DON'T BLAME THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION...

Pres. George Bush successfully forecast the oil price increase in 2001 and he presented an energy plan that would have largely eliminated, or at least postponed, the high prices of gasoline at the pump today. Few have given him credit for this. Pres. Bush's energy proposals of 2001 should not have been defeated. Environmentalists and their severely short sighted legislative allies (in both political parties) who were deathly afraid of offending the "global warming" lobby, are today responsible for the high cost of energy.

Prediction: If the Obama-Pelosi-Reid energy plans are enacted and signed into law and Congress, and the Pelosi-Reid leadership continues to block offshore and ANWR drilling, nuclear power plant construction and diverts money to wasteful funding in the energy area (the ethanol boondoggle comes to mind) we will not only have high prices, we will see an economically disastrous economy that will inflict unimaginable hardship on the American people.

The country is already seeing an economic downturn that RiteOn feels is almost exclusively the direct result of high-energy costs. This can be laid directly at the feet of the Democrat controlled Congress and its liberal allies that are frightened by Al Gore's global warming hoax. Now, seven years later, we begin to see the results of ignoring Pres. Bush's 2001 energy proposals! (...RiteOn Ed. comment)
----------------
According to the BBC:
"Key points of Bush('s 2001) plan were to:

-Promote new oil and gas drilling
-Build new nuclear plants
-Improve electricity grid and build new pipelines

-$10bn in tax breaks to promote energy efficiency and alternative fuels

A New York Times article, dated May 18, 2001, explained:
"President Bush began an intensive effort today to sell his plan for developing new sources of energy to Congress and the American people, arguing that the country had a future of "energy abundance" if it could break free of the traditional antagonism between energy producers and environmental advocates.

Mr. Bush's plea for a new dialogue came as his administration published the report of an energy task force containing scores of specific proposals... for finding new sources of power and encouraging a range of new energy technologies."

[The Bush plan] "mentions about a dozen areas including land-use restrictions in the Rockies, lease stipulations on offshore areas attractive to oil companies, the vetting of locations for nuclear plants, environmental reviews to upgrade power plants and refineries that could be streamlined or eliminated to help industry find more oil and gas and produce more electricity and gasoline."

The article went on to quote some rather prescient words from the President, "this great country could face a darker future, a future that is, unfortunately, being previewed in rising prices at the gas pump and rolling blackouts in the great state of California" if his plan was not adopted in 2001.

The Times account continued:
"Mr. Bush talked not only of blackouts but of blackmail, raising the specter of a future in which the United States is increasingly vulnerable to foreign oil suppliers...Mr. Bush was praised by many groups for laying out a long-term energy policy. His report contained 105 initiatives..."

Just as President Bush's predictions have been born out, the article quoted from that most sage of Democrats, former President Jimmy Carter:
"World supplies are adequate and reasonably stable, price fluctuations are cyclical, reserves are plentiful," he (Carter) argued. Mr. Carter said "exaggerated claims seem designed to promote some long-frustrated ambitions of the oil industry at the expense of environmental quality."

But, as a later Times article notes, "the president's ambitious policy quickly became a casualty of energy politics and, notably, harsh criticism from Democrats enraged by the way the White House had created the plan."

In other words, Democrats refused the President's plea to "break free of the traditional antagonism between energy producers and environmental advocates."
Remember that the next time you pull up to the pump ... or the voter's booth.