Friday, March 02, 2012

2012 - o'cap'n tax: Why Does the White House Want to Keep Gas Prices High? (Heritage.org) + videos

“Somehow,” Chu said, “we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” ← (Sep08) - (3Mar12) →  "Gasoline in Europe is consistently above $8 a gallon, so the administration still has a ways to go, but it is making a lot of progress." (source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/gas-price-perfidy_633143.html)
← Peggy, upon o'cap'n taxes' election: "It was the most memorable time of my life, I...it was a touching moment because I never thought this day would ever happen.  I won't have to work out how to put gas in my car, I won't have work out how to pay my mortgage.  If I help him, he's gonna help me." (audio quote source: Best Day of My Life)
From: The Heritage Foundation  Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 Subject: Why Does the White House Want to Keep Gas Prices High? ( related: http://radio.foxnews.com )
video source: http://youtu.be/ma1gwZYw1cY

Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Feb 23, 2012
http://www.foundry.org/gasprices | During a speech on gas prices the President tried to dodge responsibility for the pain Americans are feeling at the pump.  But the President and his Administration have repeatedly stated that they want higher energy prices.  They want to use the pressure of higher energy costs as an excuse to force their green energy boondoggle on Americans.
video source: http://youtu.be/qKdScVerrBU

Uploaded by donsmithshow on Apr 21, 2011
In 2006 the Democrats and the media screamed bloody murder over the high price of gas. When Barack Obama was inaugurated, the average gas price was $1.87 a gallon. Now that the price has more than doubled, what are the Democrats and the administration saying now? If you guessed that high gas prices under Obama are somehow a good thing, give yourself a pat on the back. The liberal mindset is always an amazing thing to behold.
    With the national average of gas prices hitting $3.65 a gallon, nearing $6 in some parts of the country, and poised to head even higher, America's families are wondering when the bleeding at the pump will stop.  But for Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu, those steep prices aren't even a concern.  In fact, he says his goal is not to get the price of gasoline to go down.
[see: Politico article at the bottom of this message. - rfh]
     Chu delivered those stunning remarks in testimony before Congress yesterday.  When Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) asked Chu whether it's his "overall goal to get our price" of gasoline lower, Chu said, "No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy."
     As shocking as his remarks are, they shouldn't come as a surprise.  Chu has a long record of advocating for higher gas prices.  In 2008, he stated, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."  Last March, he reiterated his point in an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, noting that his focus is to ease the pain felt by his energy policies by forcing automakers to make more fuel-efficient automobiles.  "What I'm doing since I became Secretary of Energy has been quite clear.  What I have been doing is developing methods to take the pain out of high gas prices."
     One of those methods is dumping taxpayer dollars into alternative energy projects like the Solyndra solar plant.  Another is subsidizing the purchase of high-cost electric cars like the Chevy Volt to the tune of $7,500 per car (which the White House wants to increase to $10,000.)  In both cases, those methods aren't working.  Solyndra went bankrupt because its product couldn't bear the weight of market pressures, and Chevy Volts aren't selling, even with taxpayer-funded rebates.  What's the president's next plan?  Harvesting "a bunch of algae" as a replacement for oil.
     Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is seemingly doing everything it can to make paying for energy even more painful by refusing to open access to the country's oil and gas reserves and blocking new projects that would lead to the development of more energy in America.  Case in point: the president's decision to say "no" to the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would have delivered hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from Canada to Texas refineries, while bringing thousands of jobs along with it.
     Sensing impending political fallout from the high cost of gas, President Obama last week spoke on the subject and attempted to deflect blame for the pain.  He said that there is no quick fix to high gas prices and the nation cannot drill its way out of the problem, but as Heritage's Nicolas Loris writes, the president ignored reality and dished out a series of half-truths.  Among them, the president claimed oil production is its highest in eight years, that increasing oil production takes too long, and that oil is not enough.  Loris writes that while production is up on private lands, unrealized production on federal lands and offshore could have yielded even more output, increasing supply and driving down costs.  If the president had said "yes" to Keystone, oil could have reach the market quickly.  And as for the president's push for alternative energy, those sources simply cannot stand the test of the market.
