Oil companies as a group are reportedly not profiting from the invasion of Kuwait, because gasoline sellers have passed along only about 60 percent of their higher cost of oil.

The commission has authority over electricity, water, cable television and telecommunications providers, but not over gasoline sellers.

But most everyone - from teen-age cigarette hawkers to gasoline sellers and gaunt women and children with bowls in their hands - just stopped and stared.

While the friends wait for the gasoline seller to fill Anatoly's jerrycans, the two practice their English.

After the sudden drop in oil supplies, gasoline sellers were quick to raise their prices.

And Reuters reported that Georgia's governor, Sonny Perdue, signed an order to punish gasoline sellers who gouge customers, amid complaints that prices in some cases had risen to $5 a gallon.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that he would ask regulators to require the state's petroleum refiners and gasoline sellers to cut by 10 percent the emissions of heat-trapping gases associated with the production and use of their products.

A18 California Emissions Plan Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he would order California to require its petroleum refiners and gasoline sellers to cut the emissions of heat-trapping gases associated with the production and use of their products by 10 percent.

He also said he would ask state regulators to require petroleum refiners and gasoline sellers doing business in California to cut by 10 percent the emissions of heat-trapping gases, even as he pushed for the water storage methods opposed by groups that argue that above-ground storage disrupts the surrounding environment.

The association of German gasoline sellers, MWV, has registered a 5 percent drop in sales since the beginning of the year.