White House Wants to Keep Gas Prices High
With the national average of gas prices hitting $3.65 a gallon, nearing $6 in some parts of the country, and poised to head even higher, America's families are wondering when the bleeding at the pump will stop. But for Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu, those steep prices aren't even a concern. In fact, he says his goal is not to get the price of gasoline to go down.
Chu delivered those stunning remarks in testimony before Congress yesterday. When Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) asked Chu whether it's his "overall goal to get our price" of gasoline lower, Chu said, "No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy."
As shocking as his remarks are, they shouldn't come as a surprise. Chu has a long record of advocating for higher gas prices. In 2008, he stated, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." Last March, he reiterated his point in an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, noting that his focus is to ease the pain felt by his energy policies by forcing automakers to make more fuel-efficient automobiles. "What I'm doing since I became Secretary of Energy has been quite clear. What I have been doing is developing methods to take the pain out of high gas prices."
One of those methods is dumping taxpayer dollars into alternative energy projects like the Solyndra solar plant. Another is subsidizing the purchase of high-cost electric cars like the Chevy Volt to the tune of $7,500 per car (which the White House wants to increase to $10,000). In both cases, those methods aren't working. Solyndra went bankrupt because its product couldn't bear the weight of market pressures, and Chevy Volts aren't selling, even with taxpayer-funded rebates. What's the president's next plan? Harvesting "a bunch of algae" as a replacement for oil.
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/29/morning-bell-white-house-wants-to-keep-gas-prices-high/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
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