It’s that time of year when families hop in the car and begin summer vacations. It’s also the time of year when gas prices jump up and the cash in wallets jumps out. When I filled up my tank yesterday, I thought I might have to go the bank and take out a “summer gas loan” to help pay for high gas prices. I’m can’t be the only one in this boat as the high gas prices are dominating local TV news casts these days.

Growth Energy’s CEO Tom Buis notes that Big Oil’s predictability is absurd. Every year the same thing happens, as more people hit the road, prices climb. It is just as certain that the sun will set in the evening, as oil companies will use any excuse to gouge consumers and blame some outside factor,” said Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy. “After roughly 40 days of price increases in February, switching seasonal blends were blamed. Now, it is refinery planned maintenance and tight regional supplies. Their unending excuses are as long as the list of government subsidies they have received over the last century.”

Buis says this is just another example of many, of why renewable biofuels are necessary. They provide consumer savings and a choice at the pump. They reduce dangerous dependence on foreign oil. “While Big Oil touts all the new wells, the fracking and the so-called abundant supply right here at home, prices have not gone down. Why do prices remain so high with a so-called increase in supply? Oil companies will continue to rake in record profits on the backs of their customers as they continue their monopoly on the liquid fuels market by blocking competition and doling out the same baseless excuses time and again,” Buis continues.

“Enough is enough,” says Buis. He calls for an end to the absurd addiction to foreign oil and encourages drivers to use homegrown American ethanol. He also stresses the need to stop paying nearly a billion dollars a day for fossil fuels and foreign oil and spend the money at home.

“The latest reports that motorists will pay record prices this Memorial Day weekend at the pump is no surprise, but just one of many reasons it is time we break the addiction to oil and start using higher blends of ethanol.”