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Heritage.org...
Higher
Gas Prices Add to Economic Slump
By Amy Payne
Unemployment is at 8.3 percent. The economy is sputtering at 1.5
percent growth. Food prices are rising due to drought conditions across
the country. And gas prices are up again, pinching Americans' summer
budgets. It is past time for the President and Congress to pursue smart
policies that would put us on a path to relief.
According to AAA's Fuel Gauge Report, the current national average for
regular is $3.66 per gallon. That's up 28 cents per gallon from a month
ago, and July had its biggest price jump since AAA started tracking
prices in 2000.
There are many factors affecting prices that we cannot
control—worldwide tensions, especially in the Middle East, can drive up
oil prices. Global demand, especially from China and India's rapidly
growing economies, continues upward.
But after three years of adding regulatory hurdles and blocking
exploratory access and development, President Obama's policies are
helping keep prices higher than necessary.
If the President truly wanted to lower gas prices, he would work to
increase supply. But when given the opportunity, he has done the
opposite. He turned down the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring up
to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada. His Administration has
made it even harder for companies to explore and extract domestic
energy resources by canceling, delaying, or withdrawing a number of
lease sales for exploration and development. Meanwhile, huge swaths of
federal lands have been put off limits for energy exploration.
Domestic refinery outages have had a recent impact on gas prices. Two
of the factors holding back domestic energy production are regulatory
red tape and litigation—and these, we can do something about…
Read the rest of the article at Heritage.org
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