As Gasoline Prices Soar Out Of Control, Yet ANOTHER Obama Energy Boondoggle Pisses Away Taxpayer Money By Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars

Barack Obama giving away $2 billion in stimulus money on July 4, 2010:

“In fact, today, I’m announcing that the Department of Energy is awarding nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to two solar companies.

The first is Abengoa Solar, a company that has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world right here in the United States. After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it’s good news that we’ve attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America. In the short term, construction will create approximately 1,600 jobs in Arizona. What’s more, over 70 percent of the components and products used in construction will be manufactured in the USA, boosting jobs and communities in states up and down the supply chain. Once completed, this plant will be the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. to actually store the energy it generates for later use – even at night. And it will generate enough clean, renewable energy to power 70,000 homes.

The second company is Abound Solar Manufacturing, which will manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs. A Colorado plant is already underway, and an Indiana plant will be built in what’s now an empty Chrysler factory. When fully operational, these plants will produce millions of state-of-the-art solar panels each year.

Obama’s “investment” today:

Earlier today I mentioned Energy Secretary Chu’s statement to Congress that the administration didn’t care about lowering gas prices, just pushing alternative energy. Now we have the latest failure as part of that scheme, Abound Solar Manufacturing, has announced it will lay off 70% of its workforce. The company received a $400 million loan guarantee through the Obama stimulus.

Oh, and by the way, Abound got that $400 million loan even though it was obviously a huge credit risk:

A month before Abound Solarannounced it would be laying off nearly half its workforce, Congressional Republicans alerted the U.S. Department of Energy that they had questions about the decision to loan the Colorado firm $400 million.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu to explain how the solar panel manufacturer had qualified for the loan after the ratings firm Fitch had determined the company would make a “highly speculative” investment.

“Fitch describes Abound as lagging in technology relative to its competitors, failing to achieve stated efficiency targets, and expecting that Abound will suffer from increasing commoditization and pricing pressures,” wrote Rep. Darrell Issa, R.-California, the committee chairman. “DOE’s willingness to fund Abound, despite these concerns, calls into question the merits of this loan guarantee.”

Obama is demonizing oil companies (you know, the people who are the only reason ordinary Americans are able to get into their cars and drive somewhere) while he continues to give away billions of dollars to his crony capitalist fascist friends at the useless green energy companies.  Oh, and he’s demonizing the $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies that keep this country going while he is proposing to give away $5 billion more to green energy that produces virtually nothing.

That should seriously piss you off, because gas prices – you know, the stuff that the oil companies Obama demonizes produce – have more than DOUBLED under this failed president’s failed policies:

The day Barack Obama took office, the average national price of gasoline was $1.84 a gallon.

As of today, March 1, 2012, the average national price of gasoline is $3.74 a gallon.

Oh, and gasoline may very well hit $5 a gallon by Memorial Day.

While even Bill Clinton is urging the Failure-in-Chief to “embrace” the Keystone Oil Pipeline that Obama has refused to alllow even though it wouldn’t have required ONE PENNY in taxpayer money.

Beyond Solyndra – which devoured more than half of a BILLION dollars in taxpayer money before going completely bankrupt – there have been many other massive Obama failures.

Just a couple:

Green energy company given federal stimulus funds lays off 125 workers, gives pay raise to executives
Published February 26, 2012 | FoxNews.com

An electric car battery company reportedly has laid off 125 employees since receiving $390 million in government subsidies, but is still handing out big pay raises to company executives.

A123 systems, which was touted as a stimulus “success story” by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., had a net loss of $172 million through the first three quarters of 2011, according to the Washington Examiner’s “Beltway Confidential” blog, citing a report from the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

A123’s primary customer, Fisker Automotive, is also struggling financially. “Yet, this month A123’s Compensation Committee approved a $30,000 raise for [Chief Financial Officer David] Prystash just days after Fisker Automotive announced the U.S. Energy Department had cut off what was left of its $528.7 million loan it had previously received.”

This month has seen significant pay boosts for other A123 executives, as well, including vice presidents Robert Johnson and Jason Forcier.

The raises were reported by the company in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Mackinac report.

“It looks highly suspicious,” Paul Chesser, associate fellow for the National Legal & Policy Center, told Mackinac. “It looks like they are trying to pad their top people’s wallets in case something really bad happens.”

Click to read the Washington Examiner blog.

Click to read the Mackinac Center for Public Policy report.

And far, FAR worse:

Obama Gave Billions to Green Energy Companies with Ties to His Administration and 2008 Campaign
Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, February 16, 2012, 1:13 PM

The RNC released this infographic today showing that billions in taxpayer dollars were were given to firms with close ties to the Obama Administration.

The Washington Post reported:

Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.

Obama’s program to invest federal funds in start-up companies — and the failure of some of those companies — is becoming a rallying cry for opponents in the presidential race. Mitt Romney has promised to focus on Obama’s “record” as a “venture capitalist.” And in ads and speeches, conservative groups and the Republican candidates are zeroing in on the administration’s decision to extend $535 million to the now-shuttered solar firm Solyndra and billions of dollars more to clean-tech start-ups backed by the president’s political allies.

White House officials stress that staffers and advisers with venture capital ties did not make funding decisions related to these companies. But e-mails released in a congressional probe of Obama’s clean-tech program show that staff and advisers with links to venture firms informally advocated for some of those companies.

David Gold, a venture capitalist and critic of Obama’s investments in clean tech, said that even if staffers had been removed from the final decision-making, they had the kind of inside access to exert subtle influence.

“To believe those quiet conversations don’t happen in the hallways — about a project being in a certain congressman’s district or being associated with a significant presidential donor, is naive,” said Gold, who once worked at the Office of Management and Budget. “When you’re putting this kind of pressure on an organization to make decisions on very big dollars, there’s increased likelihood that political connections will influence things.”

Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said the companies won awards based on merit, not political connections. He said the staffers and advisory board members reviewed by the Post had no role in funding decisions, nor did they have any personal financial stake in the companies. One of those administration advisers had first been appointed to his position by the Bush administration, LaVera said…

…Thousands of agency and White House e-mails released as part of the Solyndra investigation show that venture capitalists who held advisory roles with the Energy Department were given access to Obama’s top advisers.

Read the whole thing. It will make you ill.

Obama is selling this country out even while he works to implode it by starving us of energy while spending us into bankruptcy.

Democrats Are Hypocrite Demagogue Fools When It Comes To Gas Prices

Rush Limbaugh offers a rather entertaining look into how the Democrats 1) managed to demonize George Bush when the gas prices were actually far less of a problem/crisis than they are now under Obama while simultaneously asserting that Republicans have no right whatsoever to do to Obama what they themselves did to George Bush; 2) believe that Obama should a) open the strategic petroleum reserve and/or b) push Saudi Arabia to increase drilling – both of which are means to increase the supply of gasoline – yet simultaneously insist that the US’  increasing its own gasoline supply by drilling would have absolutely no impact on gas prices whatsoever; 3) are somehow conveniently forgetting how astonishingly stupid and vacuous Obama’s “solutions” to the problem of high gas prices truly were.

