WBRZ - Baton Rouge

RENO, Nev. - What's behind the four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline prices?

President Barack Obama says a Justice Department team will try to find out. He says the team will be looking for any "fraud or manipulation" in oil markets that might be driving prices up.

Obama told a town hall meeting in Reno, Nev., that the administration will be making sure that "no one is taking advantage of the American people."

The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.84 today. That's about 30 cents higher than a month ago and almost a dollar higher than a year ago.

Obama says it's yet another hardship "at a time when things were already pretty tough."

He says Attorney General Eric Holder's Financial Fraud Enforcement Working Group will focus some of its investigation on "the role of traders and speculators."