     There are steps the president and Congress can and should take today to bring down the cost of energy.  Namely, end the de facto moratorium on drilling, open offshore areas that are off-limits to drilling, place a 270-day limit on environmental reviews for energy projects on federal lands, remove regulatory delays, and approve Keystone.
     As Loris writes, "The market would respond if Congress and the Obama Administration allowed it to work."  But Secretary Chu and the Obama Administration are evidently not interested in market-based reforms that bring down the cost of energy.  Instead, they're bent on keeping energy costs high in order to placate the environmental left.  And now Americans are paying the price.
Uploaded by ngingrich
 video source: http://youtu.be/F6-E-Gu1Sz0
Chu: DOE working to wean U.S. off oil
By: Alex Guillen, Politico.com, February 28, 2012
article source: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=E829981A-B775-4296-9648-9F75F373643F
DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu said. | AP Photo

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the testimony of Energy Secretary Steven Chu.  He did not say that the Energy Department isn't working to lower gasoline prices directly.   Rather, when Rep. Alan Nunnelee asked Chu whether the department's "overall goal" is to "get our price ..," Chu interrupted him and said: "No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy," adding that the administration's policies will "help the American economy and the American consumers."
     The Energy Department is working to decrease U.S. dependence on oil, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.
     DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu told House appropriators during a hearing on DOE's budget.
     But Americans need relief now, Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) said - not high gasoline prices that could eventually push them to alternatives.
     "I can't look at motivations.  I have to look at results.  And under this administration, the price of gasoline has doubled," Nunnelee told Chu.
     "The people of north Mississippi can't be here, so I have to be here and be their voice for them," Nunnelee added. "I have to tell you that $8-a-gallon gasoline makes them afraid.  It's a cruel tax on the people of north Mississippi as they try to go back and forth to work.  It's a cloud hanging over economic development and job creation."
     Chu expressed sympathy but said his department is working to lower energy prices in the long term.  "We agree there is great suffering when the price of gasoline increases in the United States, and so we are very concerned about this," said Chu, speaking to the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee. "As I have repeatedly said, in the Department of Energy, what we're trying to do is diversify our energy supply for transportation so that we have cost-effective means."
     Chu specifically cited a reported breakthrough announced Monday by Envia Systems, which received funding from DOE's ARPA-E, that could help slash the price of electric vehicle batteries.
     He also touted natural gas as "great" and said DOE is researching how to reduce the cost of compressed natural gas tanks for vehicles.
     "High gasoline prices will make research into such alternatives more urgent," Chu said.
     "But is the overall goal to get our price ..", asked Nunnelee, who didn' finish the sentence.
     "No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy," Chu replied.
     He added: "We think that if you consider all these policies, including energy efficiency, you know, we think that we can go a lot, a long way to becoming less dependent on oil and [diversifying] our supply and we'll help the American economy and the American consumers."
     Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - as some congressional Democrats have advocated - is on the table but may not fit this situation, Chu added.
     "Remember that the fundamental reason why we have an SPR is to deal with an interruption in supply," he told reporters after the hearing. "What happened in Libya was an interruption in supply.  We're very concerned about what's happening in Iran, and so we're working with the [International Energy Agency].  We're also looking very closely at all these concerns."
     A DOE spokeswoman later clarified that the department is working with the IEA on monitoring global oil supply and prices, not on a specific release from the reserve.
     After this story appeared, the Energy Department issued the following response:  "This report is false.  In the hearing Tuesday, the secretary repeatedly reiterated his concern about the impact that increased prices at the pump are having on families, and that we continue to do all we can to provide relief.  That said there are no quick fixes, which is why this administration has taken steps to continue to expand production, dramatically increase the efficiency of the vehicles we drive and invest in alternate fuels - all with an ultimate goal of reducing our reliance on foreign oil and protecting American families from the ups and downs of the international oil market."
