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Gasoline prices are hitting a record high of $3.51 in Calhoun County, with the AAA's daily fuel gauge report yesterday for West Virginia reaching $3.41.
The national average is now $3.33.
The government says average nationwide prices will peak near $3.50 a gallon this spring, but many analysts predict the spike could approach $4.
Last week, lawmakers grilled executives from the world's five largest publicly traded oil companies.
They criticized them for taking government tax subsidies defined as "corporate welfare," and not investing in renewable resources amid record prices for oil and gasoline.
"Americans are hoping that the top executives from the five largest oil companies will tell us that these soaring gas prices are just part of some elaborate hoax," said Ed Markey, D-Mass, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "Unfortunately, it's not a joke."
Markey slammed executives from Exxon Mobil and several other corporations for their opposition to eliminating about $18 billion in tax breaks over a ten year period.
All the while, they have made record breaking profits and paid their executives sky-high multi-million dollar salaries.
Exxon Mobil was paying their top CEO in excess of $40 million.
During the hearing, executives defended their salaries as the "going rate" in international corporations.
"Last year these companies alone made over $123 billion in profit," said Markey.
Exxon Mobil has made the largest profit of any world corporation in history in the oil market.
"What is the oil industry doing with all this profit? Unfortunately, it goes as much to financial engineering as to renewable engineering," he said.
The oil industry, along with the Bush administration, argue that it's unfair to target the oil industry when these tax breaks are available to all manufacturers.
They also say the breaks are essential to encourage domestic oil production and reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil.
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