Does Obama Want $8 Gasoline?
Gas is going through the roof in prices not seen since 2008. This 76 station reflects Feb. 24 gas costs in Irvine, Calif. View Enlarged Image
The silver lining for this administration in the gathering storm over the Middle East may be what it's doing and may yet do to energy prices. The average price for gasoline jumped nearly 12 cents a gallon last week to $3.287, according to AAA. But at the White House, that's not necessarily bad news.
Oil has surged to 2 1/2-year highs as the chaos in Libya chokes that nation's exports. Yet among the "full range of options" the Obama administration is considering as the Libyan crisis festers, and the lit match of discontent gets perilously close to Saudi oilfields, ordering the full resumption of domestic oil and gas production is not one of them. Why?
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that "any disruption in the Middle East means a partial disruption in the oil we import. It's a world market, and (a disruption can) have real harm on the price." And so, we would think, would the orchestrated and carefully planned disruption of domestic supply by this administration.
It's not just Mideast turmoil that has brought us to this point. It's also a deliberate program of restricting domestic energy to make so-called green energy more attractive and necessary, keeping an Obama campaign promise that energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket" on his energy agenda.
Before he was appointed energy secretary, Chu expressed a fondness for high European gas prices as a means of reducing consumption of fossil fuels. In September 2008, he told the Wall Street Journal: "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." Gas prices in Europe then averaged about $8 a gallon.
Certainly every administration energy decision has had the effect of raising energy prices. The Deepwater Horizon disaster gave the administration the excuse for a drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, one that a federal judge overturned. When the administration reinstated the ban, it was found in contempt of court.
A virtual regulatory ban continues today. At least 103 drilling permits await approval by a federal government that has not approved a single new permit since the moratorium was allegedly lifted last October.
The administration has announced that the eastern Gulf and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will be off-limits for the next seven years. The Interior Department has canceled four pending lease sales in Alaska.
Drilling in that state's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is prohibited, and oil-rich offshore areas have been designated as critical polar bear habitat despite a booming bear population.
The administration's hostility to fossil fuels is documented. Immediately on taking office, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah. Recently, in a stunning land grab, Salazar issued an order allowing Bureau of Land Management officials to place land with "wilderness characteristics" off-limits to energy development. Some 6 million acres in energy-rich Utah would be affected.
The day before President Obama was inaugurated, the average price of a gallon of gas was $1.83, the Heritage Foundation notes. Today it's well over $3 and on the way to $4. Prices for this February and last December were the highest ever for those months.
John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil, told Platt's Energy Week Television that Americans could be paying $5 for a gallon of gasoline by 2012 based on the uncertainty of world events, the lack of domestic supply and increased worldwide demand fueled by countries like India and China.
Democrats once accused Big Oil of deliberately restricting supply to enrich itself. Now the Obama administration may be doing the same on purpose — a policy sure to impoverish us all.
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