Posted on 04/22/2006 10:06:52 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
US President George W. Bush has warned rising oil prices will mean a "tough summer" for US consumers as the high cost of gasoline (petrol) showed signs of becoming a big political issue.
But even as more Americans expressed discontent over the price of filling up their gas tanks, Bush suggested there was little his government could do in the short term about the problem.
"We're going to have a tough summer because people are beginning to drive now during tight supply," Bush said as he toured a California facility developing hydrogen-powered vehicles.
"The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here."
Bush spoke after a week of unremitting rises in prices in global crude oil markets and at gasoline (petrol) pumps across the country. Crude topped a record 75 dollars per barrel in New York trading Friday, five dollars up from a week earlier.
At the same time, US retail pump prices were topping an average three dollars a gallon (3.8 liters) in many places in the country, up 60 cents -- 33 percent -- from a year ago.
The sharp rises on the eve of the US summer, during which millions of people fly or drive on holiday, showed signs of becoming a major political issue for the struggling Bush administration ahead of November mid-term elections.
But even as the president stressed Saturday that the government was making efforts to protect consumers from price-gouging, he said there was little he could do in the short term to alleviate the impact of higher oil prices.
"We've got a real problem when it comes to oil. We're addicted, and it's harmful for the economy, and it's harmful for our national security," he said.
"I understand the folks here, as well as other places in the country, are paying high gas prices.
"The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here," he said, referring to skyrocketing oil demand in the booming economies of India and China.
Bush also blamed the higher prices on a shortage of refinery capacity in the United States, and also on an ongoing shift in fuel additives and mixes that has caused supply hiccups in certain areas.
"When that price of gasoline goes up, it hurts working people. It hurts our small businesses. And it's a serious problem we've got to do something about. The federal government has a responsibility, by the way, to make sure ... there is no price gouging," he added.
The political importance of gasoline prices before the summer break was clear as both opposition Democrat and Republican lawmakers spent the week taking the administration to task over the issue and asking if oil companies were exploiting the situation.
Senator Bill Nelson called Friday for "more dramatic steps" to lessen US dependence on foreign oil.
Dennis Hastert, the Republican head of the House of Representatives, and Senate Republican majority chief Bill Frist said they planned to write Bush a letter calling for an investigation into possibly price manipulation by oil companies.
While the oil companies deny any manipulation, public confidence was eroded at the recent report that exiting Exxon Mobil executive Lee Raymond was getting a 400 million dollar retirement package.
"I understand the folks here, as well as other places in the country, are paying high gas prices.
"The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here," he said, referring to skyrocketing oil demand in the booming economies of India and China.
Bush also blamed the higher prices on a shortage of refinery capacity in the United States, and also on an ongoing shift in fuel additives and mixes that has caused supply hiccups in certain areas.
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No mention of all the NIMBYism in states with wealths of oil and energy reserves and those who stand in the way of developing those resources.
What a loser.
The fecklessness of the Bush administration, in not calling a spade a spade (the enviorwackos and Dems hamstringing our energy usage) on the energy issue is just disgusting.
It's hard to respect a President who pushes the blame on others, but won't accept responsibility for his own policy actions such as a weak dollar policy and its effeect on commodity prices.
Bush does not have the fire in his belly to fight and call the Dems/liberals to the carpet. This is why his poll numbers are low and the media attacks him nonstop. Conservatives are totally discouraged at Bush's inability to seize the issues and use the WH bully pulpit to fight for real change.
US President George W. Bush has warned rising oil prices will mean a "tough summer" for US consumers as the high cost of gasoline (petrol) showed signs of becoming a big political issue.
I'm sure MNJohnnie will be here shortly and call you a DNC troll for attacking his beloved President.
I want government to pave my roads, not subsidize my gasoline.
Nor tax it.
Nah, we don't need to drill in ANWAR.
A bigger supply will just mean that the price will go down and we can't have that...
Yeah, and no damned indication that he knows he has at least some influence through all of this in at least some ways.
