MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: This is a special edition. Why are gasoline prices going up and up and up? And what must America do to ensure we have the energy supply we need? With us, for the full hour, the secretary of energy, Samuel Bodman; the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, Red Cavaney; the host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” Jim Cramer; the assistant Democratic leader, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois; and the author of “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, NBC energy analyst Daniel Yergin.

And in our MEET THE PRESS MINUTE: 29 years ago, the head of the Standard Oil Company was here talking about huge oil profits.

(Videotape, April 24, 1977):

MR. JOHN SWEARINGEN (Chairman of the Board Standard Oil of Indiana): Oh, yes. They have gone up and I think if you’ll read the papers this morning, you’ll find that the profits of other companies have gone up, too.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Welcome, all. A lot to talk about this morning.

And let’s start, we’ve been talking to folks all across the country about their concerns, and this is what we found out in our NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Which concerns—causes you most concern? $3 per gallon gasoline, 45 percent of Americans say that is their number one concern; more than a nuclear Iran, 33; illegal immigration, 26; civil disorder in Iraq, 23. Gas is on people’s minds. Who do you blame? Who’s responsible for the high gas prices? Oil companies, say 37 percent of Americans; 22 percent say oil-producing nations; 15 say George Bush; consumers blame themselves, 8 percent; federal regulations, 6 percent; U.S. Congress, 4 percent; automobile manufacturers, 2 percent.

Secretary of energy, why has gasoline gone up at the pump 60 cents in a month?

MR. SAMUEL BODMAN: First, oil prices have gone up, Tim. And that’s been a, a situation that we’ve been dealing with over the last, basically, year and a half. The suppliers have lost control of the market and, therefore, demand is, is—exceeds supply, and it’s a real issue?

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MR. RUSSERT: Why? Why? How have they lost control of the market? Why, why has oil gone up?

MR. BODMAN: The oil has gone up because the suppliers are unable to make the kind of demand to make the flows equal to the demand. So we’ve got demand coming from China, from India, from the United States. All of this is good because the economies are strong. And so we’re getting people out of poverty, we’re getting people that are, that are working and doing—and living better. But the demand is also causing the kind of price spike that we’ve had. That’s one thing. The second piece is that we have a number of factors. We’re shifting from winter to summer, gasoline grades, we’re shifting from MTBE to ethanol, which has got some dislocations that have caused some, some—I have to believe, have caused some price spikes. We’re moving to ultra low-sulphur diesel fuels. All of that is adding to the situation that we now have. I expect the latter to settle down over the next month or two, but, clearly, we’re going to have a number of years, two or three years, before suppliers are going to be in a position to meet the demands of those who are consuming this product.

MR. RUSSERT: But a lot of these demands have been ongoing. Are the oil companies exploiting this situation?

MR. BODMAN: The president has, has instructed the Justice Department to undertake an investigation of that. We see no evidence of it, but this is one of those situations where, I guess I would call it trust, but verify and that’s what the Justice Department is engaged in.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Durbin, in your mind, why has gasoline gone up 60 cents per gallon in one month?

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): I think there are two things, and one that you alluded to in your second question, profit taking by the oil companies. Last year, $110 billion in profit by the oil companies. ExxonMobil leading the pack. That translates into $1,000 for every household in America paid for profits by these oil companies. Four hundred-million-dollar retirement gift for Lee Raymond, the CEO of ExxonMobil. That is part of the problem. And I think it has to be focused on. Secondly, though, we’ve had a failure in our nation’s energy policy. Since President Bush was elected to office, the price of gasoline has virtually doubled. After he signed the Energy Bill last year, home heating cost in the Northeast and Midwest went up dramatically. We saw this coming with MTBE. We knew that there would be a transition over as the MTBE producers were not protected from liability by Tom DeLay’s amendment. All of these things were predictable, and yet we didn’t prepare ourselves for them. We don’t have a sound energy policy and we definitely need one.

MR. RUSSERT: But you voted for more ethanol to be blended into gasoline.

Aren’t you partly responsible for what we’re seeing?

SEN. DURBIN: I’d vote for it again because that’s home grown and that means that domestically we can start to provide for ourselves as Brazil has done so successfully, I’m sure we’ll mention on this program. But let’s be very honest about this. When we put up the Maria Cantwell Amendment on the floor in the Energy Bill and said America should reduce its dependence on foreign oil by 40 percent over the next 20 years, it was opposed by this administration. Opposed because they said that would force higher CAFE standards, higher fuel economy for cars and trucks. That has to be part of the solution in America. And now the president recently has said he wants to revisit that issue. But that has to be part of any sound energy policy.

CONTINUED

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