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As Energy Prices Rise, Obama Admin Policies Prevent Exploration, While Senate Dems Push For Tax Hikes | Missouri Political News Service

As Energy Prices Rise, Obama Admin Policies Prevent Exploration, While Senate Dems Push For Tax Hikes

March 11th, 2011 by mopns · No Comments

The Wall Street Journal reports today, “President Barack Obama will address rising energy prices at a news conference on Friday, but he is not expected to call for releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” The New York Times adds, “The cost of gasoline has been rising steadily as the turmoil in Libya and other Middle East countries has caused worldwide concern about the availability of oil. As of this week, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $3.52 cents.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell spoke about energy issues in a floor speech yesterday, saying, “Americans looking at the price of gas at the pump these days are justifiably upset. What they may not realize is that some in the Administration are actively working to prevent us from increasing our own oil production here at home.”

Indeed, Leader McConnell explained, “The Administration started by cancelling oil and gas leases for domestic exploration. Immediately after taking office, the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, cancelled 77 oil and gas leases in the state of Utah. One year later, the Administration suspended 61 more leases, this time in Montana. . . . Then, immediately after the Gulf oil spill began last April, the Administration imposed a six-month moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf even as it cancelled energy exploration that was set to take place thousands of miles away in the Arctic Ocean. Two federal courts on three separate occasions have declared the moratorium in the Gulf unjust. The Administration has ignored them. It’s kept the ban in place despite these rulings, forcing the drillers who’ve been affected by it to relocate their rigs — and the thousands of good-paying jobs they supported — to other parts of the world. So if you’re wondering where the jobs are, a good place to start is the Administration’s efforts to block American energy exploration.”

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats aren’t helping either. They’re pushing for a “minivan tax,” a $40 billion tax hike on energy producers that would without a doubt be passed on to consumers. Their timing could hardly be worse: gas and oil prices are increasing, unemployment remains high, and budgets are tight for many Americans.

As Leader McConnell said, “Rather than squeezing the public and killing jobs with artificially higher prices, we should be looking for ways to increase domestic production even as we promote alternative sources of energy for the future. An all-of-the-above approach to energy production — and the jobs that come with it — of the kind Republicans have been advocating for years would capitalize on the abundant resources we already have right here at home while at the same time looking for alternative sources of energy and new technologies that will free us from our dependence on fossil fuels down the road.”

Related:

Rasmussen Reports: Consumer and Investor Confidence Down to Lowest Levels of 2011

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