The Democrat Gas Hypocrisy
February 27, 2012

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Michael Janofsky at the New York Times, April 24th, 2006, about six years ago: “Democrats Eager to Exploit Anger Over Gas Prices.” This is back in 2006. The Democrats were running for office in the midterm elections trying to talk us into a recession. This is after they had failed at trying to talk us into failure in Iraq. “Democrats running for Congress are moving quickly to use the most recent surge in oil and gasoline prices to bash Republicans over energy policy, and more broadly, the direction of the country. With oil prices hitting a high this week and prices at the pump topping $3 a gallon in many places…” We’re now over $5 in California. In 2006, with “prices at the pump topping $3 a gallon in many places Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic Senate candidate in Minnesota, is making the issue the centerpiece of her campaign. Ms. Klobuchar says it ‘is one of the first things people bring up’ at her campaign stops. To varying degrees, Democrats around the country are following a similar script that touches on economic anxiety and populist resentment against oil companies.”Yep!”‘It’s a metaphor for an economy that keeps biting people despite overall good numbers,’ said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York…” What else do we have, Chuck-U? Oh, Chuck-U is in the news today, folks. Chuck-U tells Clinton to pressure Saudi Arabia to pump more oil. Senator Chuck-U Schumer “wants Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to press…” She’s got her own section in the program todayfor her own rampant hypocrisy. (We’ll get to that in due course.) Chuck-U Schumer “wants Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to press Saudi Arabia to boost output as rising prices are hitting consumer at the gasoline pump.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!Wait a minute. More oil? Chuck-U wants more oil? Is that what he’s asking the Saudis to do, pump more oil? Is that right? Is that what that means? Senator Schumer tells Clinton to pressure Saudis to pump more oil? He wants more oil? Then how come this regime vetoes the Keystone pipeline and has a drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico and makes fun of/mocks the concept of producing more oil in the United States? So Senator Chuck-U Schumer is asking Senator Clinton to make us more dependent on foreign oil! That’s what he’s doing when he’s asking her to pressure the Saudis, pump more oil. He wants us to be more dependent. He doesn’t want to use our own oil. Obama doesn’t want to use our own oil.How come Chuck-U is not out there saying, “Everybody go buy a Volt?” How come Chuck-U’s not saying, “Hey, everybody go buy a Prius, go buy a hybrid”? How come Chuck-U’s not out there saying, “Get your tire gauge out and make sure the pressure is right and get a tune-up”? That’s what Obama does. So the Democrats want more oil. They want the price to come down with more supply. Funny how that never works domestically. So 2006, New York Times: “Democrats Eager to Exploit Anger Over Gas Prices” — at $3 a gallon. From BigGovernment.com Wynton Hall with the story: “Seven Gas Facts Obama Cannot Escape — “1. In September 2008, Barack Obama’s ‘Nobel-prize winning physicist’ of an Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, told the Wall Street Journal: ‘Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,'” which is much higher than what we pay. Obama has said he wants high prices. Why don’t these guys come out and say, “This is exactly what we want”? Steven Chu, the energy secretary, Nobel-prize winning physicist has advocated for higher prices. So has Obama. Now they’re getting higher prices. You know why? They want higher prices so you’ll have to go out and buy a Volt or a hybrid or get on a bus or get on a subway or take mass transit and become like a number. A robot. An interchangeable part of the system, like a Chinese citizen taking orders and dictates from the state and their command-and-control economy.

The truth is, they want higher prices. The problem is it’s an election year. Can’t advocate for higher gas prices in an election year. “2. In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama admitted that, like his future Energy Secretary Mr. Chu, he believed that high gas prices would be a good thing because they would force Americans to ween [sic] themselves off of oil, but that he would have ‘prefered [sic] a gradual adjustment.'” We had the sound bite last week. We reminded you of it when gasoline hit four bucks and Obama said: It’s okay; it’s okay. I’m just a little upset how fast it got there. “3. On January 19, 2009, the day before Barack Obama [immaculated] gas prices were $1.84 a gallon. As of February 20, 2012 a gallon of gas cost $3.59,” and now it’s close to $5 a gallon. And don’t forget, in 2006 it was $3 a gallon, and the Democrats are out exploiting it and trying to turn it into a big political issue. “4. As Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson points out, ‘Offshore drilling permits are being issued at less than half the rate of the previous administration. The average number of leases issued on public lands is less than half than during President Clinton’s term.’ 5. In 2008, Barack Obama seemed perfectly comfortable with soaring energy prices if they meant curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

“As Mr. Obama confessed: ‘Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.'” In their hearts and minds, Obama and the left are LOVING gas prices go up. They just can’t say so. But they love it. And that’s why there’s not a huge effort to bring them down. There’s a huge effort to make you think they want to, but how many stories have you seen where Obama says, “Ah, there’s really not a whole lot the president can do”? And Jay Carney says, “Well, there’s not a whole lot the president can do.” In 2006, don’t forget, Chuck Schumer and John F. Kerry (who, by the way, served in Vietnam) were mocking Bush for asking the Saudis to pump more oil! Arabs producing more oil makes prices go down, but somehow the US pumping more oil won’t make any difference.

That’s what they tell us. “Nah-nah-nah. That’s the stupidest thing we ever heard of! That’s a tired, worn-out cliche. ‘Drill, drill, drill,’ and for 30 years they’ve been saying that. That’s what the Republicans always say. Just drill, drill. That’s gonna take us two to three years!” Well, where would we be if 30 years ago we had just started drilling, drilling, drilling? Chuck-U Schumer in 2008: “Schumer to Bush: Stop ‘Coddling’ Big Oil, Saudis,” and get on ’em and make ’em pump more. And Chuck-U wants Hillary to do the same thing now. Obama, he can lower the sea level but he can’t lower the price of oil. “7. Try as he might, President Obama’s campaign will try to distance themselves from the fact that a central pillar of Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign was a pledge to reduce the ‘pain at the pump’ caused by high gas prices.”

We can go back and we can get all of that audio that was a centerpiece of his campaign, a pillar, to reduce pain at the pump. But missing no opportunity to invoke class warfare, Obama said, “For the well-off in this country, high gas prices are mostly an annoyance, but to most Americans they’re a huge problem, bordering on a crisis. Here in Indiana gas costs $3.60 a gallon,” he said in 2008. Now it’s 2012, we’re over $5 a gallon, and there’s not much we can do about it.

And from MSNBC: “8 Reasons Why Gas Will Hit $5 a Gallon This Year.” I’ll just read through them. Not gonna give you details. Number one, Strait of Hormuz. Number two, Iran. Number three, refiners raising prices. Number four, other geopolitical risks. Number five, the European Union may save itself. Number six, the US economic recovery means higher oil prices. Number seven, summertime. Number eight, supply risk. In all eight of these reasons, not one of them mention Obama or his energy policies. So we have every effort in the world being made to shield Obama from any relationship to high gasoline prices, despite what the Democrats did all during ’05, ’06, ’07, and ’08. We even have some Republicans now saying, “We really don’t want to try to tie the president to this, market forces no president can control.”

We said back in 2006 there’s nothing Bush can do about it. The president does not have a magic wand. Releasing from the strategic reserves doesn’t make a significant long-term difference in the price of oil. And people who said that back then want us to say something consistent now. “Well, come on, let’s not jump on Obama for this. We all know honestly that presidents can’t do anything about it.” Bush was not choking the supply, however. Obama is. Obama is a factor in the price of gasoline. See, that’s the difference, Obama is a factor in the price of oil. Obama wants higher oil prices, his energy secretary and he have both said so. They want higher oil prices. This is not making it up. They want higher oil prices. It’s less freedom. It’s less mobility. It forces you into alternative buying decisions when it’s time to get a new car. So, Obama does have something to do with high oil prices.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

Eric in Glen Arbor, Michigan, you’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Longtime listener from the early Clinton years.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: The reason why I’m calling is about the oil prices and what we’re paying at the pump. Lots of news about it, and if we go to five-, six-dollar-a-gallon oil, that’s gonna sink the economy, and I think it’s time to fight back, and I think we can fight back by several perspectives. One, we, as a consumer, can cut back slightly on our fuel usage. And, two, instead of just releasing 30 million barrels of oil from the strategic energy reserves, we need to do it in a strategic manner. For example, release seven million barrels of oil at, say, $89 a barrel. It’s about 109 bucks a barrel today. Release it at below the market price and then make several subsequent releases without telling anybody —

RUSH: There’s not enough oil there to make any difference. The real question is what is the price of algae by the gallon, because Obama has suggested pond scum as the next alternative fuel for oil. We cannot, by the way, and I appreciate the big-heartedness here in wanting to conserve, but there’s gonna be forced conservation at five dollars a gallon. There was a four. People will drive less because they can’t afford it. By the way, the economy’s already sinking. But you get to five or six dollars a gallon, the choice to conserve will not be something you have to force on people, it’ll be happening naturally. But even at that, conserving is not growth, and growth is what our economy needs. Growth and supply, growth in expansion, demand, all these things, that’s what this country and this economy needs. We can’t conserve our way to growth of anything.

END TRANSCRIPT

One look at the record of gas prices between George Bush and Barack Obama is all it takes – it is literally as simple as looking at a picture to understand how badly Obama has failed America.

2011 was THE most expensive year for gasoline prices in the entire history of the United States.  And then Obama began 2012 by giving us THE most expensive January in the history of the country, and followed that up by giving us THE most expensive February in the history of the country.

And Obama just threw the Keystone oil pipeline into Canada’s face and demanded that Canada sell its oil to China.

Gasoline prices have now DOUBLED in the three years of the failed Obama regime.

“Hope and change” means $6 a gallon gasoline in Florida and gas prices that are very likely going to be that high across the entire nation by Memorial Day.

