Business
Increasing gasoline prices: Obama hits back
“All of a sudden they are going to be hit with the same force of wind that hit us in 2008 in the summer that caused us to go into a recession. All because of the radical environmentalist policies of this president,” Santorum said.
Carney dismissed Santorum’s comments as “random statements by politicians seeking office.” Obama is the first president to preside over growth in domestic oil production since President Jimmy Carter, also a Democrat.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, promised at a debate with rivals on Wednesday night that the country would enjoy gasoline prices at US$2.50 a gallon if he won the White House.
Analysts and strategists said Obama has few options to bring down gasoline prices in the short term and said his energy policies had evolved from focusing on renewable fuels to promoting nuclear energy and natural gas.
“Basically he’s come a long way from the campaign of 2008. I think that reflects pragmatism on his part,” said Guy Caruso, a senior adviser on energy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Progress or not, Obama has vulnerabilities when it comes to energy. Earlier this year he nixed TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline under severe pressure from environmentalists.
The president blamed Republicans for forcing him to take a decision under a tighter timeframe than the State Department said it needed to study the project.
Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and off-and-on frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, said that decision was a sign that Obama wanted to please his political base more than he wanted to improve the economy.
