Clinton ‘Worried’ About High Gas Prices

NEW YORK —  President Clinton said Friday that he is “very worried” about high gasoline prices in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, and he suggested that fuel suppliers may be engaging in price-gouging.

“It’s been very frustrating to me,” the president said in an interview with NBC-TV’s “Today” show. “I’m quite concerned about it.”

In his most extensive comments to date on the subject, Clinton said a modest increase in gasoline costs in the Midwest is understandable, but not the soaring prices that are nearing $3 a gallon at some pumps.

“We know that the prices were affected by the shutdown of refineries coming back up, a leak in a pipeline . . . and an unusual increase in demand in the Chicago-Milwaukee area,” he said. “Also, they use the cleaner gasoline, which is more expensive to produce. But that’s only about 5 or 6 cents a gallon . . . What we don’t know is whether there was any price-gouging.”

He added that the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency also will investigate. “I’m very worried about it,” he said.

Clinton stopped at two schools in New York to promote greater spending for school construction and music education. He later attended a fund-raiser for Democratic congressional candidates.

Speaking in a sweltering public elementary school auditorium in Spanish Harlem, Clinton said more public and private money should be devoted to helping public schools restore music education programs, many of which fell victim to budget cuts in recent years.

“We know that a lot of our young children learn better if they have access to music education,” Clinton said. He praised cable network VH1’s “Save the Music” effort, which helps restore school music programs nationwide.

Asked in the TV interview if the federal government should contribute more to music education programs in public schools, he said, “I think we should do that, but the main thing we have to do is to build broader public support for doing it.”

At Abigail Adams Elementary School in Queens, Clinton urged Congress to approve tax breaks and spending that would help build 6,000 new schools nationwide and repair 5,000 schools annually for five years.

Congressional leaders say the proposal would cost too much and impose too many federal mandates on local school districts.