http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7BF329E699-A861-4719-8D71-37E9CC3BAF65%7DWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Congressional lawmakers are taking bows for the energy success story they say they had a hand in engineering over the past year, but with gas at $3 a gallon, are these self-congratulations deserved?
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 hit its one-year anniversary this month and Washington policymakers looking at developments since the passage of the bill see a job well done.
"A year after its passage, I consider the Energy Policy Act of 2005 one of the greatest accomplishments of the 109th Congress," said Sen. Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and prime author of the legislation.
Consumers who've pulled up to the pump or opened a utility bill lately may be wondering if Washington is operating in an alternate reality.
Have prices at the pump plummeted? No. The national average for regular unleaded gasoline has been pegged at around $3 a gallon for the past four weeks, up about 24% from $2.44 a year ago, according to AAA's fuel gauge report.
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