A letter to the editorin Wednesday’s Journal (Pain at the gas pump can be changed) blames President Obama for high gasoline prices.
It begins by claiming that gas cost $1.75 a gallon when Pres. Obama took office, implying that the energy policies of the previous administration achieved these lower prices. In fact, an economic collapse caused these lower prices. The prior administration ended with a brutal recession, wiping out trillions in wealth. Businesses closed and people lost jobs, resulting in less money to spend on gasoline, causing the price per gallon to fall. Therefore, the cheaper gas prices at the end of the prior administration were caused by an economic disaster and not energy policies.
One of the reasons that the price of gas has gone up recently is that demand has increased. The stock market has recovered, the auto industry is out of bankruptcy and making cars, the housing market is recovering and more people are working and driving and buying gas. This increased demand results in higher prices.
This brings us to the false claim that increased domestic drilling is going to result in cheaper pump prices. This has not proven to be true. In fact, at the present time, there is more domestic drilling than during the prior administration. There’s an oil boom going on next door in North Dakota. This drilling boom is motivated by pump higher prices, which make drilling in difficult places profitable. Most of our remaining domestic reserves are expensive to develop. The days when a hillbilly can fire his rifle into the ground and watch crude come bubbling up are over. Reserves are in smaller pools, absorbed into shale, mixed with sand. Oil is under oceans or in environmentally sensitive areas (Remember the Deep Water Horizon). All these factors make it unec! onomical to drill unless prices are high enough to guarantee a profit.
The editorial also ignores that oil prices are set in the world market. World markets are increasingly driven by demand in China, India, and Brazil. The truth is that all of our domestic oil amounts to only a modest fraction of the global reserves. We can’t drill enough domestic oil to control global market prices.
Energy shortages are not a one-solution problem. We can reduce demand and lower prices through conservation and competition by developing alternative energy. We are a nation of smart, energetic people. We can find solutions if we stop fixating on drilling as the only answer.
In closing, one has to wonder why the Koch brothers and Texas oil men are contributing millions of dollars to Romney’s campaign and almost nothing to the president’s. Could it be that more drilling will give them more oil to sell at high prices? Anyone who thinks it’s because the oil men want to sell cheaper gasoline, needs to think again.
Cynthia Jaksa
International Falls, MN