And consider how this president DEMONIZED his predecessor in speeches like this one in which he said:

What Washington has done is what Washington always does – it’s peddled false promises, irresponsible policy, and cheap gimmicks that might get politicians through the next election, but won’t lead America toward the next generation of renewable energy. And now we’re paying the price. Now we’ve fallen behind the rest of the world. Now we’re forced to beg Saudi Arabia for more oil. Now we’re facing gas prices over $4 a gallon – gas prices that are decimating the savings of families who are already struggling in this economy. Like the man I met in Pennsylvania who lost his job and couldn’t even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one. That’s how badly folks are hurting. That’s how badly Washington has failed.

And now the same man who attacked Bush isn’t responsible for the very same thing he attacked Bush over even though the situation is now WORSE under his completely failed leadership.

Because – to quote Obama himself – “that’s how badly OBAMA has failed.”

Bush Vs. Obama On Gasoline Prices In One Very Simple Picture

Update, September 11, 2012: my new article on gas prices looks at Bush’s entire presidency (average price $2.14/gal) and his first four years (average price $1.68/gal) to DOCUMENT that he was FAR BETTER at gas prices than was Obama thus far in his first four years (average price $2.99/gal).  Please read it too.

Update, September 4, 2012: Given that liberals are genuinely idiotic people, it is apparently necessary to point out that the article and the accompanying chart that I cite below was compiled in March of 2011. How long had Obama been president as of March of 2011? If you do the math, you will find that March 2011 occurred 26 months into Obama’s presidency. Which is to point out that every single liberal who has bitched about my “cherry picking data” is an astonishingly idiotic dumbass. The Heritage article that I cite below compares the first 26 months of Obama’s gas prices – which was all they had available in March 2011 – with the EXACT SAME PERIOD DURING BUSH’S PRESIDENCY. That is as apples-to-apples as you can get.

At this point in September 2012, Obama has been president for 43 months. If we compare Obama’s first 43 months in office to Bush’s first 43 months in office, you will find that Obama has still been awful in comparison.  At this same point during Bush’s first term, in September of 2004, gasoline cost $1.89 a gallon.  Versus with Obama and gas prices of $3.82 a gallon today.  There is absolutely no legitimate comparison that will make Obama look anything other than terrible.  Barack Obama is the “Under my plan, energy prices will necessarily skyrocket” president.  Barack Obama is the president who has literally said he WANTED gas prices to go up as long as the increase was gradual so he wouldn’t get blamed.  Barack Obama is the president who appointed an Energy Secretary who is literally on the record saying he wanted to see U.S. gas prices at $9-$10 a gallon.

The shocking gas prices Bush faced in 2008 were due to the fact that Democrats took over both the House and the Senate in 2006 and refused to allow ANY domestic oil production or refinery construction WHATSOEVER until Bush finally issued his executive order in frustration.  The shocking gas prices Obama has faced and will continue to face are due to the fact that Obama is a leftwing ideologue.  Which is why Obama is setting records for high gas prices and will continue to set such records if the American people are foolish enough to allow him to remain in office.

What liberal ideologues want to do – and you see them doing it in the comments – is cite the very worst gas prices for Bush that occurred during Bush’s SECOND term. If you want to consider gas prices over a long period, it is OBAMA who has set the record for high gas prices.  LIBERALS are the ones cherry picking their data to selectively compare the second Bush term with a nonexistant second Obama term. Obama hasn’t HAD a second term to compare with Bush’s second term and I hope he doesn’t get one; but if he does I predict we will be seeing $8 gas prices rather than the $4 we saw at the worst of the end of the Bush second term. As just one example, Iran is by all accounts at the threshold of attaining nuclear weapons because Obama has abjectly failed to deal with this crisis that the Democrats once blatantly mocked Bush for warning us about. That means that either we (and Israel) do nothing and Iran becomes a nuclear weaponized power and is free to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and drive up international oil prices at will with impunity, or else Israel – hopefully with the aid of the United States – will attack Iran to destroy its nuclear capability. Either way, I guarantee you we will be seeing gas prices skyrocketing during what would be an Obama second term.  That’s the first thing you should know.

The second thing you should know is that when oil prices reached their high under Bush, President Bush took a conservative path which resulted in a wild success.  I have documented this elsewhere:

You can see the impact that America drilling for its own oil has on prices – and how despicable the mainstream media can be in covering up the truth – in the following CBS piece entitled “The Immediate Benefit Of Offshore Drilling” from July 17, 2008:

After trading at a record high of $147 a barrel Friday, the price of oil saw its largest one-day drop since the 2003 beginning of the Iraq war on Tuesday, falling $6.44 a barrel. Wednesday, it fell another $3.71, to $135.03, and at one point was trading as low as $132.

So what happened? As is usually the case with markets, a variety of factors caused this dramatic drop. According to the Associated Press, the Energy Information Administration announced that U.S. crude-oil supplies rose by 3 million barrels; beleaguered banks have been selling off valuable energy contracts to pay for other debts; and there’s even some speculation that computer programs used by Wall Street may create a “cascading effect” once prices start to drop.

But bizarrely, the AP didn’t mention that on Monday – again, the day of the single biggest one-day drop in oil prices in five years – President Bush removed the executive order imposing a moratorium on offshore drilling in the United States.

To think that this dramatic and unexpected move by the Bush administration didn’t have a significant effect on oil prices is folly. Even Democrats admit that relatively small margins in oil production could have a huge impact on prices.

The price per barrel of crude oil – which was at an all-time high the day Bush signed the moratorium that ended the ban on offshore drilling after going up and up and up to that point – continued to drop and drop. By September, it was below $109 a barrel. By October it had dropped even more. And it kept dropping.

See my comment to this article here and my article here for still more documentation to this fact that Bush’s executive order that ended the offshore drilling ban directly resulted in the price of oil/gasoline plunging.

And there is also this:

The price of a barrel of oil IMMEDIATELY dropped by $9.26 AS BUSH WAS SPEAKING [when he ended the federal moratorium on offshore drilling].

In the few days that followed, the precipitous upward climb in the price of oil went down, down, DOWN:

Update: July 18, 2008 Crude Oil has dropped to $128.88 a Barrel

Update: July 17, 2008 Crude Oil has dropped to $130.73 a Barrel

Update July 15, 2008 Crude Oil has dropped to $138.74 a Barrel Biggest drop in 17 years

We had the price of oil dropping by ten bucks a day every day after Bush ended the moratorium.

You can look at the link that has the NYSE prices to keep watching the trend.

George Bush began his presidency with gasoline prices at $1.40 a gallon.  When they got over $4 a gallon in 2008, George W. Bush finally used a conservative solution to the problem – and oil prices IMMEDIATELY plunged that very day and then continued to go down.  That is simply a documented fact.  Such that when Bush left office and Obama began his presidency, the average national price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline was $1.85 a gallon.  So if you look at the entirety of Bush’s presidency, gasoline went from $1.40 a gallon to $1.85 a gallon.

Obama began his own presidency with gasoline prices at that $1.85 a gallon and they have gone up and up and up.  And the difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama will NEVER take the type of conservative solution that Bush took and frankly that Bill Clinton took and allow the domestic drilling that America needs to get control of its gas prices.  Obama has now repeatedly attempted to take credit for oil leases that were signed and granted by George W. Bush even as he himself has refused to sign such leases himself.  To sum up Obama’s failure, I need only use one word: “Keystone.”

End update.

I’m not a tease.  Here’s the picture:

It’s a truly remarkable picture – particularly given the way the media attacked Bush for his high gas price increase and then largely refused to attack Obama for his ridiculously insane gas price increase.

Heritage nails it in an article (which is where I got the above chart from):

 In Pictures: Bush Vs. Obama On Gas Prices
Rory Cooper
March 4, 2011 at 4:00 pm

As Americans continue to feel the effects of President Obama’s anti-oil agenda at the pump, defensive liberals are circling back to a familiar line of counter-attack: blame Bush. The media vacuum on gas prices has made this line of attack all the more promising with very little national coverage being given to the president’s destructive domestic drilling agenda. Unfortunately it misses an obvious point.

President George W. Bush was mostly attacked for wanting to drill too much (or being “cozy” with the oil industry), while President Obama’s policies are rooted in unilaterally shutting down the domestic oil industry amidst rising prices and a struggling economy.

Yes, the price of gasoline reached historic levels, rising above $4/gallon during Bush’s second term, but that wasn’t due to a lack of trying to increase domestic supply. U.S. domestic supply is but one factor in the global price of oil, and thus gas prices. But when a president purposefully chooses to decrease our domestic supply by 13%, with hopes of driving that supply even lower, and objects to U.S.-Canadian pipelines and new forms of exploration, discovery and friendly importation, the price consequences are real, and should be scrutinized.

