My interest is in making sure we‘ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well-thought out oil strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage. I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done. — 2008

My Take – Today, the average price of a gallon of 87 octane gas in the United States is $3.71 a gallon.  In January 2009, it was $1.84.  For those of you who studied your figuring in school, that’s an increase of 201%.  The prices for diesel and jet fuel have had comparable increases.  That cost trickles down through everything we buy that has to be transported, which means everything we buy.

So how is this the President’s fault?  He doesn’t run the oil companies, or the gas station chains.  He can’t use the government to put up drilling rigs, or build refineries.  The government doesn’t own power stations, or the power lines that bring electricity to homes and businesses.

But what he can do is get the heck out-of-the-way and let the country generate the energy that it needs, be it petroleum, or natural gas, or electricity.  Yes, the government has a responsibility to make sure that private industry doesn’t cause grave damage to the environment, either through extraction of resources from nature or through polluting when generating energy  or processing petroleum.   But that responsibility shouldn’t be used as a bludgeon to bring the energy industry to its knees.

This President hired an energy secretary who stated a goal of bringing our gas costs up to what Europe pays.  He denied permits to build a pipeline for oil from Canada, which would not only have brought more oil into our market, but would also have employed thousands of people in building and maintaining it.  He capitalized on a blown oil well in the Gulf to shut down oil exploration in our waters while providing subsidies to foreign companies to explore for oil in their waters.  He’s flushed billions of dollars away on green energy pipe dreams, and we will be paying for it for generations.

Yeah, that’s one comprehensive energy policy we’ve got, huh?  Problem is, I don’t think it’s got the interests of the American people as one of its objectives.