70% Expect $4-A-Gallon Gas by July – 49% clueless to Obama connection

January 21, 2011 07:18


Nearly nine-out-of-10 Americans say they are paying more for gas than they were last summer and expect to pay even more six months from now. Most say $4-a-gallon gas is likely by July 1. – Rasmussen

By Michael Whipple, Editor usACTIONnews.com

The Obama administration seems to be doing everything it can to increase gas prices along with other energy prices. The administration is stalling oil drilling permits, increasing restrictions on oil and gas exploration on federal lands and recently the EPA even revoked a coal mining permit that had been granted four years ago.

The other big problem being created by the administration is the debt. As the federal reserve creates more money out of thin air our dollar value declines. That raises the price of a barrel of oil relative to dollars along with gold and other commodities.

Obama’s Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu said “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September 2008. At that time European gas prices were $7 to $9 a gallon. Sounds like we have the wrong people running the energy department.

The anti automobile ideology is further demonstrated by Department of Transportation Secretary LaHood’s remarks from a previous story:

On May 21, LaHood told reporters at the National Press Club that his department has formed an Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
He said the partnership was designed to “coerce” people out of their cars. When asked to respond to the complaint that the partnership would intrude in people’s lives, he replied, “About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people’s lives. So have at it.” [emphasis added]

Here are a few more ways Obama is forcing up gas prices from The Heritage Foundation:

All of these policies raise gas prices at the pump by either: 1) decreasing the availability of domestic energy supplies, or 2) increasing regulatory costs on gasoline production.

As a result federal leasing of oil and gas exploration in the western United States has dropped significantly in the past two years. According to data compiled by the Western Energy Alliance:

• Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming issued 531 leases in fiscal year (FY) 2010, a 79 percent drop from the 2,499 leases issued in FY2005;
• Since FY 2005, BLM has offered 60 percent fewer parcels and 70 percent fewer acres;
• Leasing revenue dropped 46 percent, from $189.6 million in FY 2005 to $101.6 million in FY 2010;
• Since 1984, total leases in effect in the West declined 52 percent and acreage declined 61 percent;
• BLM sold 75 percent fewer acres in FY 2010 than it did in FY 2005;
• In the first two years of the Obama Administration, DOI issued 76 percent fewer acres than the first two years of the Clinton Administration and 71 percent fewer acres than the first two years of the Bush Administration; and
• Revenue from onshore federal royalties, rents, and bonuses declined from $4.2 billion to $2.8 billion between 2008 and 2010, a 33 percent decrease.

And it isn’t just gasoline prices. Click here to see the not famous enough video of Obama admitting his plan will make electricity rates skyrocket.

West Virginia has had to sue the EPA over coal killing regulations.  In speaking of the lawsuit Gov. Manchin said “Over the past year and a half, we have been fighting President Obama’s administration’s attempts to destroy our coal industry and way of life in West Virginia”. He went on to say that the EPA has “usurped the authority of the state and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to oversee and regulate important aspects of our environment, like water quality,” and “These actions by U.S. EPA are threatening not only to end surface coal mining in West Virginia but to affect all forms of mining in the state.”

A report put out by by the monority on the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works entitled EPA’S ANTI-INDUSTRIAL POLICY: “THREATENING JOBS AND AMERICA’S MANUFACTURING BASE” stated that:

“The evidence is clear: these rules threaten the economic viability of America’s manufacturing base and hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs. Moreover, these rules will bring little, if any, public health or environmental benefits. As Americans suffer through a jobless recovery, EPA is pursuing policies that exacerbate our economic problems and do not improve the environment.”

Further on it points out that by the EPA’s own estimate these rules will have an environmental effect so minuscule as to be immeasurable.

‘One might expect that these costs would at least be offset with meaningful environmental benefits. Yet EPA’s own analysis shows that’s not the case. In estimating the impacts on global temperatures of the agency’s mobile source rule, EPA concluded:

“Based on the reanalysis the results for projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations are estimated to be reduced by an average of 2.9 ppm (previously 3.0 ppm), global mean temperature is estimated to be reduced by 0.006 to 0.0015 °C by 2100.”’ [emphasis added]

And yet these rules and regulations would kill tens of thousands of jobs in construction, steel plants, coal industry, oil production, gasoline refineries. It would cause the loss of coal plants, cement plants, and has already cost tens of thousands of jobs in the oil industry on the gulf coast. An ally of the EPA action, The Sierra Club, brags that it has stopped 100 new coal plants since 2001. “Stopping one hundred coal plants is a huge milestone in our fight to end global warming, but the coal industry is still pushing forward with plans for dozens of new plants in places, like Michigan and Kansas, and pouring money into slick advertising campaigns and lobbying efforts,” said Nilles. “As we celebrate this amazing milestone, we must redouble our efforts to stop new plants and replace the existing coal plants with clean energy.” ~ Sierra Club press release. The Sierra Club is a powerful Washington lobbyist spending $1,580,000 on lobbying in the last three years according to OpenSecrets.org. Environmental groups as an industry have spent $14,746,646 on lobbying in 2010, $22,458,950 in 2009 and $17,953,057 in 2008 for a total in the last three years of over $55 MILLION!

All of this is being done without congressional approval. Obama is establishing his agenda by agency rules and regulations to bypass congress and the will of the people.

Rasmussen reports:

“The number of adults who expect gas prices to increase even more has reached its highest level since March of last year.  Eighty-seven percent (87%) say it is at least somewhat likely they will be paying more for gas in six months, including an overwhelming 75% who say it is Very Likely. Just seven percent (7%) do not expect to spend more for gas in six months’ time.

Seventy percent (70%) say it’s also at least somewhat likely that gas prices will rise above $4-a-gallon by July 1, with 40% who believe it is Very Likely.”

And yet 49% of the people approve of the job Obama is doing?? 29% strongly approve? There is a mental disconnect here. Obama and his allies in the press are doing a fantastic job alright but its at fooling most of the people most of the time.

Michael Whipple, Editor usACTIONnews.com



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