During the first twenty-six months of President Bush’s first term in office, the price of gasoline increased by 7%. At the end of his second term, the price had decreased by 9% from the time he took office (adjusted for inflation). During the first twenty-six months of Obama’s term in office, the price of gasoline has spiked over 67% with no relief in site.

Clearly, other mitigating factors were at work between those two time periods. U.S. demand is one such factor, as is global supply disruptions, cartel pricing and the cost to refine and distribute, but the current price spikes obligate serious people to scrutinize our nation’s energy policy.

President Bush’s response to $4/gallon gasoline was to lift presidential and congressional moratoriums on expanded drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, a move that many critics say came too late. But what about Obama?

Some on the right have criticized Obama for having no energy policy. This is wrong. Obama’s energy policy is working exactly the way it is designed. This administration knows that unless the price of fossil fuels skyrocket, expensive alternative energy sources, no matter how heavily subsidized, will continue to be unattractive to American consumers.

Obviously, this risky desire to have high gas prices is a punitive policy that foolishly ignores how Americans use petroleum. While oil is largely a transportation fuel, solar and wind can only contribute to our electricity demands. Oil accounts for less than 1% of our electricity demand.

The liberal fascination with developing expensive vehicles that run on electricity doesn’t change that: 1) Solar or wind powered vehicles don’t commercially exist; 2) The cars that do run on electricity, or even battery-powered hybrids still require gas; and 3) the high cost of the alternatively fueled vehicles makes them largely insignificant in the auto market and cost-prohibitive to the average consumer.

Sure, it would be ideal to have a national fleet of cars that are inexpensive and run on cheap and widely available alternative sources of energy. But the markets have demonstrated this reality is nowhere close to fruition. And when you try to hasten that reality by artificially jacking up the price of gas, the economic effects are felt largely by the poorest among us and disincentives business owners from hiring as their fixed operating costs increase.

Think about it, who feels the pain of an extra $1 at the gas pump? The rich guys that the left demonizes or the middle-to-low income wage earners who balance their budgets by the penny, not the dollar? If the only cars available on the market were $40,000 Chevy Volts, would a Lexus or BMW consumer be hit hard, or would the family looking for a barely affordable mode of shuttling their family be affected? Consumer Reports said Obama’s heralded Volt “is an expensive way to be green.”

This economic, energy and transportation reality—the here and now—is why President Bush called for more domestic oil exploration at the same time he called for an end to our “addiction” to oil. You cannot shut down one job-creating industry while you hope another emerges. Hope is not a smart energy strategy.

This week, the Obama administration began floating the idea that depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is a viable response to rising oil prices. The SPR is where America stores roughly 700 billion barrels of oil in case of a catastrophe. Its drawdown would have a marginally positive affect on gas prices for a very short time period. Once that supply is partially or completely eliminated, we would be back to square one. In other words, the action would be purely political and designed to politically disguise a terrible energy policy.

President Obama must stop killing energy jobs, hurting American business owners and penalizing taxpayers at the pump in order to score unrelated points with his environmental base. Obama needs to end the EPA practice of imposing regulations on refineries that increase the cost of oil production. He must stop looking to raise taxes on oil producers while heavily subsidizing other energy industries.

And Obama must at least end his de facto moratorium and get America back to the domestic supply capabilities we had just two years ago. As Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) told Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in a hearing on oil prices this week: “In January 2009 there were 16 permits issued. The next year there were 12 and this January, only two. We’re so far off the historic level. We’ve got to get it back up as quickly as possible.”

This time, in this economy, with these transportation and energy realities is not the time for Obama to curry favor with eco-liberals by raising the cost of living for the average American family. President Bush may have wanted to increase the drilling status quo by too much in your opinion, but surely we can all agree that intentionally decreasing our domestic supply makes little sense today.

Gasoline is over $4 a gallon across the state of California; it is over $5 in Los Angeles; and in some places in Florida it is over $6 a gallon.

On June 24, 2008, Obama said in demonizing Bush:

What Washington has done is what Washington always does – it’s peddled false promises, irresponsible policy, and cheap gimmicks that might get politicians through the next election, but won’t lead America toward the next generation of renewable energy. And now we’re paying the price. Now we’ve fallen behind the rest of the world. Now we’re forced to beg Saudi Arabia for more oil. Now we’re facing gas prices over $4 a gallon – gas prices that are decimating the savings of families who are already struggling in this economy. Like the man I met in Pennsylvania who lost his job and couldn’t even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one. That’s how badly folks are hurting. That’s how badly Washington has failed.

YOU peddled a whole whopping load of false promises, Obama you liar.  You want to tell us about “irresponsible policies” now, Mister Solyndra???

Gas prices could very well hit $6 by summer.

Obama ‘Hope And Change’ You Can Take Right Out Of Your Own Pocket: Florida Drivers Are Paying Nearly $6 A Gallon For Gas (You Will Too Soon)

Many Americans heard allof Obama’s “promises” and listened to the mainstream media praise him as a “transformational candidate” who was “sort of God.”  They wanted to know what an Obama presidency would be like.

Well now they know:

Florida Drivers Shelling Out Nearly $6 A Gallon At Some Gas Stations
By Matthew L. Higgins
February 22, 2012 11:47 AM

TAMPA (CBS Tampa) — Talk about pain at the pump! Some Florida drivers are spending nearly $6 a gallon to fill up their gas tanks.

According to GasBuddy.com, motorists are shelling out $5.89 for a gallon of regular gas at a Shell station in Lake Buena Vista, topping out at $5.99 a gallon for premium. It doesn’t get better at a Suncoast Energy station in Orlando, where drivers are paying $5.79 for a gallon of regular.

“Prices over in the Disney World area are much higher than any other place in Florida,” Jessica Brady, AAA spokeswoman, told CBS Tampa, adding that people regularly complain about gas prices in that area.

The Sunshine State is opening up its wallet, paying an average of $3.67 a gallon of unleaded gas, 12 cents more than the national average. And it’s only expected to go up.

“It doesn’t look like we will have relief at the pump anytime soon,” Brady told CBS Tampa. “I do think we will see prices surpass $4 a gallon. I think we will see that closer to spring time.”

One reason for the high prices is the conflict with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the waterway due to the European Union sanctions leveled against the country over its nuclear program, causing the price of crude to skyrocket. Trading on a barrel of crude today is a little over $106.

Another reason for the high gas prices: positive economic news. The drop in the unemployment rate and improved housing market numbers have caused gas and oil prices to rise.

“I know it frustrates quite a few consumers why positive news will lead to higher prices,” Brady told CBS Tampa. “It really just comes down to speculation.”

A third culprit behind the gas price boom is Greece. The EU’s bailout for the indebted country only adds to the global fuel demand.

And because of these reasons, Brady believes that Florida and the rest of the U.S. could see historic gas prices.

“I think this year we will see much higher highs.”

Believe it or not, those prices aren’t the highest in the nation. According to GasBuddy.com, motorists in Alaska are paying a whopping $6.34 for a gallon of regular at some gas stations. The cheapest gas can be found in Wyoming at $2.75 a gallon.

Obama is a pathologically dishonest weasel who is trying to take credit for BUSH’S ENERGY POLICIES to claim that we’re drilling more of our own oil than ever before.  Meanwhile, Obama has doubled down on PREVENTING drilling over every federal area that he can control:

“Since taking office, he has declared 85% of our offshore areas off limits, decreased oil and gas leases in the Rockies by 70%, rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, and has 10 federal agencies planning more regulation of hydraulic fracturing…. The president’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ approach to energy security is hurting consumers.”

As one fellow furious blogger notes:

Here are the facts. Offshore is down 30% since Obama took office. Rocky Mountain federal lands are down 70% under Obama. He has held 85% of the outer shelf off limits. Only 3% of federal lands are available for lease. Obama says domestic production is up. It’s up due to francking and many in his party and administration want to stop that.

Here’s a quote from his energy secretary, Chu. President Barack Obama’s Energy secretary unwittingly created a durable GOP talking point in September 2008 when he talked to The Wall Street Journal about the benefits of having gasoline prices rise over 15 years to encourage energy efficiency.

“Somehow,” Chu said, “we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

Obama is a truly evil man.  He lies so outrageously it is beyond unreal.

Four years ago he was demonizing Bush for the price of gas.  Now all of a sudden everyone and everything is to blame except the same office of the president.

