Bush plan will do little to ease pain at the pump

No quick fix for high global oil prices, tight gasoline supplies

With pump prices still rising, spot outages of gasoline cropping up in some East Coast markets, and proposed solutions gaining momentum in Congress, President Bush

For starters, there is little the White House or Congress can do to reign in the price of crude. At recent highs of $75 a barrel, the cost of crude oil has jumped by a third since November as demand for oil continues to grow faster than global production capacity. Nervous oil buyers are paying these high prices because they’re worried about possible supply bottlenecks from multiple hot spots like Iraq, Nigeria and Iran.

And the biggest single factor driving up the price of a gallon of gas is the sharp increase in oil prices.

MSNBC