Also Wednesday, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden called for a probe by the Federal trade Commission.

Gas prices in the Puget Sound area start at about $1.80 a gallon, but in many cases are pushing $2.00 for unleaded.

Tim Hamilton, an industry watchdog for independent gasoline dealers, told KOMO 4 News: "It's not the Sierra Club, it's not our taxes, it's not OPEC. It's simply the marketing schemes and shorting the energy needs of the West that's causing them (the gas companies) to be able to get this money."

Oil companies tend to dismiss Tim Hamilton and his watchdog group, but there's a twist. Someone at Shell disobeyed company orders and e-mailed Hamilton copies of confidential financial records.

They detail the profit margins for refineries. In Texas, the profit is about $7.50 a barrel. In our state, the profit is twice as high. Hamilton says that amounts to about thirty cents a gallon increase profit for every 42-gallon barrel.

Shell records show even higher profits in California. The comment of one Shell official written on the leaked document was: "Wow."

Truckers like Jim Smith of Massachusetts had a different reaction: "You can go from one state to the next and it's 40-to-50 cents more. How can that be? It's just unacceptable. It's crazy."

Hamilton says bad news is we in the West are the ones being clobbered. He says the two candidates for president can't ignore what's happening: "Pick up the phone and call these guys and say stop doing this. They are doing what Enron and the rest of them did to create an artificial shortage."

Shell confirms Hamilton did get company records. They admit profits are good now. But they point out profits rise and fall and this is just a one-time snapshot not a pattern. The company insists the oil shortage and gas shortfall on the West Coast is real and prices reflect supply and demand.

But Hamilton says without federal intervention prices, by this summer, in Washington and Oregon are likely to parallel California about $2.25 a gallon for unleaded.