By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The jump in U.S. gasoline prices this year has so far drained consumers of an extra $20 billion, or about $146 for each passenger car in the country, the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Tuesday.
The national price for regular unleaded gasoline hit a record $3.22 a gallon this week, and is up $1.05 since the beginning of February, according to the Energy Department.
The added expense is taking money away from consumers to spend on other goods and services.
"Spending billions more on gasoline constrains consumers' budgets, leaving less money available for other purchases," GAO's Thomas McCool said in written testimony to a House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on the cause of record prices.
Like many other energy experts, McCool said the GAO has found that current high pump costs are the result of a large amount of oil refining capacity being offline, strong gasoline demand and lower fuel inventories.
Many lawmakers blame the lack of competition in the oil industry from mega oil company mergers for the run-up in gasoline prices.
McCool said company mergers in the 1990s caused wholesale gasoline prices to rise during that period, but the agency has not performed modeling on mergers that occurred since 2000 and therefore could not say what the effect has been on current fuel prices.
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