Business: Why-o, Why-o Sohio?

An oil firm incurs the regulators' wrath by cutting prices

Those irrepressible regulators at the Department of Energy were caught last week with red tape all over their faces. Firing off a fusillade of contradictory rulings over the past two weeks, they first ordered Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) to raise its gasoline prices immediately by 100 per gal., then reversed themselves and ordered the increase rescinded, and finally proposed that Sohio add the extra 100 per gal. by early July.

For the past few months Sohio has been selling gasoline at its 2,500 stations, including Boron and BP outlets in twelve states,...

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