The Issue: Mixed messages from the Obama administration about America’s growing energy crisis.
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The president keeps talking a good game about a comprehensive solution to our energy problem, but he continues to leave out plans for any real expansion of nuclear productivity or increase in drilling (“Pain-at-the-Pump Policies,” Editorial, March 8).
As usual, you need to watch what he does, not what he says.
Anthony Varriano
Staten Island
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For decades, the cry for development of oil in the United States has been heard, but nothing has happened.
Is it the environmentalists who are holding us back or deals we have with Saudi Arabia? Is it the companies that make money refining oil from overseas, or is it mostly due to speculators?
Nobody is doing any real work to stop the prices from going up at the slightest rumor.
Electric cars won’t cut it; they are like the Segway PT — useful only in a very limited range of operation.
The apple cart has to be upset if any real progress is to be made.
Ray Hackinson
Ozone Park
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Are those same speculators who are being examined by President Obama’s “gas-price task force” also responsible for the collapse in natural-gas prices, or are they only to blame when prices go up in an election year?
S. Bucknall
Greenwich, Conn.
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It’s gracious of The Post to concede that oil is a globally traded commodity that’s subject to extraordinarily complex price pressures.
Funny, I’d have thought conservatives would cheer the operation of the “free market.” Aren’t they against government action interfering with capitalism?
The Post imagines that approval of the Keystone pipeline would have altered oil’s price, but the pipeline would have been years in construction, meaning no oil for the foreseeable future.
Present US oil production is higher than at any time this century, and gas prices were slightly higher in 2008.
The long-term aim should be to wean ourselves off our dependence to oil.
S. Chinn
Manhattan
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A frequent response to oil’s cycling higher is to constantly point out that “we can’t drill our way out” of the problem.
Obama is always eager to invest, particularly when a public-service union is the beneficiary. If he would only permit the private sector to invest in our domestic capacity, the next time oil cycles higher, we won’t need this childish charade.
David Griffin
Basking Ridge, NJ
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While it will take a while for new drilling to help, now we are at least enjoying the increased production from George W. Bush’s policies.
There was a fairly quick drop in prices when the Bush administration announced that we would increase our drilling several years ago.
It’s time to make another announcement — and be serious about it.
BJ Koscomb
Kinnelon, NJ
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Beware of the Ides of March, and beware of the national average price of gas surging past $4 per gallon.
Are we approaching a recession that will be worse than the one in 2008? Will it affect the airline, automobile and steel industries again? Will the price of durable goods and groceries shoot up? Will there be a need for another bailout?
This is a serious threat to our national security, yet the government acts like it’s powerless to the whims of Big Oil.
Will America’s collapse be perpetrated by the greed and the inability of Congress to come up with a solution? It appears that the phrase “Money is the root of all evil” has become a reality.
Richard Rockstraw
Chesterton, Ind.
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Keep voting for the Democrats, and before you can blink an eye, you’ll know what it feels like to lose your freedom.
All those who voted for “hope” and “change” got what they wished for — maybe not hope but a negative change in gas prices and unemployment numbers and more people on food stamps, and with no end in sight.
Dominick Farruggio
New Port Richey, Fla.