Who is really responsible for high oil and gas prices?

When Congress exercises poor judgment and micromanages U.S. energy policy, the unintended consequence is that they actually hurt the people they always profess to be help.  Indeed, Congress constantly blocks and obstructs every effort of the United States to become more productive and less dependent on foreign oil, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

For example:

• Over the last 28 years, Democrats in Congress and a few Republicans have again and again opposed our drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) when we knew it contained at least 10 billion barrels of oil we could be using now.
• During the past 31 years, Congress repeatedly prevented us from building any new oil refineries that we now badly need.
• More recently, congressional Democrats defeated and discouraged any bill that would let us drill in the deep sea 100 miles out.
• Since the 1980s Congress has continually stopped all building of nuclear power plants while France, Germany and, yes, Japan, plus 12 other major nations, did build plants and get 20 percent to 80 percent of their energy from wise and safe nuclear plant investments.

Does Congress really think Middle America's voters are so gullible that they will believe that its latest answer to increasing our supply of oil and gas is to slap a 25 percent windfall penalty tax on oil companies and remove all other incentives for oil companies to drill and explore for oil?   It's wake-up time for America.  Maybe we should investigate the blame-throwing investigators in Congress, says IBD.

Source: Editorial, "Who Is Really Responsible For the High Prices You Pay For Gasoline?" Investor's Business Daily, May 12, 2008.

For text:

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=295485696665472  

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