Gas prices will stay high until U.S. stops dreaming and starts drilling

Remember when you were a kid and your mother told you to eat your brussels sprouts because "they're good for you." That's exactly the attitude we get today from President Obama, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar concerning high gas prices. This is no surprise, of course, because Obama clearly said during the 2008 presidential campaign that his environmental programs would cause energy prices to "necessarily skyrocket." And today, as millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet while gas prices reach and exceed $4 per gallon, Obama shrugs his shoulders and claims there's no "magic bullet" to restore reasonable energy costs, while telling a father with a family of 10 that he should buy a "hybrid minivan," which doesn't yet exist. But magic isn't required to make energy costs come down. The last time gas prices hit $4 per gallon was when President Bush was in office. Oil prices were at record highs of nearly $150 per barrel. But the day Bush signed an executive order allowing increased U.S. offshore oil and natural gas drilling, the price of oil plummeted and gas prices at the pump soon followed suit. Obama could do the same thing today with the stroke of a pen on an executive order, or by picking up the phone and calling Salazar and Chu. It is therefore vitally important for Americans to understand why Obama, Salazar and Chu won't act to bring energy prices down. They believe Americans must endure the pain of high gas prices in order to force us to stop using oil and instead use "clean" energy. To that end, Obama has sent billions of tax dollars to subsidize wind, solar, biomass and other energy, but his own Energy Information Agency projects that it will be two to three decades before such resources will be available in sufficient quantities to replace significant portions of energy generated using conventional fuels...more