U.S. Federal Trade Commission,<\/a> other federal agencies and state attorneys general have investigated the causes of price spikes for decades and have consistently found that price increases are due to normal market forces.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nFinal question: Why is the cost of crude escalating?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an easy one: the law of supply and demand.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The unrest in Libya and Egypt, coupled with strikes by oil workers in Yemen, Oman, Gabon and Ivory Coast, has cut production. Less supply means higher prices.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
If our elected officials want to point fingers at who is causing high gas prices, they might want to look in the mirror.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
According to Kiplinger Magazine, the United States has enough oil reserves to power the nation for 300 years \u2014 without the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). But much of those untapped reserves are located in places that have been put off limits by the government or are too costly to develop.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Environmentalists point to the Gulf oil spill as evidence that deepwater wells are too risky and oil exploration should be curtailed. Ironically, oil companies have been pushed far offshore by federal and state laws that put safer, more readily available oil reserves off limits.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For almost 40 years, elected officials have fumed and fussed over the reason for high gasoline prices, when the answer is clear. When the 1973 Arab oil embargo crippled our economy, the United States imported less than 35 percent of its crude oil. Today, that figure is 57 percent \u2013 and the Mideast is more volatile than ever.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
High gasoline prices aren\u2019t just an inconvenience. They increase the cost of everything we eat and use, causing hardships for American families and stalling our economic recovery. Suffering at the hands of foreign oil suppliers while we\u2019re sitting on 300 years worth of untapped oil reserves is like a family starving with a basement full of food.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Yes, there is some risk to domestic oil exploration, but the risk \u2014 and potential cost \u2014 of our current energy policy is far greater.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the price of gas passes $4 on its way to $5 a gallon, the finger pointing in Washington, D.C. has reached a frenzy as politicians rush to place blame. \u201cWall Street profiteers!\u201d \u201cSpeculators!\u201d \u201cBig Oil!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7251"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}