Gas Prices Going Through the Roof...What are our Representatives Doing About It?

According to the A.A.A., the average price in New York City for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline today, Friday, March 4th, is $3.730.

Yesterday it was $3.687.

One week ago it was $3.558.

One month ago it was $3.448.

One year ago it was $2.906.

When gas prices are rising each and every day and it looks like we are headed towards our all time high price of gas of $4.411 back in July of 2008, I am starting to get nervous, especially when more and more of my money is disappearing at the pumps!

I called the offices of our two esteemed United States Senators to ask what they were doing to stem this continual rise of the price of gasoline.  Naturally, I did not speak to either Senator personally but their respective staff person answering the call advised me that "the current problems in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, etc.,was driving the price of crude oil higher" and that we had to work harder "to decrease our dependence on foreign oil by exloring alternative, greener, energy sources."  The staffers then quickly thanked me for my call, assuring me that their respective bosses were acutely aware of the gas price situation and then hung up.

It took me only a few seconds to realize that my question had been responded to with "talking points" with no substance whatsoever.  Admittedly, I am not a Harvrad educated econmomist but I do know that while the recent unrest in the Middle East has had some marginal effect on rising prices, the most significant factor has been increased oil demand worldwide (China, India, etc.) and that long before the recent protests in the Mid-East even began, analysts were predicting $4 a gallon by this summer and $5 a gallon by 2012.

As far as "exploring alternative, greener, energy sources" is concerned, I also am aare of the fact that...

The major source of biomass production, corn-based ethanol, produces less energy per unit volume than gasoline, contributes to food price increases, costs taxpayers $4 billion to produce 2 percent of the total gasoline supply, and has dubious environmental effects.

The electric cars the government has invested our tax dollars in are prohibitively costly, do not fit the needs of the American consumer, and are range deficient.

The other sources of energy the government is subsidizing and promoting—wind and solar—not only make up a minuscule 1 percent of America’s electricity generation but are entirely irrelevant to gasoline supply in the transportation sector.

I also know that back in February, when the protests in Egypt were first unfolding, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was asked what the Administration could do to combat rising world oil prices. Chu responded: "The best way America can protect itself against these incidents is to decrease our dependency on foreign oil, in fact to diversify our supply."

I  found this statement by our Energy Secretary amusing as not only has our current administration in Washington D.C. failed to diversify our energy supply in any meaningful way; they have actually intentionally moved to cut our own domestic energy supplies.

First, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah in his first month in office. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, there are 800 billion barrels (a moderate estimate) of recoverable oil from oil shale in the Green River Formation, which goes through Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. This is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Then last summer, Washington D.C. needlessly instituted not one but two outright drilling bans in the Gulf of Mexico. The Energy Information Administration estimates that the President's offshore drilling ban will cut domestic offshore oil production by 13 percent this year. That ban not only reduced the availability of domestic oil but also resulted in the loss of hundreds of jobs!

Last fall, Interior Secretary Salazar announced that the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic coast, and the Pacific coast will not be developed, effectively banning drilling in those areas for the next seven years. At least 19 billion barrels of easily recoverable oil lie off the currently restricted Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. 

Our government has also failed to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil lie beneath a few thousand acres that can be accessed with minimal environmental impact. Those 10 billion barrels are equivalent to 16 years’ worth of imports from Saudi Arabia at the current rate.

In closing, I started out attempting to find out what our elected representatives were doing for their constituents in response to the ever increasing cost of crude oil and gasoline and came away with the following.

1.  Although they are talking about "diversifying" the sources of our oil supply, they are, in fact, intentionally, restricting same.

2.  At the same time, they are continually touting the benefits of cleaner, greener, sources of alternative energy as a means of defending their restrictive oil policy with no viable source of such alternative energy technology available at this time.

As I previously stated, I am not a professional economist but I am truly starting to believe that our current administration actually wants the price of gas up at or above the $4 a gallon range!