Dems Undermine Their Own Argument Against Drilling

As I had previously noted in this blog, last Thursday, President Obama contradicted himself in his energy speech. First he noted that our dependence on foreign oil was due to increased supplies of domestic production. Then, he said we can drill our way out of high oil prices; as if the economic law of supply and demand doesn't apply to oil/gasoline prices. In fact, history has proven that just the announcement of new drilling dramatically lowers the price of oil. In 2008, G.W. Bush announced a lifting of bans on offshore drilling and the price of oil fell $13 in just a few minutes.

Now, three Democrats -- Reps. Ed Markey, Peter Welch and Rosa DeLauro -- are urging the President to increase the supply by releasing oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve (SPR). So, once again we have Democrats acknowledging that increased oil supplies will lower oil prices and, subsequently, lower gasoline prices at the pump. However, they seem to forget that, just last year, Obama released oil reserves from the SPR and the impact was tepid at best, and the price of oil returned to previous highs in just a short amount of time.

If we want lower prices on a permanent basis, we need to drill. But, it pains Democrats to tell that truth. They will do everything possible to avoid increased drilling. They will drag oil execs into hearings to make the public think that high prices are all due to manipulation by big oil. During the Bush/Cheney years, they blamed it on the fact that the President and Vice President were ex-oil people and cozy with the big oil companies. But, for all the hearings and all the blaming, oil prices remain high. Only when a recession hit America did prices go down and that was simply because demand fell.

One last thing. Now is not the time to release oil from the SPR. We have a bellicose situation in the Middle East. The potential for disrupted supplies is higher than at any time since the 6-Day War. But, this is an election year and the Democrats are worried that high oil could jeopardize their election bids in the Fall. So, as a consequence, they are willing to put reelection ahead of national security.