters could give a count on how many of the 11,0000 available tickets had been handed out, but people answering the telephone at both locations late Sunday said there would still be tickets available today.

Both offices were to be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. today.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin will address a “Victory 2008 Rally” at 4 p.m.