Business
Obama: Fuel-efficient cars an answer to gas prices
Oil prices typical rise in the spring, but they have spiked to heights unseen at this this time of year, hastened by increased tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. Gasoline prices reached US$3.74 a gallon on Friday, a record at this point in the calendar but still shy of the high point of US$4.11 hit in July 2008.
In Saturday’s Republican address, Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington said a meeting this week among Obama and House and Senate leaders from both parties “provided a glimmer of new hope that the president and the Democratic-controlled Senate may finally act on some bipartisan energy bills” already passed by the Republican-controlled House.
Still, Hastings, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, faulted Obama for not doing more to increase domestic oil and gas production, for opposing drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for blocking a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline and for imposing regulations on energy producers.
“The president, who campaigned on a promise to address rising gas prices, now talks as if they’re largely beyond his control,” Hastings said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