Canada Prime Minister In China To Sell Keystone Oil Obama Rejected So America Could Have Highest Gasoline Prices EVER Instead

Fact one: America is just about to lose a huge source of oil because Barack Obama pissed away the hundreds of millions of gallons of Keystone oil and the tens of thousands of jobs it would have provided.  Now the energy America will desperately need to going to go to China.

Canadian PM in China trying to sell Keystone oil, says Sen. Hoeven
By Josiah Ryan – 02/07/12 12:40 PM ET

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) on Tuesday said that thanks to the Obama administration’s delay of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is, at this moment, hawking his nation’s excess oil to the Chinese administration.

“Right now Prime Minister Harper is talking to Hu Jintao, president of China, and believe me, China wants that oil,” Hoeven said. “[W]e will see what kind of agreement he comes back with from China.”

Harper arrived in China on Tuesday with a delegation of Canadian businessmen, and plans to meet with Chinese officials on the topic of energy.

Hoeven, whose state would host part of the proposed Keystone pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to the American Gulf Coast, argued forcefully from the Senate floor on Tuesday that Canada wishes to sell its oil to its “best friend” the United States, but that the administration’s delay of a decision on the project had caused them to shop overseas for a buyer.

“The only thing we can figure is that the administration has decided that they don’t want oil produced in the Canadian sands,” Hoeven said. “While we continue to put Canada on hold, China is working very hard to make sure that oil comes to them.”

After a quiet morning on the floor, the Senate recessed for a break until 2:15 p.m. to accommodate party luncheons. The Senate will also be recessed Wednesday to accommodate a Democratic retreat.

Fact two: Americans spent more on gasoline over the course of 2011 than in ANY YEAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

U.S. drivers spend record amount on gasoline in 2011
Despite lower demand, more than $448 billion has been paid so far for fuel — $100 billion more than in 2010. Consistently high oil prices are blamed.
December 09, 2011|By Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times

American drivers this week broke a record that will bring them no joy.

They collectively spent more than $448 billion on gasoline since the beginning of the year, according to the Oil Price Information Service, putting the previous record for gas expenditures — set in 2008 — in the rearview mirror with weeks of driving still to go.

It’s also a huge jump over last year, when U.S. drivers spent more than $100 billion less on gas.

The major reason for the record-setting gas spending in 2011 was that oil prices were consistently high all year. And that probably brought joy at the other end of the pipeline. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is on pace to top $1 trillion in net oil exports for the first time, or 29% more than last year.

Fact three:

Gas prices to spike 60 cents or more by May
By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY

Get ready for another round of pain at the pump: $4 (or higher) gasoline.

After rising 19 cents a gallon in the past four weeks, regular unleaded gasoline now averages $3.48 a gallon, vs. $3.12 a year ago and $2.67 in February 2010.

Prices could spike another 60 cents or more by May. “I think it’s going to be a chaotic spring, with huge price increases in some places,” says Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service. Kloza expects average prices to peak at $4.05, although he and other industry trackers say prices could be sharply higher in some markets.

Rising prices are an annual spring ritual, largely because of seasonal demand.

Refiners also switch from winter formulations to more expensive seasonal formulations to meet stringent environmental standards, which can tack on 15 cents a gallon, says Brian Milne of energy tracker Televent DTN.

This year’s earlier-than-usual run-up is more about anticipation than current supply and demand. Last week, the Energy Department reported anemic U.S. consumption — the lowest levels since September 2001. Domestic crude oil prices, now about $98 a barrel, are near six-week lows.

Renewed tensions in the Middle East are bolstering crude prices, while speculators are boosting futures contracts, betting on global supply disruptions and tighter refining capacity. Kloza notes that several U.S. and overseas refiners have experienced temporary or permanent closures.

So far, $4 a gallon has proven to be the upper limit consumers will pay. Last April, national prices peaked at about $3.98 a gallon. In 2008, a sharp run-up ended when prices hit an all-time average of $4.11 a gallon that summer.

“Higher demand, Iran, lost refining capacity are all potential problems,” Milne says. “We’ll get over $4 a gallon, but it’s going to be tough to sustain that level. People will drive less.”

Energy analyst Patrick DeHaan of price tracker Gasbuddy.com expects prices to rise to about $3.55 a gallon by the end of February and peak around $4 by Memorial Day weekend.

“You could see prices in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington and other major metropolitan areas at $4.60 or higher,” DeHaan says.

Lisa Margonelli, author of Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, says consumers will be vulnerable to rising prices until the U.S. develops alternative fuels such as natural gas.

Fact four: Barack Obama is the worst and most failed president in American history.

Thanks For ‘Necessarily Skyrocketing’ Gasoline Prices, Obama: Gas Prices Expected To Rise ANOTHER 60 Cents A Gallon By May

I recently preserved for the record (in an age when media articles that reveal liberalism for the failure and fraud that it is tend to “vanish”) stories that documented that Obama’s regime gave birth to THE MOST EXPENSIVE YEAR FOR GASOLINE IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

And all you have to do is go to the main page of my site and click on “oil” and see THAT CONSERVATIVES HAVE BEEN TELLING YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN ALL ALONG.  As I have predicted over and over again.

And you aint seen nothing yet from the failure of the Failure in Chief:

Gas prices to spike 60 cents or more by May
By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY

Get ready for another round of pain at the pump: $4 (or higher) gasoline.

After rising 19 cents a gallon in the past four weeks, regular unleaded gasoline now averages $3.48 a gallon, vs. $3.12 a year ago and $2.67 in February 2010.

Prices could spike another 60 cents or more by May. “I think it’s going to be a chaotic spring, with huge price increases in some places,” says Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service. Kloza expects average prices to peak at $4.05, although he and other industry trackers say prices could be sharply higher in some markets.

Rising prices are an annual spring ritual, largely because of seasonal demand.

Refiners also switch from winter formulations to more expensive seasonal formulations to meet stringent environmental standards, which can tack on 15 cents a gallon, says Brian Milne of energy tracker Televent DTN.

This year’s earlier-than-usual run-up is more about anticipation than current supply and demand. Last week, the Energy Department reported anemic U.S. consumption — the lowest levels since September 2001. Domestic crude oil prices, now about $98 a barrel, are near six-week lows.

Renewed tensions in the Middle East are bolstering crude prices, while speculators are boosting futures contracts, betting on global supply disruptions and tighter refining capacity. Kloza notes that several U.S. and overseas refiners have experienced temporary or permanent closures.

So far, $4 a gallon has proven to be the upper limit consumers will pay. Last April, national prices peaked at about $3.98 a gallon. In 2008, a sharp run-up ended when prices hit an all-time average of $4.11 a gallon that summer.

“Higher demand, Iran, lost refining capacity are all potential problems,” Milne says. “We’ll get over $4 a gallon, but it’s going to be tough to sustain that level. People will drive less.”

Energy analyst Patrick DeHaan of price tracker Gasbuddy.com expects prices to rise to about $3.55 a gallon by the end of February and peak around $4 by Memorial Day weekend.

“You could see prices in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington and other major metropolitan areas at $4.60 or higher,” DeHaan says.

Lisa Margonelli, author of Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, says consumers will be vulnerable to rising prices until the U.S. develops alternative fuels such as natural gas.

I pointed out in the article I already referenced that these sky-high gasoline prices are no accident or coincidence.  You voted for them when you voted for Obama:

You remember that quip Obama gave us that under his policies, energy prices “would necessarily skyrocket“?

Remember that Obama appointed an energy secretary named Steven Chu who said, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe”??? With gasoline prices in Europe consistently hovering between $7 and $10 a gallon??? Steven Chu said that in explaining the Obama policy of “progressively” making gasoline more and more expensive in order to force Americans to turn to alternative energy sources. And one of the ways Obama wants to accomplish that dream (which amounts to a nightmare for working Americans) is to tax Americans for driving by the mile.

Barry Hussein can file 2011′s gasoline prices under the category “mission accomplished.” But, of course, he’s really only just getting started.

Go back to something I wrote back in August of 2008 – Iran And The Bomb: What Are We Going To Do? – and ask yourself the same questions I asked back then.  And remember that one of those questions involved what would America do if gasoline cost $12 a gallon in the wake of an Iranian nuclear bomb.

What’s that going to do to our economy?  What’s that going to do to you and your family?

You’d better have an answer to those questions.  Because you stupidly and wickedly voted for a fool who will bring that reality to pass.

 

 

REAL State Of The Union: Under Obama, Price of Gas Has Jumped 83 Percent, Ground Beef 24 Percent, Bacon 22 Percent

Thought this article was particularly relevant and appropriate following Obama’s State of the Illusion speech:

Under Obama, Price of Gas Has Jumped 83 Percent, Ground Beef 24 Percent, Bacon 22 Percent
By Christopher Goins
January 20, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

(AP Photo)

During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent.

