Barbara Boxer

In response to the revelation in the Kansas City Star Sunday, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights called on California Attorney General Jerry Brown to launch an investigation into whether the oil industry has unfairly used its market power to deny motorists access to an honest accounting for each gallon of gasoline. In addition, FTCR urged U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer to hold hearings and force oil companies to withdraw their pressure on Gilbarco Vedeer-Root, the temperature-adjusted pump manufacturer, which has decided not to sell its pump in California.

Steyer, the billionaire chief of Farallon Capital, led last year's successful underdog battle against an oil industry ballot initiative. Proposition 23, cloaked in a mantra of job creation, would have killed California's green energy laws for the sake of nothing but corporate profit. Check out the short video that introduced Steyer, who received Consumer Watchdog's Philip Burton Public Service Award. The award was handed to Steyer by actor and Proposition 23 spokesman Benjamin Bratt, who also donated countless hours tot he cause. (Burton, our hero, was a California legislator and member of Congress whose own "Rage for Justice" was the title of his biography.)  It's an award that has gone in the past to wildly different honorees including Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Nurses Association head Rose Ann DeMoro, champion of the poor Elizabeth Edwards and actor Dennis Quaid, who won major hospital safety improvements after his newborn twins nearly died from a medication error. Joseph Cotchett, the lawyer who received the Philip Burton Lifetime Legal Achievement Award, brought lawsuits on behalf of the environment in the 1970s that ultimately morphed into the states' highly protective coastal laws. Nearly 40 years later, he kept Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger from selling off historic state assets just to raise some ready cash--and maybe do a favor for certain friendly private investors. In between, he's done a legendary amount of challenging public work--including representation of CIA agent Valerie Plame, who was famously outed by the Bush Administration. Phil Burton's brother John Burton, another distinguished champion of the people, presented the award to Steyer. The two inductees into our Consumer Advocate Hall for Fame both struck back against health insurance industry greed and misrepresentation, even in the midst of personal tragedy.

The film also tells the story of the battle my group, Consumer Watchdog, fought with Shell Oil to keep the company from demolishing a key gasoline refinery during a period of high demand and low supply in order to drive up the price at the pump. A combination of public pressure and intervention by US Senator Barbara Boxer and then California Attorney General Bill Lockyer forced Shell to keep the refinery open and sell it to a competitor.

California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer should lead the Democrats in this battle on behalf of First Pension's victims. Cox has never publicly acknowledged shame over his role in representing a swindler who would soon be sent off to prison. It is time for an apology from Cox and for a public explanation of how a lap dog for investment houses and a convicted swindler can be the nation's investor watchdog.