Mixed Message from Big Oil

Congress is questioning where big oil puts its profits.

A House subcommittee is looking into whether oil companies have erased a supply cushion -- leading to record high gasoline prices of late.

"Oil companies today are enjoying record profits, and while they could use those profits to invest in more production capacity, instead they use the money to buy back shares in the markets."-- Rep John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), quoted by the AP

Gasoline prices have risen even as crude oil prices have dropped. Oil company exec's have said that refineries have had to close and cut back -- but in testimony before the subcommittee, John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, says refineries are producing record amounts of gasoline. (Wyoming Tribune-Eagle)