Posted on 04/24/2006 4:59:57 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy
SAN JOSE -- 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.
For those conservatives who still believe that high gasoline prices are just "free market capitalism at work" then check this out.: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192263,00.html
This is quoting a CONSERVATIVE (Bill O'Reilly), not some capitalist-hating lefty. Some conservatives (e.g. Rush Limbaugh, Brit Hume choose not to see the truth behind high gasoline prices). There are none so blind as those who will not see. Here is what CONSERVATIVE O'Reilly has to say:
"You are being gouged by the American oil companies. Gas supplies, gas supplies are at an eight-year high. Gas prices have doubled since 2004. Even if you don't know anything about economics, this one's pretty obvious. "Talking Points" has been saying for more than a year, U.S. oil companies are exploiting uncertainty in the world by raising prices they don't have to raise. The companies are making record profits while American workers are getting hurt. Every time the commodities speculators bid up a barrel of oil, the price of a barrel of oil, every time they bid it up, you pay more at the pump. It has nothing to do with supply and demand. It's all about exploiting fears about Iran, terrorism, what might happen down the road. President Bush knows what's going on, but doesn't like to interfere with big business."
"if we find any price gouging it will be dealt with firmly."
If he said anything, then that is it, and that probably should have been the headline.
"Bush Threatens Price-Gougers!"
Ummmm. Refineries don't produce oil, and our number of refineries has nothing to do with China's or India's oil usage. We should have been allowing refineries to be built because we use more refined products.
Our limit is a combination of NIMBY and EPA regulations - and under Clinton the government produced many ridiculous interpretations of regulations that actually took refinery capacity off-line.
thanks.
He has done that. Bush and his cabinet have been to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and other gulf countries numerous times. If you recall, the President had Crown Prince Abdullah to his ranch last year, including the hand holding picture. The CS Monitor reported the meeting as follows:
Oil prices have been falling since President George W. Bush's meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at his Texas ranch Monday. The two leaders discussed a variety of issues, including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, terrorism, security, trade and Mr. Bush's call for more democracy in the Middle East.
But the focus was on oil prices.
As The New York Times reports, the talks "focused on a plan by the Saudis to increase their oil-pumping capacity over the next decade rather than on any short-term efforts to bring prices down."
As the Sydney Morning Herald points out, the prince's second visit to the ranch makes him the only world leader to have had two invitations.
I don't even listen to him anymore.
Again, like almost every other issue, the idiots in D.C. try to make us believe its more complicated than it really is.
Oh please, more excuses and utter garbage. GWB has proven to be a complete disaster as far as domestic issues are concerned. No leadership, no initiative, no
follow-through, no vision, no guys, no cojones.
After 9/11, this should have been one of the top priorities and, yes, if they would have done it then, it would be making an impact now.
All we get is excuses and nonsense. Nonsense on the border, nonsense on spending, nonsense on almost everything.
And while after the meetin in Texas, the drop in prices was short lived.
First, saying "could" is very different from saying "should". Saying that if you walk around the east side of town at 1AM you could get mugged, is not at all like saying that you should get mugged.
Second, Gore had a book called "Earth in the Balance," which was the subject of many campaign debates from mid 1992 on.
GHWBush never advocated European gas prices.
BANANA... hah. that's neat. Lets see other fruits can be used!
Listed in order of taste preference and having little if anything to do with anything involving the subject at hand-
ORANGE: Obstruct Redeveloping Any Non-Government Environments
APPLE: Abetting Private Property Loss Everywhere
GRAPE: Government Restrictions Are Penalizing Everyone
PEACH: Permits Exclude Any Construction Here
PLUM: Past Limitations Undo Modernization
PINEAPPLE: Purposely Investing Nothing Eschews Abetting Private Property Loss Everywhere
APRICOT: Any Project Reducing Income Can Omit Tax
This is fun... sort of.
Gotta run. Work beckons.
There are two forces at work here: the reality of world economics of petroleum prices. and THE PUBLIC PERCEPTION of petroleum prices. No other issue (save maybe war) has as much effect on current public approval ratings. Three dollar a gallon gas is a deal breaker for the republicans...They have to get the domestic price of gasoline heading south soon or we will have 40 more socialists in the senate to set the price.
They need to do some or all of the following:
Forget Bush (He thinks everybody has an MBA from Yale)
Push to open drilling in all known area of oil reserves
Including ANWR, California, the entire Gulf of Mexico including sacred Florida
Immediately reduce Federal taxes on gasoline.
Remove tariffs on imported ethanol
Remove seasonal ethanol mandates
Sell 20% of the Strategic Reserve (just for show)
Expand refinery capacity by 20% by subsidizing the construction of new refineries with 50% federal matching funds.
Ditto with a dozen or more new nulear power plants to be built on Federal lands vacant from recent military closures.
Fund Bio-diesel, hydrogen research with massive federal dollars.
Dare the Dems to vote against any of these proposals.
Make them pay for not acting on the energy plan that Bush prepared five years ago (which would have alleviated many current problems)
It should also be noted that ExxonMobil's "record" $10 billion profits in 2005 resulted from about $100 billion in gross revenue -- which means the company showed a return on investment of about 10%. This is hardly an obscene profit margin in any sense of the word, and is dwarfed by the enormous profit margins in many other industries. In fact, people who know the energy business actually laugh out loud at the suggestion that buying stock in a company like ExxonMobil is a good investment in a booming energy market. To an investor in the energy sector, buying ExxonMobil stock is the equivalent of putting your money in a savings account at your local bank.
I shouldn't be too hard on O'Reilly, since there's no reason to expect anything more than this nonsense from a guy who probably hasn't contributed to the production of a single product or commodity in his entire life.
Like so many things, O'Reilly is talking through his hat again. He is not an oil or energy expert. He is just trying to pander to the general public's unhapiness with incresed prices at the pump. It is easier to demonize the oil companies than educate the public about how oil prices are set and why the US is limited on what it can do to influence the price.
If you want to learn more about the facts and understand the problem better, check out these links:
Global oil capacity growth hinges on mega-projects
Then what did you base them on?
President Bush's speech did very little to offer hope for lower gas prices over this summer. But you are dead-on correct that he never stated that little could be done about high gas prices.
I'm not the one who said he said something completely contrary to his common arguments. That burden is yours. At most I can see him downplaying arguments over how $1.10 gas was a crisis.
This pattern has been all too common throughout his presidency.
Exactly... there is NO location anywhere in the U.S. that you could build a new refinery that wouldn't be hit with lawsuits and be tied up in court for YEARS.
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