Who hates high gas prices?

By Victor Davis Hanson
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/
April 30, 2011

Are high gas prices a good thing?

It's not as dumb a question as it sounds. Examine a few revealing past remarks from President Obama and the Cabinet officials who are now in charge of the nation's energy use and oil leases on federal lands. Then decide whether the current soaring gas prices are supposed to be good or bad.

In 2008, then-Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar -- now Interior Department secretary in charge of the leasing of federal oil lands -- refused to vote for any new offshore drilling. In a Senate exchange with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Salazar objected to allowing any drilling on America's outer continental shelf -- even if gas prices reached $10 a gallon. We can now see why the president appointed Salazar, inasmuch as Obama recently promised the Brazilians that he'd buy their newfound offshore oil -- while prohibiting similar such exploration at home.

From 2007 to 2008, Steven Chu, now Energy secretary, weighed in frequently on global warming and the desirable price of traditional energy. At one point, Chu asserted, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

During the 2008 campaign, Obama himself said: "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." The candidate elaborated on the envisioned role of his administration in ensuring such high prices: "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them."

As for consumers' plight in paying soaring gas prices, the president has sounded ambivalent. He recently told a questioner, "If you're complaining about the price of gas and you're only getting eight miles a gallon, you know, you might want to think about a trade-in." Few large passenger vehicles today get only eight miles a gallon, and many squeezed Americans in recessionary times cannot so breezily think of "a trade-in"

In 2008, Obama addressed consumer fears about climbing gas prices: "But we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could actually save just as much."

Note again the fantasy. New-generation spark plugs and computerized ignition usually ensure 75,000-100,000 miles without a "tune-up." There is no evidence that Americans' tires are chronically under-inflated, or if they were, that such negligence would waste more gasoline than all that could be recovered from new offshore oil drilling.

What explains the weird rhetoric from Obama and his administration? First, not long ago they considered high energy prices as not that bad. If you believe in man-made global warming, then the less coal, gas or oil that Americans use, the better for the planet.

Second, a president who believes that modern cars get eight miles per gallon or need frequent tune-ups, and that proper tire inflation can substitute for drilling oil, has never run a business that hinged on having moderately priced gas to power a truck, tractor or car fleet.

In fact, most in the administration came to Washington from either academia or prior state and federal government employment, where policy is theoretical, without grounding in real experience.

Now the global economy is recovering and energy use is climbing, as the US dollar sinks. The oil-rich Mideast is in chaos. More than 2 billion people in India and China are desperate for imported oil. The result is that US gas prices are astronomical, and a furious public is starting to demand relief from the administration.

Its answer? Simple: Since re-election looms, the administration now insists that high energy prices are no longer good, but suddenly bad. And the evil oil companies are mostly to blame!

author@victorhanson.com