It's A Gas
Wilkes-Barre, PA -- As Congress holds hearings to explore why oil and gas companies like Exxon-Mobil and Chevron are earning billions while the price of gas has soared, Barack Obama promised today to help cut the cost of fuel.
"Gas prices are killing folks," Obama said.
"I got an email from a friend of mine," he added, "it says just in case you're not living in the real world being driven around by Secret Service, it just cost me $85 to fill up my tank."
Referencing his latest PA ad, which features Obama in a trench coat at a gas station decrying high prices, Obama said that Exxon-Mobil made $11B last month.
In PA, according to www.PennsylvaniaGasPrices.com, the average price of gas is $3.28 a gallon. It was $2.69 per gallon a year ago.
"They have been in fat city for a long time," Obama said of the oil and gas companies. "They are not necessarily putting that money into refinery capacity, which could potentially relieve some of the bottlenecks in our gasoline supply, and so that is something we have to go after."
Obama also noted that he's proposed a windfall profits tax on gas companies.
Obama said that the United States needs to do more to increase ethanol production. He also said that the internal combustible engine had seen its last days.
"We should also be investing in new technologies so we can replace the internal combustible engine, which has served us well but its time for us to move on because we want to get rid of fossil fuels," he said.
(NBC/NJ's ASWINI ANBURAJAN)
You want to guarantee that the oil companies put that money back into research, exploration and refineries? Profit caps.
Most of the great research of the 1930s to the 1980s was the result of price caps on AT&T. Since AT&T didn't want to return the money to the government, they plowed it back into research at the Bell Labs.
The same would happen if Exxon Mobil were told it could only make $8 billion a month in profits -- that other $3B would be used to generate better gas, more gas and renewables.
I'm not worried. When BHO flies down and genuflects before Hugo, I'm sure he'll lower prices.