Anyone who thinks Obama and the democrats will seriously attempt to bring down gasoline prices is either dreaming or not paying attention. The regime’s energy policy is quite simple: Raise U.S. energy prices to painful European levels (currently $8.80 per gallon in France and Germany) so that we’ll curtail our energy consumption and buy heavily subsidized wind, solar and biomass generated fuel. As far as Obama is concerned, we’re only half way there. As has been noted in several previous threads, large scale solar and wind energy production has already proven economically disastrous for Spain and the U.K. The outcome will be the same here.
Pete Du Pont of the The Wall Street Journal explains in his article Four More Dollars?
America’s energy policy is as bad as our fiscal policy. The federal government is focused on producing not more energy but less of it, on making costs higher rather than lower, and on expanding regulation.
Start with nuclear power. It’s pollution-free and an excellent source of energy. We have 104 nuclear plants in America today, but only one more is expected to become operative in the next few years, the first in two decades.
As for oil production, our government is limiting it, and over the years domestic drilling has been declining. In 1970 the U.S. produced 3.5 billion barrels; by 2010 that figure was down to two billion. The federal government has prohibited oil and natural gas drilling on 83% of federally owned land and increased the importation of foreign oil. In 1970 only 500 million barrels were imported; last year it was 3.3 billion barrels. That means that in 1970 U.S. oil production was 88% of consumption, and today it is only 37%….
To put it all in the perspective of the environmentalists and the current administration, consider the statement of Energy Secretary Steven Chu in The Wall Street Journal: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the prices of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” The current gasoline price is about $8.50 a gallon in England and $8.80 in France and Germany.
Tags: Energy Independence, Green Energy