When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon, an increase of 26 percent. By December 2011, the price of regular unleaded gas per gallon was $3.28, an 83 percent increase from January 2009.

The price of unleaded gasoline never reached the 10-year high of $4.09 back in July 2008 under George W. Bush’s administration, but it did get close.

By May 2011, gas prices hit a high under the Obama administration at $3.93, about four percentage points away from the July 2008 high.

Ground beef. (AP Photo)

The U.S. city average retail price for one pound of 100 percent ground beef was $2.36 in January 2009. As of December 2011, that price had risen to $2.92—a 23.7 percent increase and a new peak. (Ground beef prices have risen every month since November 2009 – 26 months of price increases.)

Whole wheat bread prices from January 2009 to December 2011 increased about five percent (5.02 percent) from $1.97 to $2.07. (The inflation rate in December 2011 was 3.0 percent.)

Among the first 36 months of Obama’s presidency, the last four (September, October, November, December) showed the average price of one pound of whole wheat bread hovering slightly above two dollars.

Other refrigerated items like ice cream and bacon have increased by substantial amounts.

Ice cream prices, for a half-gallon, were $4.44 in January 2009 and $5.25 in December 2011, an increase of 19.1 percent.

One pound of sliced bacon in January 2009 was $3.73 and in December 2011 had climbed $4.55, an increase of 22 percent. The price hit a high in September 2011 at $4.82 per pound.

Bacon. (AP Photo)

Whole milk prices averaged above three dollars 33 out of the 36 months since Obama took office. In January 2009, the price for one gallon of whole milk was $3.58; but by December 2011, milk prices had slightly declined less than one percent (0.28 percent) to $3.57 per gallon.

The average retail price of Grade A eggs per dozen from January 2009 to December 2011 increased by less than two percent (1.30 percent) from $1.85 to $1.87.

 

 

CNSNews.com is not funded by the government like NPR. CNSNews.com is not funded by the government like PBS.

CNSNews.com relies on individuals like you to help us report the news the liberal media distort and ignore. Please make a tax-deductible gift to CNSNews.com today. Your continued support will ensure that CNSNews.com is here reporting THE TRUTH, for a long time to come. It’s fast, easy and secure.

We recently celebrated Thanksgiving, and because of Obama we all felt like turkeys paying for our groceries due to the shocking inflation of food (that, along with fuel somehow isn’t factored in when “inflation” is calculated).

The above article doesn’t go anywhere NEAR far enough in condemning Obama for the rise of gasoline prices.  Yes, the price of gas spiked temporarily under Bush in 2008 (and Democrats viciously demonized him for that increase); BUT THE PRICE OF GASOLINE THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE YEAR WAS THE HIGHEST IN AMERICAN HISTORY IN 2011 UNDER OBAMA.  And 2012 is going to be even worse.

Here’s the REAL Obama economic record:

Barack Obama is destroying the middle class before our very eyes even as he incessantly claims to be the one standing up for the very middle class that he is destroying.

Under Obama, poverty has soared to its highest rate EVER in the entire 52 years that the Census Bureau has tracked it.

Under Obama, the misery index is at its highest rate EVER.

85% of the small business America depends on to create jobs and build the economy are terrified of Obama and his idiotic policies.

THAT’S the REAL “state of the union.”

 

‘Necessarily Skyrocketing’: Obama Gives Americans Highest Gas Prices IN HISTORY In 2011 – With 2012 Shaping Up To Be Much Worse

You remember that quip Obama gave us that under his policies, energy prices “would necessarily skyrocket“?

Remember that Obama appointed an energy secretary named Steven Chu who said, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe”???  With gasoline prices in Europe consistently hovering between $7 and $10 a gallon???  Steven Chu said that in explaining the Obama policy of “progressively” making gasoline more and more expensive in order to force Americans to turn to alternative energy sources.  And one of the ways Obama wants to accomplish that dream (which amounts to a nightmare for working Americans) is to tax Americans for driving by the mile.

Barry Hussein can file 2011’s gasoline prices under the category “mission accomplished.”  But, of course, he’s really only just getting started.

Gasoline prices were higher last year in America than they had EVER been:

U.S. drivers spend record amount on gasoline in 2011
Despite lower demand, more than $448 billion has been paid so far for fuel — $100 billion more than in 2010. Consistently high oil prices are blamed.
December 09, 2011|By Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times

American drivers this week broke a record that will bring them no joy.

They collectively spent more than $448 billion on gasoline since the beginning of the year, according to the Oil Price Information Service, putting the previous record for gas expenditures — set in 2008 — in the rearview mirror with weeks of driving still to go.

It’s also a huge jump over last year, when U.S. drivers spent more than $100 billion less on gas.

The major reason for the record-setting gas spending in 2011 was that oil prices were consistently high all year. And that probably brought joy at the other end of the pipeline. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is on pace to top $1 trillion in net oil exports for the first time, or 29% more than last year.

Next week, OPEC convenes to discuss production levels. Analysts held out little hope that the group, which pumps 40% of the world’s oil, would raise output to lower prices and boost the economic recovery in the U.S. and Europe.

“They won’t do anything,” said Fadel Gheit, senior oil analyst at Oppenheimer and Co. “They can lay the blame on the banking sectors and debt and they are happy to keep providing oil at what are record prices for this time of the year.”

On Friday, crude oil for January delivery gained $1.07 to close at $99.41 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Nymex oil prices are up 8.8% so far for the year.

At the pump, gasoline prices hit a record for this time of year. On Friday, the average price of a gallon in California was $3.613, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. That’s 27 cents a gallon higher than the record for a Dec. 9, set in 2007. It was 36.9 cents higher than last year.

Nationally, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.293, also breaking the 2007 record by 28.5 cents. Compared with last year, it was 31.8 cents higher.

Burbank resident Dan Bell, 38, said he recently turned down a job that would have paid him more because he would have had to spend too much on gasoline to get there.

“I just hate the fact that OPEC is making that much money,” Bell said. “There’s not much we can do. We still have to go to work.”

According to the Energy Department, the demand for vehicle fuel has been about 4% lower this year than in 2010. And domestic production of oil is on the rise.

But increasing amounts of oil produced in the U.S. are going to other countries. For the last three weeks, U.S. refineries have had a record high level of fuel exports, averaging about 2,984,000 barrels a day to markets overseas, the Energy Department said.

That was more than 600,000 barrels a day higher than last year and more than twice as much as was exported in 2008.

In 2008 when gasoline prices went up, Democrats in Congress (and one candidate for president named Barack Hussein Obama) demonized George Bush:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday blamed the “two oil men in the White House,” President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and their Republican allies in Congress for gas prices exceeding $4 a gallon.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, said multiple initiatives intended to lower high energy costs have passed the Democratically controlled House only to “run into a brick wall” in the Senate because they did not receive the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican filibusters.

“The price of oil is… is attributed to two oil men in the White House and their protectors in the United States Senate,” Pelosi said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Democrats think that preventing America from being able to drill for its own oil so we can bow down before OPEC is the key to low oil prices, apparently.

But my point in citing this is to ask, “Who is to blame for gasoline being more expensive than it has ever been in history of America now that Democrats are running things?”

How is this disaster NOT Obama’s fault, oh party that made everything Bush’s fault?

You know, Obama, the guy who said, “Under my plan energy prices will necessarily skyrocket“?  Why was Bush to blame for everything and Obama isn’t to blame for anything?

Other than the fact that the Democrat Party is the party of abject hypocrisy and if you get your “news” from the mainstream media you fill what little brain you have with propaganda.

This abject failure of Obama to control energy prices is nothing new; I was writing about this in 2010, too – at a time that under Obama’s watch gas prices had increased 55 percent.

Oh, btw, Obama isn’t starting 2012 so great when it comes to oil and gas prices, either:

Gasoline prices start the year at a high — and rising
Gas prices are the highest ever for this time of year, and analysts predict that motorists will be digging deep in 2012 to fuel their vehicles.
January 06, 2012|By Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times

Not only are we worrying about the end of the world in 2012 — thanks, Maya calendar makers — but this also may be the year of the gas-pocalypse, analysts warn. That’s because gasoline prices are the highest ever for the start of the year, and they’re on the rise, supercharged by expensive oil and changes in refinery operations.

