Too bad, President Barack Obama is only offering the former. He announced today that he would make it easier to drill for oil on public lands, particularly in Alaska, a sop to both his GOP critics and selfish drivers who refuse to alter their own habits to address falling supply.
There are a lot of reasons that U.S. gas prices are high — Middle East instability, demand that has been growing without thought of supply, greed in the executive suites, unnecessary federal subsidies and, yes, federal and state regulations.
Some of these causes need to be addressed and can be — reducing demand by changing our driving habits and land-use patterns is imperative and should top the list along with finding alternative fuel sources.
Giving in to the drill-baby-drill crowd, however, is not something that makes sense on any level — the supply would be a short-term boost that would do little for several years, which is both useless in terms of prices at the pump and counterproductive as a long-term strategy.
That hasn’t stopped some environmental groups from signing on — even though, you know they would screaming bloody murder had this been ordered by the Bush administration.
The reality is this would have been bad policy under Bush and it is bad policy under Obama.
Hank Kalet 