I gotta tell ya, other than for the USSC nominations, and the Miers one was nearly another Souter disaster, or the WOT, I see very little difference between Bush Jr. and Sr. Both seemed to trust and defer to the Dims a little bit too much for my liking.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I wonder whether he still has his nads. I hope they're waiting for him in a silk lined box so that when he finishes out his term he can put them back on.
He acts like an Irishman at an underground Black Panther meeting.
Bull Crap!
Get rid of or standardize all the various designer fuels used all over the country. Lighten up on evirowhacko regs that thwart new refining capacity and ifrastructure
This could be done by fiat.
More domestic exploration might be a little tougher.
Yeah, like his brother.
"Republicans get a clue"
You'd think with this reshuffling of the White House they'd get somebody with a clue.......... or buy one.
lol! I think your instincts are right, but, Read-my-Lips at least never signed CFR or Medicare Part D. I didn't think a Republican could be worse than GHWB, but this one is.
One thing's for sure, the WOT will almost exclusively be his legacy. Even with that, his own administration could be doing far better with the media on it. Instead, they just sit there with their thumbs up their arses and do little.
Just wait until July and there is a usual mass of clouds 15 or so miles off the west coast of Africa heading West; $$$$$$up.
It's "malaise" all over again...
President Bush also is allegedly the leader of the executive branch. He could if he wanted change organizations like the EPA.
If regulations and the bureaucracy are too cumbersome to put in nuclear plants, and refineries... Simply annihilate the bureaucracy and change the regulations. And put in hardline pro-growth men to run those agencies. If they don't fix the problem, you fire them and put in someone who will.
I could not say it better myself. This guy is slowly, but surely, on his way to becoming another Jimmy Carter.
there is a lot Bush could do,
but seemingly refuses,
I'm getting tired of this crap
I have some advice for President Bush: put on a sweater, tell the people that the people have a malaise and tell them all to car pool and only fill their cars on alternate days. And, of yeah, when Exxon / Mobil record $150 billion profit this year, call it the free market at work.
I would have thought cries to release oil from the Strategic Reserve or suspend the federal gas tax to ease consumers "pain" would have surfaced by now.
Nada,, zip.
Those will come soon enough.
This man ran on the platform to increase drilling of our own and increase refineries. Now he's talking like a liberal. And the liberals are presently not in control!
I guess Dick Morris was right in the article where he claims Bush may become the GOP's Jimmy Carter
In 2000, 2002 and 2004 I laughed at the liberals for their claim that Bush the oil companies in his back pocket. 6 years later and after having voted for him, increased drilling and refineries, I'm now second guessing it all. Maybe I was wrong.
How can we hold the liberal environmentalist wackos responsible for these high gas prices in Nov 2006 when our own President comes out and says there is NOTHING our government can do?
He's handing the election to the democrats! They are atleast saying there is something we can do...even though they have no plan...they say they do.
I really thought President Bush had it it him to be a great president. More and more I'm realizing that he is a big dud.
I fear he may be destroying the gains we made in recent years in Congress. We may have seen our peak. I hope I'm wrong but even some in the GOP are not helping matters especially with the Amnesty for illegals and now the President who ran on more drilling and more refineries removes the blame from liberals by saying there is NOTHING our governement can do?
It's like the party we're trying to help win more seats is fighting against any possible 2006 victory.
Oh, did Vincinte Fox own Jimmy Carter too?
He needs to dump the Ford/Rockefeller GOP and dig up some Reagan advisor's. I'll get flamed for this but it needs doing. Declare the military objective in Iraq completed. Saddam and sons are out of power. That alone should have been the sole objective of going there to start with. In that respect he took some bad advice by trying to do nation building in a country where at least three tribes hate each others guts. End the nation building project.
That would free up fuel and money. It would also allow for a well deserved stand down for the troops and needed maintenance etc. Get someone running the defense department with actual military experience preferably in Special Forces back ground who is civilian status. Concentrate on covert ops for WOT. Yes that would mean Bye Rummy.
Next have Frist and Denny earn their money. Call a special session to deal with ANWR drilling and more important in short term is more refineries. Have someone with knowledge and good media skills {not Bush} go before the public and educate people to what the ANWR actually is and bring up facts such as the trans Alaskan pipelines record. Give precise figures on how more refineries would increase oil avaibility. Reduce or suspend federal fuel taxes to the trucking industry. The government gets more than its share anyway by other taxes on trucks.
