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tazzygirl -> RE: Gas prices have spiked! May soon past record highs! $4-$5 gas coming (4/14/2011 10:22:12 PM)
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~FR
If anyone is interested in reading...
http://factcheck.org/2011/03/is-obama-to-blame-for-4-gasoline/
It has become a familiar Republican refrain to blame rising gas prices on President Barack Obama and his policies — particularly his decision after the Gulf oil spill on April 20, 2010, to impose a moratorium on deepwater drilling. The administration immediately halted approval of new drilling permits and ordered a safety review that resulted in a May 27 announcement of a six-month drilling moratorium. The moratorium was lifted earlier than expected in October, but the administration has been slow to issue new deepwater permits — leading Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and other GOP critics to call it a "perma-torium." The first permit was only issued Feb. 28.
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A blog item posted March 16 on the website of House Speaker John Boehner blamed the president for higher gas prices. The post, which carried the headline “Higher Gas Prices & Thousands of Jobs Lost: The Impact of Obama’s De Facto Gulf Moratorium,” cited the congressional testimony of a Republican official, Louisiana’s secretary of natural resources Scott Angelle, who claimed that the administration’s moratorium and delays in issuing new permits raised gas prices 37 cents per gallon from May 26, 2010, (the day before the moratorium) until the end of 2010. (It is worth noting, however, that the price of gasoline had gone up $1 per gallon before the Gulf oil spill. A gallon of gasoline in the U.S. rose from $1.83 on Jan. 19, 2009, a day before Obama took office, to $2.83 on April 19, 2010, the day before the oil spill, EIA historical data shows.)
So, why have gasoline prices gone up and what impact have Obama’s policies had on oil production and gasoline prices?
We talked to Fadel Gheit, a former Mobil Oil executive who is now a senior energy analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Asked about the impact of the deepwater moratorium, Gheit said the moratorium had a "negative impact on production, but not as much as the politicians would like us to believe." The impact of the moratorium on gas prices? "Nothing. Zero," he said.
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Conflicting, false and misleading statements on oil production and gasoline prices have become the currency of politicians lately, as oil tops $100 per barrel and gasoline hovers near $4 per gallon. Among some of the claims that got our attention:
■Top Republicans blame President Obama’s moratorium on deepwater drilling for rising gasoline prices. The moratorium delayed drilling of some new wells, but did not affect the output of wells already in production. A projected drop in total domestic oil production this year should amount to six-tenths of 1 percent of all U.S. consumption of liquid fuels. A Wall Street oil analyst told us the moratorium has had "zero" effect on prices.
■Obama said domestic oil production last year was its highest since 2003. That’s true — but U.S. oil production is projected to drop this year.
■Rep. Kevin McCarthy said "under this administration our output has gone down 13 percent." McCarthy is wrong — U.S. oil production was up in 2009 and 2010, and is projected to decline only 2 percent this year.
■Sarah Palin said Obama is "allowing America to remain increasingly dependent on imports" from unstable countries. But there has been a decline — not an increase — in total oil imports from Middle Eastern and African countries, as well as countries identified by the State Department as "dangerous or unstable," since Obama took office.
http://factcheck.org/2011/03/is-obama-to-blame-for-4-gasoline/
Just some tidbits. The article contains far more information
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