Copyright 2012 POLITICO LLC
Published March 01, 2012 | Your World Cavuto | Neil Cavuto  ( related: http://radio.foxnews.com )
Special Guests: Newt Gingrich, presidential candidate
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/2012/03/02/gingrich-secretary-chu-should-be-fired
This is a rush transcript from "Your World," March 1, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the overall goal to get our price...
STEVEN CHU, U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY: No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy and to decrease our dependency on oil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF "YOUR WORLD":  Well, apparently, we were not the only ones who noticed Energy Secretary Steven Chu did not seem all that worked up over those skyrocketing gas prices. So did Newt Gingrich when he specifically heard this.
CAVUTO: The speaker heard that and said this is how the president should respond.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If he's really serious about helping the American people, having seen yesterday's testimony, he will fire Secretary Chu.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAVUTO: Well, the energy secretary isn't here, but Newt is, and he is not happy.
Welcome, everyone. I'm Neil Cavuto.
And Fox on top of an embattled Obama Cabinet official, not only being called out, but increasingly being told to just get out, and all of this in the face of gas prices that continue to ratchet up. Make it 23 days in a row now.
Newt Gingrich says enough is enough; it's one thing for the administration to say no to more drilling in the face of these high prices, but to have an energy secretary of the United States all but welcoming these high prices?
The former speaker now joining us from Macon, Georgia.
Mr. Speaker, good to have you.
GINGRICH: Well, it's great to be with you, Neil.
And, frankly, the goal of the United States ought to be to have energy independence by developing federal lands and developing offshore and accelerating our access to energy. We've done it with natural gas, where we now have such a large production, that prices are crashing.
There's no reason we can't do it with oil. The president's just plain wrong about this. His speech today in New Hampshire is just plain flat-out wrong. But to have a secretary of anti-energy is, really, pretty absurd.
Secretary Steven Chu ought to be fired. He said openly a couple of years ago his goal was to get us to a European price level. Someone in Nashville, Tennessee, told me that they now have figured out that Obama had a 9-9-9 plan, like Herman Cain, except Obama's was $9.99 a gallon.
And if you look at what Chu has said and you look at his arrogance again yesterday, he's basically saying to the American people, I will punish you until you have to buy the kind of car I want you to be in, and I don't frankly care how much pain you're in.
Now, I don't think you need a secretary of energy to do that. I think he can go back to being a scientist at Livermore, and let's try to find somebody who actually wants to help the American people by getting us back to energy independence.
CAVUTO: Speaker, the secretary gives himself an A-minus for his performance thus far in this gas run-up.
What do you think?
GINGRICH: Well, I think look what he's grading himself against. He wants to punish the American people with higher prices. He's succeeding. He wants to waste a lot money on things like Solyndra. He's succeeding.
CAVUTO: All right, we're losing that connection. But, hopefully, we will...
GINGRICH: Can you hear me now?
CAVUTO: Yes, I can. Go ahead, Newt.
GINGRICH: OK.
I was saying this is a guy who threw away a half a billion dollars on Solyndra. I think that he doesn't understand what we're doing. And he doesn't -- he doesn't share the values of the American people.
CAVUTO: Do you get a sense, Speaker, that the administration up to now -- maybe things are changing because now the president is open to opening the southern part of lands affected in his Keystone plan. Some interpret that as him blinking. And others say it's -- Speaker Boehner has said that he?s not going far enough -- but that he is getting alarmed now?
GINGRICH: Oh, I think he is.
Look, everywhere I have been -- I have been, in the last two weeks, in Oklahoma, California, Washington State, Tennessee, here in Georgia. Everywhere I go; people are being hurt directly by the price of gasoline. And what that threatens to do is start hurting the economy, both indirectly, because the price of everything goes up, because every truck that deliveries groceries has to pay more, and directly, because people simply give up all of their discretionary money to pay for gasoline.
