Remember The Bush / Cheney Energy Plan of 2000 ????

[FORD]

Another year of Chimpy and it might actually get that high

[Guitar Shark]

OK, I agree that it's possible that MaddVibe didn't get it. But EMA definitely did...

What happened to your sense of humor? All I get is a rolleyes? Sad times.

[Nickdfresh]

A blast from the past...


GOP lawmakers blame Clinton administration for high prices at the pump

June 23, 2000
Web posted at: 4:34 PM EDT (2034 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Republicans called Friday on the Environmental Protection Agency to lift cleaner fuel requirements in places hit hardest with rising gasoline prices and charged that the Clinton administration has long neglected to implement a national energy policy.
GOP lawmakers blame Clinton administration for high prices at the pump

House Democrats, meanwhile, accused their GOP colleagues of playing a "fast and furious blame game" with hopes of taking full political advantage of the rising prices this election year.

Gas prices have soared this week to a national average of $1.64 a gallon, and to well over $2 a gallon in the Chicago and Milwaukee area, setting off a frenzy of finger-pointing involving the Clinton administration, Congress, oil companies and refineries, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Oil industry experts cite numerous possible culprits, including recent increases in the price of crude oil as well as the EPA-mandated sale of reformulated gasoline designed to cut back on smoggy skies -- a regulation five years in the making.

"The EPA doesn't know the economic consequences of its decisions," charged Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin. "They made a foolish, wrong mistake and our consumers are paying for it."

On June 1, gasoline companies were required by federal regulations to begin selling a cleaner-burning fuel, estimated to cost between five and eight cents per gallon. Midwestern lawmakers have demanded that EPA Administrator Carol Browner waive the regulations, at least until prices begin dropping.

"Now is the time for Carol Browner and EPA to grant the waiver," Sensenbrenner said.

The Clinton administration has insisted that the reformulated gasoline is not the cause of the problem, and has mounted an aggressive Federal Trade Commission inquiry into the possibility of price-gouging by the oil industry.

The inquiry is expected to examine, among other things, wholesale and retail price fluctuations and whether they indicate any collusion among oil companies, refiners and wholesale and retail marketers. The FTC is not expected to issue its report on the investigation until late July, which Republicans say is too late.

"Instead of taking action to bring down gas prices dramatically before the Fourth of July holiday, (Vice President Al) Gore, Browner and President Clinton are pointing fingers to blame everyone, but not themselves, for busting the summer vacation budgets of millions of Americans," said Sensenbrenner.
Bush, Gore point fingers on campaign trail

Gore, the presumptive presidential nominee, has been engaged in his own war of words on higher gas prices with Republican White House hopeful George W. Bush. Gore has alluded to Bush's background in the oil industry, while suggesting that oil companies were indeed involved in price-gouging.

"You know the old song, 'Whose side are you on?"' Gore said during a campaign stop in Minnesota on Thursday. "I am now, as I have always been, on the side of consumers."

Bush responded Friday that the vice president was trying to pin the blame for high gas prices on him "because I am from Texas."

"This is an attempt to try and shift the blame, Bush said during a campaign stop in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The Texas governor, who spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s in the oil business, read a passage from Gore's 1992 book "Earth in the Balance" that calls for raising gas taxes as a means to reduce U.S. dependence on fossil fuels.

"He writes in a book that he thinks we ought to have higher fuel prices, and now that he's running for president and there's higher fuel prices, he seems to be changing his tune," Bush told reporters.
House Dems fire back

Congressional Democrats on Friday defended the White House and charged that Republicans are more interested in exploiting the issue during an election year than reaching agreement on how to reduce prices.

"People are looking to Congress for leadership and constructive action. Instead, the Republicans in Congress have served up inaction in a fast and furious blame game," House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Missouri, said Friday.

And Rep. David Bonior, D-Michigan, has asked the FTC to speed up its probe into the recent spike in Midwest gas prices. Bonior said as gas prices have gone up, so have the profits of major oil companies -- more than 300 percent in the first quarter of this year.

"I understand that NASA reported that there's new evidence of water on Mars," Bonior told reporters. "I'm here to report that we still don't have any evidence of affordable gasoline in Michigan."
GOP calls for national energy policy discussion

On Thursday, President Clinton expressed confidence that the FTC investigation would find an explanation.

"There is no economic explanation I can think of, particularly for the run-up in prices in the Midwest," Clinton told reporters outside the White House. He also expressing concern that higher gas prices could keep the U.S. economy from running smoothly.

Clinton suggested that crude oil prices ideally should be "somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 to $25 a barrel."

OPEC, which dominates world supplies, cut production last year to force the price up after it plummeted to nearly $10 a barrel in late 1998. In March, prices hit a 10-year-high of $34 per barrel.

The cartel decided Wednesday to increase output moderately for the second time in three months, but the move is not expected to translate into lower prices at U.S. pumps for at least another six weeks. In the meantime, Clinton called on Congress to pass his proposals to help to encourage more stripper-well production, reauthorize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, approve research funds for alternative energy programs.

While hinting that the EPA -- not the oil industry -- was to blame for gas hikes, House Republicans also expressed interest in developing alternative fuel programs.

"Come to the table, and let's talk about a National Energy Policy," Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Oklahoma, said Friday.

"I think that we need to determine what role natural gas can play. ... We need to talk about the role of solar energy, other conservation measures," he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[EAT MY ASSHOLE]

Lunge! I got you a gig playing The Garden! That's right! The Garden! No, not Madison Square Garden, my backyard garden!

Got a DAMN good rate, but don;t forget that we agreed to an unconventional percentage to me as your manager of 179.99% of all income! I'm rich!!! Filthy stinking rich!!! And you thought Malcolm McLaren and Frank Barsalona ripped off their clients! HA!!!!

It's your own fault - you're the idiot who signed the dotted line!!!

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh




OPEC, which dominates world supplies, cut production last year to force the price up after it plummeted to nearly $10 a barrel in late 1998. In March, prices hit a 10-year-high of $34 per barrel.

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Those were the days, eh Republisheep?

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
OK, I agree that it's possible that MaddVibe didn't get it. But EMA definitely did...

What happened to your sense of humor? All I get is a rolleyes? Sad times.

:D