Bush/Cheney, A Pain In The Gas

Regular Gas has topped $4.00 a gallon! All of us are paying a “Bush premium” at the pump—we are the victims of bad policy, misplaced priorities and a misbegotten war:

1. For seven years, Bush's policies have utterly failed to protect our nation's energy security. The primary reason for our current high gas prices is that the Bush administration and its allies made no serious effort to end America's dependence on foreign oil. They blocked efforts to encourage conservation, improve fuel efficiency, and mandate the use of renewable energy sources.

2. The Bush-McCain war in Iraq caused most of the "global unrest" and unleashed the speculators that have driven up world oil prices. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz found that the Iraq war substantially increased crude oil prices, which in turn pushed up prices at the pump. Bush-McCain saber-rattling and threats of war against Iran and others raises additional fears of supply disruptions, prompting speculators to jack up prices.

3. Skyrocketing fuel prices shouldn't surprise anyone because big oil companies wrote the Bush energy policy. The same big oil companies that recently reported windfall profits participated in Vice President Cheney's 2001 task force that wrote the Bush Administration's energy plan. Despite a lawsuit, the proceedings of this task force have remained secret to this day. But it would be hugely nave to think that the oil companies didn't get exactly what they wanted.