And I think that the president?s political advisers, I'm sure, are telling him that if he doesn't find some way to dance around this, that it is going to eat away -- eat -- his reelection chances.
I've got a plan for $2.50 a gallon. People can see it at Newt.org. There's a 30-minute speech that outlines it that we're putting on TV in different markets as rapidly as we can raise the money. And it?s based on very serious ideas. I wrote a book called Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less back in 2008. Callista and I made a movie called "We Have the Power" outlining all of our options. And the president's just not being candid. He has this line where he says, I have approved pipelines to Canada.
Sure, but he hasn't approved the pipeline that matters. He suggested that drilling is up. Well, of course it is. It?s up on private land in North Dakota. It's down everywhere that Barack Obama could get it down.
And even in North Dakota, his U.S. attorney filed a law against the oil industry. So, this is a very anti-American-energy president, who has appointed a very anti-American-energy secretary.
CAVUTO: Do you think -- in his latest budget plan, Speaker, that he wants to take all the tax breaks away for the oil companies, and swap a lot of them to promising -- what he calls promising green technologies. Would you be for just wiping them all out, all the tax breaks, all the subsidies?
GINGRICH: No.
Look, I'm not in favor of raising taxes. And if you wipe them out, you're raising taxes. I'm in favor in fact of 100 percent expensing for all new equipment for everybody, for farmers, for factories, you name it, so they can write it off in one year. I'm in favor of a massive reinvestment in American manufacturing and a reinvestment in American energy.
That's why I'm also in favor of zero capital gains as a tax rate. But I'm -- Neil, I?m very much outside the Washington establishment model. I think the key for the American people is to shrink the government to fit the revenue coming in, not to raise taxes and try to catch up with Obama?s government.
And I think that just requires a level of change that the Washington establishment finds very frightening.
CAVUTO: Do you -- I know you're in Georgia right now, Speaker, your home base, where your career really took off. Most expect you will win Georgia -- and I am sure you have said as much, that you hope to win Georgia -- but that there would be a Southern strategy here that might include pickups in Tennessee. You're off the ballot in Virginia.
But is that really what you are looking at here, that pick up Georgia, maybe take Tennessee, have a shot at Oklahoma? What is -- what are you building here?
GINGRICH: Well, I think we?re going to be in Ohio again on Saturday. We think that we have a real shot in Oklahoma and Tennessee at doing well.
We have a real shot in Ohio. We have an effort under way in Washington State. And we have an effort under way in Idaho and Alaska. And we have -- we think there are some folks in Massachusetts who are not all that happy with Romney, and under proportional representation, there may be some votes.
Our goal -- and then North Dakota, frankly, which I've talked about a lot, is a very exciting possibility. Our goal is to continue developing big solutions like $2.50 gallon gasoline, combined with American energy independence, so no American president ever again bows to a Saudi king.
And I think, if we continue to develop big ideas and big solutions, for the third time, I will be back in the lead. It may take another five or six weeks, but there?s no reason not to believe it?s possible, because my two competitors, my two primary competitors do not have large ideas. They basically are very traditional politicians.
CAVUTO: So, when we were covering the Arizona and Michigan primaries, Speaker, on Fox Business -- I know you were busy, but I'm sure that was your default channel in watching the coverage -- we had one of Rick Santorum's supporter on who said the pressure will build on Newt Gingrich to sort of come to us. You are not at that point. It doesn't appear like he's at the point to jump to you. So, if I am Mitt Romney, aren't I enjoying this?
GINGRICH: Well, you would be if you could get a majority somewhere.
Romney's problem is he can't close the sale. He has outspent of rest of us probably by 10-1, and he just can't close the sale.
CAVUTO: OK. Speaker, great having you. Thank you very, very much.
GINGRICH: Good talking to you.
CAVUTO: Newt Gingrich.
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