The US cannot drill its way out of its energy problems and must begin reforms now to reduce oil dependence, US President Barack Obama said on Friday, pledging to do all he could to stabilize fuel prices.
Obama, whose prospects for re-election next year may hinge partly on gasoline prices and their effect on the economy, said the world could manage oil supply disruptions stemming from unrest in Libya and across the Middle East and North Africa.
In a White House news conference aimed at calming US consumers’ fears of high gas prices, Obama stressed that he could tap US strategic oil reserves quickly if necessary. However, he declined to say what price threshold would trigger such intervention.
“We have it teed up, so this isn’t a situation where it would take a big bureaucracy and several weeks for us to implement. This is something that would take several days,” he said.
He said the government would “go after” any evidence of price gouging.
He emphasized, however, that uncertainty in the market — not a severe supply disruption — was driving prices higher.
“We’re going to try to do everything we can ... to stabilize the market,” Obama said.
Republicans, many of whom rallied around the call “drill, baby, drill” in the 2008 presidential election, accuse the administration of neglecting domestic oil production — a theme that is likely to resurface in next year’s election, too.
The average American household will spend about US$700 more for gasoline this year than it spent last year, the Energy Department last week.
Obama, a Democrat, acknowledged that consumer pain and said more had to be done to secure US energy needs long-term.
“Even if we tap every single reserve available to us, we can’t escape the fact that we only control 2 percent of the world’s oil, but we consume over a quarter of the world’s oil,” Obama said.
“T. Boone Pickens, who made his fortune in the oil business — and I don’t think anybody would consider him unfriendly to drilling — was right when he said that ‘this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of,’” Obama said, referring to the billionaire oil tycoon.
Republicans point to a 16 percent drop in domestic oil production compared to projected levels under Obama’s watch. The White House counters that domestic -production has increased since 2008 while imports of foreign oil have gone down.
Republican US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said the Obama administration was to blame for not doing enough to bolster domestic production.
“While the Obama administration claims to be committed to American energy production, the facts and its own actions say otherwise,” he said in a statement.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week showed the proportion of people who believe the US is on the wrong track rose 7 percentage points to 64 percent from last month.
Ipsos pollster Cliff Young said the rating was a result of the higher fuel prices.
“Gas prices specifically are things that affect people’s pocketbooks and have an immediate impact,” he said.
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