Rising gas prices .. we were warned

For those of you whining and complaining about high gas prices, Newt Gingrich brings up an excellent point.  You can’t say you weren’t warned.  When asked on CBS’s “This Morning” if Barack Obama wants higher gas prices, Gingrich responded:  

“Of course… you know that. He has said it himself. Chu, his energy secretary, said in 2008 he wanted gasoline prices to get to the European level, which is $9 or $10 a gallon. Last year, the president said people shouldn’t complain about high gas prices — they ought to buy more efficient cars.  The president himself said he wants to get there, he just wants it to be gradual. His policy has been outrageously anti-American [toward] energy.”

Just what is Chu saying today?  Actually … not much.  But we do have some wisdom from Steven Chu last March when gas prices were ramping up for the summer.  He appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.  Chu was delivering his standard line that he was trying to “ease the pain” of high gas prices by encouraging the development of more fuel-efficient cars.  Wallace asked this question:

“In that regard, in 2008 you supported ramping up gas prices to coax Americans into more green energy cars and other uses, being more fuel efficient. You said this — and let’s put it on the screen — ‘Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.’ Where it is now more than $10 a gallon.In that sense, is the gas spike an opportunity for more green energy?”

Here’s where Wallace fails.  He should have asked Chu if this was still Energy Department philosophy.  He didn’t.  Really a wussified question .. .but here’s Chu’s answer:

“Well, what I said — what I’m doing since I became secretary of Energy has been quite clear. What I have been doing is developing methods to take the pain out of high gas prices.  We have been very focused in the Department of Energy on that. And, in fact, the entire administration has been very focused on that.

So, the increasing of the mileage standards is one way of doing this. A very concerted effort in electric vehicles, where we think within reach, within maybe four or five years, we could be testing batteries that can allow us to go 200, 300 miles on a single charge in a mass-marketed car.”

Wallace had another chance … let’s see how he did:

“I understand all that, and that is certainly part of your effort. But is the spike in gas prices — does that also help in making us more energy-efficient?”

Nope … another weak effort from Wallace.  Can’t understand this.  Why not just ask “Do you stand by that position today?  Do you want Americans to pay the same prices for gas they do in Europe?”  So this gave Chu the opportunity for another weasel response:

“Well, the recent spike in gasoline prices following that huge spike in 2007, 2008 is a reminder to Americans that the price of gasoline over the long haul should be expected to go up just because of supply and demand issues. And so we see this in the buying habits of Americans as they make choices for the next car they buy.”

You will notice, though, that Chu said nothing about addressing the increasing gas prices.  All of his responses focused on trying to convince Americans to buy electric or hybrid cars.  That would be because the ObamaGang has absolutely no intention of addressing gas prices.  If they did he wouldn’t have shut down the Keystone pipeline. If they did Obama would be increasing oil production on federal lands.  If they did we wouldn’t be chasing deep water drilling rigs to the coasts of Brazil and Africa. 

This is Amazing to me.  Before the election we hear from Obama’s folks that the goal will be to increase gas prices.  Obama becomes president when gas averages $1.83 per gallon.  We’re nearing $4.00 a gallon now.  All of this and the media is basically silent as to Obama’s stated goals and today’s reality?  Go figure. 

Keep in mind also that Barack Obama also said flat-out that he wanted to bankrupt the coal industry by using government cap and trade policies to make coal a more expensive energy option.  Instead, under Obama’s command economy, he would invest the money generated from cap and trade into solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.  But thanks to your tax dollars, Obama got an early start investing in these alternative energies, without the lucrative payout of cap and trade … Solyndra’s $500 million failure ring a bell?

And while we are talking energy policy, it seems as though the Obama administration has actually taken to re-writing its own history on energy policy.  Yesterday in a White House press briefingchief dogwasher Jay Carney actually said: "In terms of Keystone, as you all know, the history here is pretty clear. And the fact is because Republicans decided to play political with Keystone, their action essentially forced the administration to deny the permit process because they insisted on a time frame in which it was impossible to completely approve the pipeline."

When a liberal says “the history is clear,” you know they are getting ready to muddy up history.  That’s right … blame the Republicans … can’t say we didn’t see that one coming!  I’ve given you these facts before, but let’s take a look at the truth about this pipeline, rather than the Obama administrations lame excuses and bent recollection …

The Keystone pipeline has been under review by the State Department since 2008.  Even by federal standards, four years is a long time for a project like this to be in limbo.  You can think of it this way: The Obama administration complained about a 60-day deadline, but in reality it has now had 1,217 days to make a decision.

So that puts this asinine “arbitrary deadline” argument to bed.  Now on to the next one … its environmental impact.

The company that wanted to build the pipeline, TransCanada, spent a full three years and $1.9 billion studying the environmental impact of this project.  The State Department itself has already done an entire Environmental Impact Statement.  Why they need another one, or why Obama needed more time to process all of this is beyond me.

Leave this topic with one last thought.  If you goal is to cripple a free market economy – to destroy capitalism – engineering an increase in gas prices is sure one way to go.