In California, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.666 on Thursday, up 8.1 cents from a week earlier and up 33.1 cents from a year earlier, which had been a record price for this time of year, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. Nationally, a gallon of regular was averaging $3.319, up 6.5 cents from a week earlier. That topped 2011’s record-setting start by 24.2 cents a gallon.

It’s the wrong way to kick off the new year, said Susan Sutter of Anaheim, who has seen the price of a gallon of gasoline at her local Arco station rise 18 cents, to $3.49, in the last week.

“I’m just appalled,” said Sutter, 54, who drives a Honda Civic sedan. Sutter’s ire wasn’t cooled by the fact that she was paying quite a bit less than the state average.

“I just hate these prices,” she said. “Someone is lining their pockets, and it sure isn’t me.”

Of course, current prices don’t guarantee future prices, but analysts are predicting that motorists will be digging deep this year to fuel their vehicles.

“Average gasoline prices are moving up as we enter the new year, a trend that has held since 2008,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, a website that tracks fuel prices. “We’re starting 2012 about 20 cents per gallon higher than 2011, setting up an ugly year for motorists.”

Energy Department statistics suggest that U.S. drivers won’t be getting any good news on prices soon.

In 2010, the year of the smallest recent gap between start-of-year prices and that year’s peak, the rise was 14.5% nationally and 10% in California. That translated into a jump of 38.7 cents a gallon in the U.S.’ average gasoline price and 30 cents in California’s.

The biggest recent start-to-peak increase came in 2009. Nationally, the average gasoline price started the year at $1.684 a gallon and climbed 60% to $2.694, a jump of slightly more than a dollar. In California, the average price per gallon soared 75%, to $3.287 from $1.874.

And 2011 showed that when prices start out high, it doesn’t take a huge percentage increase to add to consumer woes. Average prices rose 29% nationally in 2011, a jump of 89.5 cents a gallon to the year’s peak of $3.965. California prices also rose 29% last year, for a 95-cent rise to the high of $4.257.

The AAA Fuel Gauge Report mirrors the trend shown by the Energy Department’s weekly telephone survey of service stations. The averages reported by AAA are gathered daily by the Oil Price Information Service using credit card receipts from more than 100,000 outlets.

This year’s gasoline prices could be significantly higher than in previous years, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service.

“Somewhere between the Grammys and the Oscars, the gasoline market and perhaps the crude market will trend considerably higher,” Kloza wrote in his blog, Speaking of Oil.

Kloza cited three potential causes: “International worries about a second Arab Spring will combine with domestic concerns about U.S. refinery maintenance and the closure of at least two critical East Coast refineries” to push prices higher.

In addition, U.S. refiners have been exporting record amounts of diesel fuel as they pursue profits from foreign buyers, causing an increase in diesel production at the expense of gasoline production. Tighter gasoline supplies mean higher prices.

History isn’t on the side of U.S. consumers. Kloza said that U.S. average gasoline prices have jumped in 11 of the last 12 years, to the record-high average of $3.514 a gallon for all of 2011. Oil prices are also starting the year on the move, another discouraging signal for gasoline prices, Kloza said.

The U.S. benchmark grade of oil, West Texas Intermediate, has remained above $100 a barrel in the three trading days so far this year on concerns about Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key passage for oil transport.

The price eased a bit Thursday, falling $1.41, or 1.4%, to $101.81 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after the Energy Department said U.S. oil stockpiles increased by 2.1 million barrels from a week earlier instead of declining 1 million barrels as analysts had expected. In London, the European benchmark, Brent North Sea crude, slipped 96 cents, or 0.8%, to $112.74.

Notice how the media – if they bother to talk about it at ALL (from my own searching the LA Times is about the only ones) – make sure to blame everyone and everything BUT the Fool-in-Chief.

When the media talks about the high gas prices of 2008, the somehow fail to mention the way DEMOCRATS created that mess.  Their steadfast refusal to allow offshore (or damn near ANY) drilling (see also here) is profoundly responsible for our high energy prices.

There are two competing policies.  First, let’s look at President Bush’s:

Gas prices have been on a roller-coaster ride over the past decade, dropping to near $1 after President George W. Bush’s first year in office, crossing the $2 mark in 2005 and reaching $4 in June 2008 before Congress and Mr. Bush took action, lifting presidential and congressionally imposed moratoriums on expanding offshore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Mr. Bush lifted the presidential moratorium in July that year. The congressional moratorium expired Sept. 30, and prices fell precipitously, dropping more than $1 in October.

“The reason that it dropped is because the U.S. sent a signal to the markets, by dropping the moratoria, that we’re going to drill on our lands. Obviously, we never followed up, and thus you see the crisis gradually rising,” said Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, the ranking Republican on the Natural Resources Committee.

He said the solution is the same for both the short-term and long-term prices: Assure the markets that the U.S. will pursue domestic exploration.

You can see the impact that America drilling for its own oil has on prices – and how despicable the mainstream media can be in covering up the truth – in the following CBS piece entitled “The Immediate Benefit Of Offshore Drilling” from July 17, 2008:

After trading at a record high of $147 a barrel Friday, the price of oil saw its largest one-day drop since the 2003 beginning of the Iraq war on Tuesday, falling $6.44 a barrel. Wednesday, it fell another $3.71, to $135.03, and at one point was trading as low as $132.

So what happened? As is usually the case with markets, a variety of factors caused this dramatic drop. According to the Associated Press, the Energy Information Administration announced that U.S. crude-oil supplies rose by 3 million barrels; beleaguered banks have been selling off valuable energy contracts to pay for other debts; and there’s even some speculation that computer programs used by Wall Street may create a “cascading effect” once prices start to drop.

But bizarrely, the AP didn’t mention that on Monday – again, the day of the single biggest one-day drop in oil prices in five years – President Bush removed the executive order imposing a moratorium on offshore drilling in the United States.

To think that this dramatic and unexpected move by the Bush administration didn’t have a significant effect on oil prices is folly. Even Democrats admit that relatively small margins in oil production could have a huge impact on prices.

The price per barrel of crude oil – which was at an all-time high the day Bush signed the moratorium that ended the ban on offshore drilling after going up and up and up to that point – continued to drop and drop. By September, it was below $109 a barrel. By October it had dropped even more. And it kept dropping.

But now in the age of Obama, it’s going up and up and up again. We have had a 55% increase in the price of our gasoline during a terrible recession. Obama’s energy policies have hurt this nation badly at an incredibly vulnerable period, without so much as a peep from most of the media.

Prices were at an all time high in 2008, thanks to Democrat policies.  Bush lifted the ban on offshore drilling, and all of a sudden those sky-high oil prices that Democrats demagogued plunged dramatically.  And continued to plunge for the rest of 2008 until we elected a fool.

Now let’s consider Obama’s policies:

Barack Obama threatened to bankrupt the coal industry – which produces 49% of our nation’s electricity – and said that:

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

He told just enough lies and half-truths to get coal-state Democrats such as West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller to get them to believe he wouldn’t destroy their economies. But now that he’s elected he’s free to break those promises and pursue ruinous policies. Rockefeller is now saying of Obama that:

“he’s beginning to not be believable to me.”

But it’s like, “Sorry Sucker.” When you vote like a fool, you receive a fool’s fate.

Anyway, maybe you thought, “Well, I’m not in a coal producing state,” or “I’m not in a coal-fired electric grid,” so you thought Obama’s shockingly bad energy policies didn’t matter.

But you’re still going to have to put gas in your car, and Obama’s going to see to it that it costs you a pretty penny to do it.

In fact, gas will have to rise to the European level prices of at least $7/gallon in order for Obama’s policies to impact CO2 levels as per his energy policy. So you can bet that fuel prices will continue to rise, and rise, and rise.

Consider:

It wasn’t long ago that Barack Obama was saying that high fuel prices would be good for the country as long as they rose slowly enough that your stupid brain wouldn’t notice:

John Harwood asked then-Senator Obama, “Could the high prices help us?” And Obama responded:

OBAMA: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that, ehh, this is such a shock t’American pocketbooks is not a good thing. Uh, but if we take some steps right now t’, uh, help people make the adjustment – first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers.

And Obama’s appointments – particularly his appointment of the Secretary of Energy – affirm that he doesn’t mind you paying up the wazoo at every fill-up:

Obama’s appointments reflect his determination to drive up oil prices and therefore force the American people against their will to embrace his radical leftist energy agenda. Take Obama’s Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, who has stated on the record that he wanted to“figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” And at the time he said those words, gasoline prices were close to $8 a gallon.

Gas prices have DOUBLED since Obama assumed the presidency.

