House OKs Gas-Price Gouging Bill

With gasoline prices at record highs, the U.S. House has passed a bill that makes gas-price gouging a federal crime.

Washington Senator Maria Cantwell has pushed such legislation for two years in the Senate, and the Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would bring up her bill in June.

The House vote provoked an immediate veto threat from the White House, which called the bill a form of price controls that could lead to fuel shortages and “bring back long gas lines reminiscent of the 1970s.”

Cantwell said the vote — and her companion bill — sets up a political battle pitting the American people against the oil industry’s “lobbyists and friends in the White House.”