Posted on 04/23/2006 4:37:31 PM PDT by Flavius
President Bush Takes Note of High Gas Prices but Offers Little in the Way of Relief
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- As oil prices hit a record, drivers worried about $3-a-gallon gas and politicians feared the impact on elections, President Bush on Friday acknowledged the pain but seemed resigned to being able to do little about it.
"I know the folks here are suffering at the gas pump," the president said while promoting his competitiveness initiative at the Silicon Valley headquarters of Internet networking company Cisco Systems Inc. "Rising gasoline prices is like taking a -- is like a tax, particularly on the working people and the small-business people."
But to address the immediate problem, Bush offered only a pledge that "if we find any price gouging it will be dealt with firmly."
Bush said that lowering America's dependance on foreign oil imports will help reduce the country's vulnerability to global oil price fluctuations. On Saturday, the president was pushing his proposals to boost spending to develop alternative energy sources, particularly hydrogen-fueled cars.
Critics say Bush's ideas are too modest and focus on solutions that are far from being a reality in the marketplace.
Crude-oil prices broke through $75 a barrel Friday amid concerns about the standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions, rebel disruptions of oil production in Nigeria, and tight U.S. gasoline supplies. Analysts say they are likely to climb even higher.
Prices at the gas pump also kept rising and were not considered at their peak, with the average price of a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline at $2.855. That's 3 cents higher than a day earlier and more than 60 cents higher than a year ago, according to AAA's daily fuel gauge report.
Democratic efforts to score political points by focusing on gas prices have Republicans worried that their majority in Congress could be at risk in the fall midterm elections.
High gas prices were hardly the only problem facing Bush's White House as he embarked on a four-day swing to California and Las Vegas. He was traveling with new chief of staff Joshua Bolten, charged with reinvigorating a White House rocked by public discontent with the Iraq war and a series of missteps ranging from an ill-fated Supreme Court nomination to a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.
Bush's poll ratings are at their lowest point. Hundreds of protesters called for his resignation near the Cisco compound where he spoke.
Even his trip put the president squarely in the middle of a federal-state dustup.
Bush decided not to grant the pre-emptive federal disaster declaration sought for California's fragile levees by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who faces a tough re-election fight and has had a chilly relationship with Bush. Instead, the president is allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help speed repairs at the state's expense.
Bush seemed aware of the precarious political landscape.
When Bush turned the microphone at Cisco over to Schwarzenegger, the governor said, "First of all, I want to say congratulations."
"For what?" asked the president, appearing genuinely surprised.
The governor, who had discussed the levee issue during a limousine ride with Bush, replied that he was glad to see the president "really paying attention" to the competitiveness issue.
Afterward, Bush talked privately with scholars from Stanford University's Hoover Institution, including former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a Hoover fellow and early defender of the use of pre-emptive force to deal with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
Plans to hold the meeting at the Hoover Institution were scuttled when protesters blocked Bush's motorcade from going through the only entrance. Shultz, who was already hosting a private dinner for Bush later at his Palo Alto home, had the session moved to his two-story, gray-shingled house.
One reason for a weekend trip with a lot of downtime in beautiful places became clear even before Bush boarded Air Force One to leave Washington. Crew were seen loading two shiny mountain bikes -- one a red-white-and-blue Trek adorned with the presidential seal and "United States of America." With stays scheduled in picturesque Napa Valley and the Palm Springs area, the bikes weren't likely to remain clean for long.
"Tomorrow I'm going to be riding my bike in Napa Valley. I can't wait," Bush told his Cisco audience.
Before returning to Washington Monday night, Bush was making stops to raise money for the national Republican Party, visit with Marines and Navy sailors, and press Congress to break a logjam over the immigration legislation he wants.
There are exceptions to any rule. Should the price suddenly go above 120, this would be madness, which is why economists have use the term panic.
Yes, he should have, but you and I both know the power of the environmental lobby. In the past forty years it has acquired a quasi-religious following who, in their way, are as crazed as Bin Laden and his crew. They think that, somehow, the world can be turned into a garden and that atomic energy is a snake in the grass.
Sounds good to me. It would also be a gesture of faith that the Iraqi government can get a handle on the country.
Exactly what I told my dad the democrat when he called to complain. This is what Americans voted for so suck it up.
Bingo! Thanks for the post.
LOL, well some people are better at arithmetic than others. ;)
I do believe the energy bill was stalled because the House and Senate wanted to know who was behind Cheney's recommendations and the Energy Report which ended up going to the Supreme Court. Don't remember if the Supreme Court took the case or not but it did waste a lot of time. That's how I remember it I may be wrong.
That is a State issue that only the legislative branch can over rule. In other words Congress should be doing something that Bush can sign. It would probably be attached to a huge spending bill.
A President with common sense would insist that Iraq, and Kuwait pay us for their freedom and make Saudi Arabia pay for 9/11 a thosusand times over in free gas.
Reagan had a completely Democrat House. Sigh.
We will just have to agree to disagree.
All in all the President has done a great job.
Has Bush been caught up in the frenzy by riding his bike on Earth Day?
They were stupid that night -- just not stupid enough to help the situation.
You, too? More and more defending the administration is fallng on deaf ears -- even among my GOP friends.
If GWB or anyone in Government announced tommorrow that the SEC was going to seriously investigate the energies futures markets you'd see the price fall like a damned rock.
But, you ain't going to see that happen.
The transport problem is what is going to cripple us in the future, if not sooner. In my area there is a petroleum company that has been trying for seven years to get a pipeline built from one of their offloading facilities in a state south of here to transport product to their distribution points in the upper Midwest. All this time and all they have done is push papers, conduct "studies", fend off lawsuits. Not a single shovel of earth has been turned to build anything.
Likewise, a local power company has thrown in the towel on building a transmission line from their generating plants north of here to points further south to build a more robust distribution system. They worked over 10 years on that project, and have nothing to show for it other than files of papers on studies and lawsuits.
And that is just for the transportation infrastructure, to say nothing of the delays that might have come about for any production facilities. The system in this country has gotten so out of whack that you can't even build anything to move stuff around, much less produce it. And you can't even think about changing rules of laws because the special interest groups of the environmental wackos will be filing lawsuit after lawsuit to stop you. They have gamed the system and understand that if you delay any capital-intensive project long enough, you kill it because of carrying charges. This is where leadership on the part of government officials would be helpful, to fend off the wackos and declare that it is in the interest of our national security to move forward on domestic energy production and infrastructure, and tell the obstructionists and wackos to stuff it.
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