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Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Behind the buzz about high gas prices
Is saying gas prices are out of control enough to drum up public backlash against environmentally responsible energy policies?
Conservatives are hoping so, with what appears to be an organized push to talk about gas prices reflected in Newt Gingrich's American Solutions site and in an interview former Shell president John Hofmeister gave to Platts Energy Week.
Hofmeister — who heads a lobby group called Citizens for Affordable Energy — predicts $5 per gallon prices by 2012, a number no economist has backed.
The national average price for gasoline is up roughly 21 cents since November 29, according to the New York Times.
American Solutions claims it's Obama's fault for nixing those controversial leases okayed by Bush at the 11th hour and — for no reason whatsoever! — for holding up offshore leases. Hofmeister threatens it will get so much worse if we don't stop dilly-dallying with renewable energy and go back to the black stuff.
"It's going to be panic time for politicians," he said in what he certainly hopes is a self-fulfilling prophecy. "They're suddenly going to get the sense that we better do something."
Except that the U.S.'s oil and gas production is literally a drop in the bucket and has been proven again and again to have only the most miniscule effect on global prices. (In the New York Times article, a fellow at the uber-conservative American Enterprise Institute makes the same point.
The conservative talking points are mostly just talk, but they're carefully timed to coincide with the recently released American Petroleum Institute's wish list for more petroleum to be garnered by way of offshore drilling.
Here's a news flash: Oil companies like high prices (remember those record profits last time gas prices were high?), so beware when you see the industry lobby dressing up its wish list as a populist handout. We can't drill our way out of higher gas prices, and we may be running out of oil altogether, so how about we do stop dilly-dallying with renewable energy and instead get serious about it?
Well, because it appears Obama is eager to "compromise" on this issue as well.
| Jan 05 at 06:34 AM
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