Blame Obama for high gas prices says McCain ad

If there is anyone who is NOT responsible for high gasoline prices, it's Barack Obama.

That, however, didn't stop John McCain and his campaign from producing a television ad blaming Obama for $4.00 plus per gallon gasoline prices!

In the ad, when the question is asked, "Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?" voices chant, "Obama, Obama."

So much for McCain's promise to run a clean campaign.

McCain, pandering to his base, wants to allow the oil companies to commence drilling in areas long closed to their greedy corporate fingers.

But, as Matt Stoller of Open Left says: "If you drilled everything there is in the US tomorrow and oil started coming out of the ground tomorrow, gas prices would drop by about three cents."

If you want to lay blame, Mr. McCain, look to George W. Bush and your Republican Party.

From the beginning of his administration, Bush pushed to open the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for drilling. Eric Alterman in his book, The Book on Bush - How George W. (Mis) leads America, notes that "If development started today [2003-2004], oil wouldn't start flowing from the region for at least ten years, and production wouldn't reach full capacity until 2020 or later.

"Nonetheless both President Bush and Secretary Abraham have repeatedly attempted to justify the project, offering assurances that ANWR's oil reserves could help pry us from the grip of OPEC. Abraham wrote that the ANWR contained 'the equivalent of ten years of oil from the Persian Gulf.' Bush later claimed the reserve could produce 16 billion barrels of oil. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey, in its most current [2003-2004] and extensive assessment, says, 'Technically recoverable oil within the ANWR 1002 [the section Bush has proposed opening to drilling] is estimated to be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels, with a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels.'"

Thus, we could be pried "from the grip of OPEC" for only 18 to 36 months.

As Alterman notes, "Ultimately, ANWR is less about oil than about oil money, the $1.9 million poured into George W. Bush's [2000] presidential campaign by his supporters in the oil industry, supporters who will make more money and more donations if the ANWR is opened for business."

But here's the kicker. We've known for some time that increased gas mileage for vehicles traversing American roads would dramatically reduce our consumption of oil. Several years ago the National Research Council on automotive fuel efficiency reported that "automakers already have the technology to increase the fuel efficiency of SUVs to 25 to 30 miles per gallon and of standard cars to 40 miles per gallon."

The Bush administration paid little attention to that report, and "committed to raising SUV fuel efficiency standards by a mere 7 percent ... over the next few years ..."

As Alterman says, "This is a major lost opportunity." Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program says that,

"'If the vehicles on the road today averaged 40 miles per gallon, we would save more than 3 million barrels of oil a day, more than we currently import from the Persian Gulf.' [My emphasis]

'The degree of duplicity this administration has shown--in wanting to pillage the Alaskan wildlife for six months of oil but turning its back on programs that would save ten times as much oil by requiring our vehicles to go further on a gallon of gas--is unparalleled.'"

Alterman draws the circle tighter. Instead of the Bush administration providing tax breaks to Americans who choose to drive smaller and more efficient cars, the Bushites did just the opposite. As 2004 approached, "Bush's newest round of tax cuts would allow small business owners and the self-employed to take a special deduction for the purchase of extra-large sport utility vehicles. This 'Hummerdinger of a tax loophole,' in the phrase of Al Kamen of the Washington Post, would allow a doctor or an accountant to deduct $87,000 of the value of the purchase of a $102,000 Hummer H1."


No, Mr. McCain, Senator Obama is not responsible for the current high gas prices. Those most responsible include your friend in the White House and the Republican Party to which you both belong!

[One of the best, most extensively researched and thorough portrayals of the first years of the decadent and dangerous Bush administration is, The Book on Bush - How George W. (Mis) leads America," by Eric Alterman and Mark Green, 2004, Viking Penquin, New York, New York. The information and quotations above are from pages 21-23.]