The Energy Information Agency - a government agency - produced a chart showing the escalation of gas prices since Barack Obama became President. It clearly shows - using the government's own numbers - the steady rise in prices from January 2009 to present day.
Like everyone else on the conservative side, I have a list of concerns I check off mentally as I listen to those contemplating a run for President. One candidate that may meet most of my preferences is former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Or, he may have lost my support Monday night during an interview on FOX.
Pawlenty was asked about his thoughts on fixing the high price of gas and our energy production. Immediately out of his mouth came the thought that we could "consider" releasing crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a quick action. I was irritated, to say the least, and tweeted that he just lost my support as he contemplates entering the GOP primary.
Pawlenty is smarter than that and it is not acceptable for any more pandering to either side on energy policy in this country. We have a sitting president hell bent to destroy the oil and gas drilling industry for strictly ideological reasons - mostly to win the next election - and his supporters are the first to demand releasing crude stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a quick fix to escalating prices at the pump. For Pawlenty to even suggest that action as a possible part of a solution to the problem is unacceptable.
It doesn't work. It has never worked and won't work this time either. We do not have a supply problem at this point.
His people monitoring Twitter responded to me with a link to a write-up on an interview Pawlenty conducted earlier in the day.
“This is a president who has sat on his hands as it relates to drilling,” Pawlenty told Chicago’s "Don Wade & Roma" radio show. “You know, we've got a country that's got some enormous energy assets that are not being exploited or leveraged to the benefit of our country and to our people.”
Pawlenty said he supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and offshore in “ways and places that are appropriate.” And the former Minnesota governor lashed out at the Democratic Party as a whole, which he called “beholden” to “militant or unreasonable environmentalists.”
That's fine. By the way, I wonder what "ways and places that are appropriate" means. Pawlenty, or any other GOP candidate, cannot wobble and even hint at sounding like a Democrat. And by Democrat, I mean a clueless person on the subject of energy production.
There are solutions to the rise in energy costs. Offshore oil and gas drilling in our own country is at the top of the list for the foreseeable future. The message delivered must be clear and strong. No more pandering to Democrats and nonsensical quick fix fantasies.
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