Hold him responsible. Get him out of the Oval Office before he poisons America even more.

The United States is the number ONE country in in the world in having the largest fossil reserves.

And the United States is currently the third largest oil producer in the entire world.

But as long as Obama – and probably as long as any Democrat – occupies the White House, you will not see America bothering to harness it’s own abundant natural resources no matter who gets hurt.

Who’s fault is it that oil and gas and energy prices are so shockingly high?  The mainstream media will never honestly or accurately report it, but you have Barack Obama and the Democrat Party to thank when you can’t fill your gas tank or pay your energy bill.

Right now the Keystone oil pipeline is in front of Obama – and he is just as determined to kill domestic oil and the domestic jobs that come with it as he’s ever been.

Electricity Rates WILL Skyrocket: Obama EPA Regulations To Cost Coal Industry Extra $180 BILLION

Gateway Pundit came up with this further proof that Barack Obama truly is the worst president to ever occupy the White House.

For the record, nearly HALF of America’s electricity comes from coal.

Obama’s EPA Regulations Will Cost Coal Industry $180 Billion & Cause Electricity Rates to Skyrocket
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, June 8, 2011, 8:03 PM

Worst. President. Ever.
In January 2008 Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that cost onto consumers.”

He promised that his plan would cause electricity rates to  skyrocket.

He wasn’t kidding.
In January the Obama Administration, for the first time ever, blocked an already approved bid to build one of the largest mountaintop removal coal mines in Appalachian history.

And, on Wednesday it was reported that Obama’s energy plans will cause electricity rates to necessarily skyrocket…
Just as he promised.
Via US News and World Reports:

Two new EPA pollution regulations will slam the coal industry so hard that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost, and electric rates will skyrocket 11 percent to over 23 percent, according to a new study based on government data.

Overall, the rules aimed at making the air cleaner could cost the coal-fired power plant industry $180 billion, warns a trade group.

“Many of these severe impacts would hit families living in states already facing serious economic challenges,” said Steve Miller, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “Because of these impacts, EPA should make major changes to the proposed regulations before they are finalized,” he said.

The EPA, however, tells Whispers that the hit the industry will suffer is worth the health benefits.

For the record… For every green job created by the Obama EPA, four jobs are lost in the economy.

This man is out to “fundamentally transform” America in a way that will fundamentally destroy America.

And he’s out to hurt ordinary Americans and make their children suffer.

Who do you think is ultimately going to pay this $180 billion TAX that Obama is imposing?  If you guessed “the poor bastard customers” you win the prize.  If you guessed anybody else, then you’re frankly too stupid to vote or reproduce.  Please terminate your voter registration and then go sterilize yourself.

The next question is just as simple: if you make energy prices skyrocket on businesses, are they going to be in a position to create more jobs?  If you think businesses are more likely to create jobs facing such gigantic price-hikes on their energy, I hope that you have already been spayed or neutered.  Because you are simply unreal stupid.  And this kind of dumb has got to end if this country is going to make it to the next generation.

If that isn’t enough, liberals are actually pushing a $1.00 a gallon tax on gasoline to force Americans to purchase the electric cars that Obama imposed on GM after Obama fired the GM CEO and after screwing GM bondholders in order to illegitimately give the company to unions.  It was Obama’s corporatist-fascist (see also here) mouthpiece pushing a huge gas tax to force Obama’s crappy electric clown cars on people who would never want it unless Big Brother made them buy it.

After screwing the legitimate owners of GM, Obama imposed a $16 billion loss for the American people.  But it’s only your money – and your money rewarded Obama’s union cronies who will of course return the favor to Obama with more of your dollars.  In the case of Chrysler, Obama demonized and threatened bondholders, with the result that he practically gave Chrysler away to a foreign company (Fiat).  And actually took credit for all of this as though it were a good thing!!!

Meanwhile, Obama is granting so few new permits for new oil drilling it is positively unreal, which will only make America more dependent on foreign oil and only make that heating oil and gasoline more and more expensive for us both now and down the line.

We now know what “hope and change” looks like: it looks like the American people freezing in the dark at night in the winter and sweltering in the dark at night in the summer, while all the while subsidizing huge write-offs to incentivize the purchase of electric clown cars.

Obama Wants To Tax Everyone Just For Driving. By The Mile.

We all know that rich people are bad by definition according to the tenets of liberalism.

What also needs to be realized is that people who drive – no matter how poor they are or how much they need to drive – are also bad people by the same tenets of liberalism.

And bad people should be punished.

Obama administration floats draft plan to tax cars by the mile
By Pete Kasperowicz – 05/05/11 07:45 AM ET

The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.

The plan is a part of the administration’s Transportation Opportunities Act, an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.

The White House, however, said the bill is only an early draft that was not formally circulated within the administration.

“This is not an administration proposal,” White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said. “This is not a bill supported by the administration. This was an early working draft proposal that was never formally circulated within the administration, does not taken into account the advice of the president’s senior advisers, economic team or Cabinet officials, and does not represent the views of the president.”

March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven.

Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.

The CBO report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who has proposed taxing cars by the mile as a way to increase federal highway revenues.

The proposal seems to follow up on that idea in section 2218 of the draft bill. That section would create, within the Federal Highway Administration, a Surface Transportation Revenue Alternatives Office. It would be tasked with creating a “study framework that defines the functionality of a mileage-based user fee system and other systems.”

The department seemed to be aware of the need to prepare the public for what would likely be a controversial change to the way highway funds are collected. For example, the office is called on to serve a public-relations function, as the draft says it should “increase public awareness regarding the need for an alternative funding source for surface transportation programs and provide information on possible approaches.”

The draft bill says the “study framework” for the project and a public awareness communications plan should be established within two years of creating the office, and that field tests should begin within four years.

The office would be required to consider four factors in field trials: the capability of states to enforce payment, the reliability of technology, administrative costs and “user acceptance.” The draft does not specify where field trials should begin.

The new office would be funded a total of $300 million through fiscal 2017 for the project.

This story was updated at 10:17 a.m.

The obvious reason liberals give for thinking that people who drive are bad is environmentalism.  If you drive, you are guilty of helping to murder the planet.  And – as the utterly looney-leftist United Nations wants you to understand – the planet should have more rights than you.

What the left doesn’t say is that the above is a pretense, not their real reason (although it clearly is the primary reason for the useful idiots who make up much of the environmentalist movement).  The real reason is control: the left wants to have near total control of how you live your life.  And the freedom to drive where you want to is a major obstacle to the type of control the left wants.

To quote one Democrat John Dingell regarding socialized health care –

Let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 million American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

– is pretty much to quote them all on pretty much anything.  What they really want is “to control the people.”

Right now, you can buy a car, fill it with gas, and drive wherever you want to go.  That’s just wrong to Democrats.  You shouldn’t be able to do that.  You should have to travel the way they want you to travel.  To the extent you should even be allowed to drive at all, you should only be able to drive the type of vehicle THEY want you to drive.  And there should be a tracking device so they can track where you’ve been.  And, of course, ultimately, you shouldn’t BE allowed to drive.  It’s too much freedom.  You should have to use public transportation.

It’s really not an accusation; it is simply a FACT that fascist Democrats want to take away your freedom, take away your car, monitor where you’ve been by installing tracking equipment and tax you into extinction.

And the easiest way for totalitarians – I mean liberals – to do that is to make gas so expensive that the unwashed masses simply can’t afford it.  Which goes along with making the sacred “green” cars too expensive for most families to be able to afford.

So you’ve got Obama on the record telling a journalist that he doesn’t care if the price of gas goes way up; he just doesn’t want it to happen too quickly and make us angry.

You’ve got the man Obama handpicked for his energy secretary on the record saying, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”  When of course gas prices in Europe are easily double ours in Amerca.

And you’ve got Obama doing everything he can to keep America from being able to drill for its own oil.

Meanwhile, Obama’s response to shockingly high gas prices has been to demonize oil companies and decry their profits.  When what’s funny about that is that 1) oil companies make about 7 cents per gallon in profit, versus Obama’s government which makes about 44 cents in “profit” per gallon (with state governments gouging for even more “profit”).  And 2) by taking away tax breaks that ALL U.S. companies get, what Obama is really demanding is that Americans pay even MORE for their gasoline – because ALL TAXES ON CORPORATIONS SIMPLY GET PASSED ON TO CUSTOMERS IN THE FORM OF HIGHER PRICES.

Obama is not only basically saying, “Screw you, America!”  He’s saying that Americans are simply too stupid to even understand that they are getting screwed.