Obama & Bush agree!

Blagojevich urges president to release oil from strategic reserve By Ryan Keith

As consumer outrage shoots up along with prices at the gas pump, Gov. Rod Blagojevich called Wednesday for President Bush to release oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help fight the skyrocketing costs.

He stopped just short of ruling out any attempt to suspend the state's 5 percent sales tax on gasoline, an option that Illinois used during a past price-spike.

Blagojevich said in a letter to the president that oil from the reserve helped lower gasoline prices by 14 cents a gallon in 2000, and its 700 million barrels of oil could be tapped again.

"It provides some relief and some hope as we work through these difficult times. And when the summer goes into fall, hopefully, things will change," Blagojevich said Wednesday after a Democratic rally at a Springfield hotel. "It seems to me you ought to use some of that reserve and give consumers a break."

But Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said that would be a mistake, as does the White House.

Obama said the country should focus on using more alternative fuels, while the oil reserve should only be used in national crises.

"We've got to make long-term efforts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil," he said. "There aren't any short-term solutions to the problem of gas prices."

Obama calls for reducing gas usage LINDA N. WELLER quotes Obama:

"Everybody is getting killed by gas prices," he said. "If there is a general emergency -- like if the Saudi Arabian monarchy is overthrown and they cut off our oil supply -- you wouldn’t be looking at $3 gas, but $8 gas, and our economy would be threatened."

Obama said there is no short-term solution for the high prices.

"There is a long-term solution, but people may not want to hear it: People need to cut back," he said. "Three percent of the world’s population is consuming 25 percent of the energy," particularly by driving large trucks and sport utility vehicles.

"There is a finite supply, and the demand is going up through the roof," Obama said. "In China and India, there are three billion people who don’t have a car yet, and they want to buy one."

He launched into a favorite subject: energy-efficient cars. He said people could get 200 to 250 miles per gallon by driving a plug-in hybrid car, but "Detroit has not been producing those cars.

"We’re going to have to do something about technology to improve fuel efficiency," he said. Obama serves on three Senate committees, including the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Obama touted the recently signed comprehensive energy bill, designed to increase use of ethanol and availability of stations that sell E85 fuel, which is 85 percent corn ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.

"E85 is cheaper, when you can find it, by about 50 cents a gallon," he said. "The problem is no filling stations to fill up."

It's nice to hear some sense about the strategic oil reserve, but:

• Why is there "consumer outrage" over the rising price of gas but nearly none over rising prices due to protectionism?
• Would energy-efficient cars necessarily be cheaper? Just because they use less gasoline doesn't make it so.
• What's the talk about "dependence on foreign oil"? It's a fungible commodity, so even if it's American oil, unless there's a lot of it, American oil isn't going to solve the problem.
  
• Obama & Bush agree! And Blagojevich is an idiot.
• I though the price of ethanol was controversial, with some saying it's "unsustainable subsidized food burning", but now things are different; for midwestern Americans,

  locally produced ethanol is close to being competitive even without subsidy; imported Brazilian ethanol could have been so long ago, had not a federal tax credit for ethanol, originally 54 cents per American gallon, been carefully balanced by a 54 cent tariff.

Note that it's Brazilian ethanol that would be competitive, not the local stuff...yet.