A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White
On June 21, 2000, the main headline on Drudge Report shouted that Bush was blaming Clinton and Gore for "high" gasoline/oil prices.
And that, to reiterate, was the year 2000:
In the first half of 2000, gas prices were in the news. Everyone was upset, as oil had been around $10 a barrel the previous year. That spring, the price more than doubled, and it was an election year. So the blame had to go somewhere.
Vice President and Democratic nominee Al Gore blamed oil companies. Texas Governor and Republican nominee George W. Bush blamed President Bill Clinton.
Now that Exxon-Mobil posted record-high earnings, oil is nearing $140 a barrel, and Bush has been in the White House long enough to have affected energy policy, it's no shock that the president's blame game has shifted. So Bush blamed Clinton for gas prices doubling, while prices have increased to record levels under his administration. Bush himself admits that oil prices under his administration have gone up seven-fold!
At an energy summit last weekend in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, there was a fundamental disagreement about the source of high energy prices between producer countries and consumer countries. Producers blame market speculators for driving up prices, while consumers say there just isn't enough oil to meet global demand.
At the summit, Saudi Arabia pledged to increase their oil production by 200,000 barrels a day. But because the market (read: speculators) had already anticipated the Saudi promise, the price of oil actually went up after the announcement instead of down.
The top oil consumer in the world said it was a supply issue. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told summit attendees there is no evidence that speculators are driving up the price of oil. Instead, an increase in demand from developing countries such as India and China is to blame.
Dream on, Bush Administration.
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