Posted on 05/06/2006 3:38:23 PM PDT by Icelander
Gasoline at $2 per Gallon? Putting Politics First: Clinton/Gore Foreign American consumers already have been hit hard by steeply rising gasoline prices, with the per-gallon cost expected to reach $1.80 by the beginning of summer and $2.00 or more by fall. Besides the price Americans pay at the gas pump, rising energy costs will force price increases in food and an array of consumer products. Will the same Clinton/Gore Administration that has rushed to take credit for a booming economy (supported in part by record low energy costs) be willing to shoulder the blame for a possible inflation or even an economic downturn? There is no doubt that Clinton/Gore policies -- excessive regulation of the energy industry, environmental extremism, overly restrictive limits on offshore drilling, a gas tax hike (imposed after defeat of a Clinton/Gore BTU tax) and, perhaps most of all, the 1995 Clinton veto of legislation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration -- have limited domestic oil production that might have helped offset rising prices caused by contraction of foreign sources. [See RPC's
"Clinton/Gore to Blame for High Energy Prices," 3/9/00.] With U.S. dependence on foreign oil now approaching 60 percent of consumption, the result, as Energy Committee Chairman Murkowski has noted, is an America "held hostage to the national interests of oil producing states." Our energy policy, RPC Chairman Craig has observed, is to "give the secretary of energy a tin cup and you ask him to go beg at the oil wells of a foreign nation. . . . We have reduced our secretary of energy to a beggar status."
Policy Hits American Pocketbook
Just Damn.
Deja vu all over again
Gee... seems like only yesterday!
The Clinton administration also went along with moratorium on drilling off Florida and California, policies continued by the current Republican governors.
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