Close our borders and deport current illegals then consider a guest worker program in that order. Fuel for 12,000,000 plus illegals is fuel we could be using. Money again would be saved as well via cuts in social spending. Bring in a Budget Director who understands finance and tax structures to do a complete overhaul. Steve Forbes would suffice.
Use what resources we export as leverage to get the fuel cost down. We do produce food sources. Encourage domestic manufacturing. Place reasonable tariffs on outsourced jobs and on imports that American companies own but use foreign labor and ship back inside the United States. Begin an immediate incentive to reduce inported trade with China and become a more self reliant nation producing our own goods. Encourage business alliances with nations such as Japan. Thanks to them we still retain some domestic manufacturing. They seem to be more interested in our nations production than our own companies.
Close down the Department of Education. Return oversight of such to respective states. Abolish programs promoting National Universal Health Care. Prohibit any borrowing against or from the Social Security Fund. Abolish the HMO Act. Immediate Tort reform of liability for medical treatment for doctors and hospitals. Make severe the penalties for corporate fraud namely Officers who embezzle or defraud shareholders or employee pension funds.
Well that a few starters. That is what I would expect to see coming from the Oval Office and the GOP leadership in the house and senate. Oh one more item Use the VETO pen.
Vampires in charge of the blood bank.
bttt
You are, Bush said their is a lack of refining capacity and such, but what the hey you are silent on the people who have caused this problem for the last 30 years, the envirowhackos.
There is nothing he can do in the short term. Do you think that oil wells and refineries appear at the twitch of the Presiden'ts nose, like an old TV sitcom?
If you do, you are far gone.
Opening the GOM and ANWAR to drilling would go a long ways to solving the problem...looks like Mexico and Belize will be doing that anyway. Combine the above with some alternative ways of getting oil, like from coal, and the idea of American energy independence seems actually realistic. I guess that solution does not commend itself to the President, who would rather talk of Americans having to understand.
The leftist solution will be rationing and sacrifice, which is the same bush that Bush seems to be walking around at the moment.
Shame on you. Bush isn't as bad as Jimmy Carter, or even close. The guy has been dealt some incredibly bad poker hands. Even after all the crap we've gone through, the economy is still in pretty good shape. There haven't been any further attacks on US soil.
For a minute, I thought we were going to hear a meaningful proposal. Cut the $0.18/gallon federal tax. Build more refining capacity. Even pursue talks aimed at unifying formulations among states.
Instead we get:
The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here," he said, referring to skyrocketing oil demand in the booming economies of India and China.
How long before we're told to wear sweaters and turn the heat down?
Almost evry state has their own EPA and the boutique fuels are dictated at the state level. It would take Congress to pass legislation (probably unconstitutional) which would nullify any action which a state or local government took to "exceed" national EPA standards!
Senator Nelson, you could quickly help lessen our dependence on foreign supplies simply by changing your stance on developing the oil and gas resources of the Florida side of the Gulf of Mexico.
It seems to me mighty incongruous for you to be both simultaneously blocking our development of our own resources while calling for "more dramatic steps" to lessen our dependence on foreign sources.
Correct. He's also correct in asserting that many Americans don't understand basic economics, like some posters on this thread.
What Bush should tell everyone is that there is no free lunch. While widget A from China might cost $1 vs $2 for one made in the US, eventually demand for basic raw inputs, such as petroleum, will raise our total costs. That is, widget A still costs $1, but the net increase in other costs like gasoline makes the total come in closer to the original $2 US widget price.
As for increased drilling and/or refinery capacity - there's not enough petro in Alaska/Calif to run our economy for more than 1 year, if that. So going off on some big production campaign is a wasted diversion of capital resources.
No, the real solution is even bigger: a continued shift to electricity production fueled by nuclear energy. There's an old adage in the oil fields: the cure for cheap oil is cheap oil. The contrary is also true: the cure fore expensive oil is expensive oil.
Worldwide petrol demand from China, India, et al is only accelerating; better to get out of that game and move to the next level.
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