New Doc Puts Spotlight on Oil Companies

Spotlight on big oil leaves many questions

Are high gas prices caused by unrest in the Middle East? Not enough refineries? Not enough oil?

Well, according to the producer of a new documentary, we've been all sold a list of excuses.

Jeremy Wagener's documentary "GasHole," says if you want to see why prices have skyrocketed, look at the oil companies, and their investors.

"Their costs stay the same and their profits go up," according to Jeremy Wagener, "GasHole" Producer.

The unrest in Libya has nothing to do with rocketing gas prices because "we get almost no oil from Libya," according to Wagener.

If a threat to supply was the reason for high prices, Wagener's points out, they should have gone through the roof during BP's Gulf oil spill, but they didn't.

"GasHole" looks at the extremely profitable oil industry, and the executives who refuse to give even the most powerful members of congress access to their books.

The documentary exposes how huge, multi-national corporations have entered the oil "speculation" market, buying up enormous shares because there are no longer strict regulations preventing them.

"You're paying $4 a gallon right now because speculators believe that the markets are gonna go up," according to Wagener.

Wagener says he doesn't have much confidence in President Obama's call for a task force to look into possible gouging, because presidents and lawmakers have already tried and failed.

"They can set the price at $100 a gallon, and there's no law against that," according to Wagener. "It's a free market system."

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