I found the letter about refineries on the Sept. 17 editorial page interesting. It is true that no new refineries have been built since 1976. However, I hardly think oil companies would refuse to build new refineries in an effort to exploit us later. As a business model, that makes no sense.

The reason there are no new refineries is because no one, myself included, wants one in his or her back yard. If some nice community did step up and say “build it here,” the oil company would then have to consider how long before it saw a return on its investment. Fifty years?

If oil companies ignore the cost and build out of the goodness of their conservative hearts, there are also the questions of those pesky liberal environmentalists.

The oil companies are not exploiting us. Fill up your tank in Europe or Canada if you don’t believe me. The cost of gas prior to Katrina was less in inflationary dollars than it was in 1980. If we want cheaper fuel prices, we should speak to those Democrats in Augusta who tax it so much.

Robert Belanger, Mechanic Falls