I have enjoyed making snarky comments about the gas prices and the complete failure of the democrat leadership to do anything about it.  Bad enough that prices have doubled since the democrats were elected, but now that they are historically high, they are paralyzed by the necessity to pander to their environmental base.

And make no mistake, that's what this is all about.  The democrats know the environmental lobby has a huge voice and they don't want to be seen as caving in to the pressures of the evil oil barons.

Some friends of mine and I have been having a spirited debate about this, and we all tend to agree that dependency on foreign oil is a problem.  But, I wonder how many people realize that the biggest importer of oil and petroleum to the US is not a bunch of greedy Arabs, it is Canada.  Not only that, but 40% of our oil imports come from non OPEC countries.  Canada and Mexico alone sell us about one third of our imports. 

Or that while we import 10 million barrels a day or so, we produce more then 5 Million domestically.

Heck if we could double our production, we would lower our dependency by about 50%.

So this is not about OPEC, and not about the middle east (since quite a few countries in OPEC are not in Asia), it is about speculators and supply and demand.  Economics.  It is a matter of increasing supply.

So why then wouldn't you want to explore a chance to add to our choices of supply?  Aside from pressure from eco nazis, one reason we stopped US based drilling was because it was so cheap to import it.

Well it isn't anymore, is it?  So why not open up some of the abandoned fields and look for more?

President Bush today opened the door to more off shore drilling, and congress should grow a pair of nads and tell the eco nazis to take a back seat to reality and get cracking.  Sure, we can continue to develop alternatives.  But in the mean time we need immediate solutions.

Order tossed for I-912 backers

The Washington Supreme Court has thrown out a judge’s order that forced backers of a anti-gasoline-tax initiative to report the online-air activities of two Seattle talk-show hosts as in-kind campaign contributions in 2005.

All nine justices agreed that the lower court ruling by Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham was incorrect on free-speech grounds.

They issued two separate decisions Thursday to explain their views in the case, which dealt with KVI Radio hosts John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur.

The backers of Initiative 912, who had sought unsuccessfully to overturn the gasoline-tax increases, now are considering whether to pursue a civil-rights claim for damages against the prosecutors in San Juan County, Seattle and other jurisdictions in the case.

“This is a vindication of free speech and freedom of the press, and a direct and clear repudiation of the use of Washington’s campaign finance laws to intimidate and harass media voices with which the government disagrees,” William Maurer, executive director of the Institute for Justice’s Washington Chapter, said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

To understand the fuss you have to go back to 2005, before I had even launched this blog.  This section sums it up fairly well.

San Juan County Prosecutor Randall Gaylord, who led efforts to treat the on-air commentary as in-kind political contributions, could not be reached for comment. But Gaylord said in a statement sent to news organizations that the Supreme Court altered the rules for talk-show hosts in campaigns by requiring a political committee to own the radio station before drawing the line between advocacy and campaigning.

The case dealt with the No New Gas Tax group’s Initiative 912, which was aimed at repealing the gasoline-tax portion of a transportation-financing package approved by the Legislature in 2005. Carlson and Wilbur both advocated strongly for the repeal, urging listeners to sign petitions and donate money.

The lawmakers on Capital Hill are frantic tio take the gas crisis and turn it to a partisan advantage.  President Bush speaks about our addiction to foreign oil, while the Politicians on the left accuse him of being cozy with big oil companies and everyone around them scream for an investigatoin into oil profits and price gouging.,

I am of two minds about the last item.  Living in a free market economy we have to deal with prices that inflate due to market speculations and demand.  It happens.  That said, I think there should be some scrutiny to ensure that the players are not greasing the process to their profit outrageously.

As for the big oil and republican conspiracies, I would say it's just a baseless aprtisan attack.  But it resonates with the people and the dems know it.

Bush though is on the track to the heart of the issue.  We are too dependent on foriegn oil and our habits are hurting us.

Bingo.  The era of cheap gas has spoiled us to the point we stopped caring.  When you adjust the gas prices to reflect inflation, we are only paying slightly more then we did historically.  And since we could afford it, no one really cared about SUV's versus hybrids.  We bought what we wanted.

I offer as proof the Democrats in the gas station stunt below; the Republicans at their Caucus, also below; and all politicians in general, as noted in this article. 

Lawmakers talk gas, drive away in SUVs

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Gas prices have gone above $3 a gallon again, another sign that America is addicted to oil, as President Bush puts it.

But America is in the denial phase of this addiction, as evidenced by the behavior of its lawmakers. They have proposed all kinds of solutions: taxes on oil companies, domestic oil drilling and releasing petroleum reserves. But they ignore the obvious: Americans drive too much in big, gas-guzzling vehicles.

Ann Coulter points out the inherent hypocrisy in the Democrat's wailing and gnashing of teeth over high gas prices. 

It's Hard Out Here For A Pump

By: Ann Coulter

I would be more interested in what the Democrats had to say about high gas prices if these were not the same people who refused to let us drill for oil in Alaska, imposed massive restrictions on building new refineries, and who shut down the development of nuclear power in this country decades ago.

But it's too much having to watch Democrats wail about the awful calamity to poor working families of having to pay high gas prices.

Imposing punitive taxation on gasoline to force people to ride bicycles has been one of the left's main policy goals for years.

For decades Democrats have been trying to raise the price of gasoline so that the working class will stop their infernal car-driving and start riding on buses where they belong, while liberals ride in Gulfstream jets.

The last time the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency was in 1993. Immediately after trying to put gays in the military and socialize all health care, Clinton's next order of business was to propose an energy tax on all fuels, including a 26-cent tax on gas. I think the bill was called "putting people first in line at the bus station."

Al Gore defended the gas tax, vowing that it was "absolutely not coming out" of the energy bill regardless of "how much trouble it causes the entire package." The important thing was to force Americans to stop their infernal car-driving, no matter how much it cost.

And mind you, this was before we knew Gore was clinically insane. Back then we thought he was just a double-talking stuffed shirt who seemed kind of gay.

Democrats in Congress promptly introduced an "energy bill" that would put an additional 25-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline to stop "global warming," an atmospheric phenomenon supposedly aggravated by frivolous human activities such as commerce, travel and food production. This is the Democratic Party. That's their program.