gas pricesPresident Obama has a Presidential Approval Index rating of -16 points. That means that while 25 percent of voters strongly approve of the job he’s doing, a whopping 41 percent strongly disapprove. A second term is beginning to look like a pipe dream for the current president -- especially if gas costs $5 or more per gallon next November.

Sixty-five percent of Americans are not fans of the way Obama is handling gas prices. That’s what we call a landslide, people. Why shouldn’t America be upset? It’s the Obama administration’s policies that have contributed to skyrocketing gasoline costs.

Obama has effectively shut down oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP Deepwater Horizon leak in 2010. By the way, that leak wasn’t caused by lack of government regulation, but by lack of compliance and lack of oversight. In other words, BP didn’t follow the rules, and the government didn’t make them.

Lack of drilling in the gulf has decreased our supply of oil, and has put thousands of people out of work. Seahawk Drilling alone had to lay off over 600 workers while declaring bankruptcy last year due to Obama’s restrictions on drilling. Less oil production, less gasoline, higher prices at the pump. 

Speaking of production, Obama’s blatant refusal to approve the Keystone Pipeline will invariably lead to an increase in fuel costs. This is the pipeline that would transfer crude oil from Canada to refineries in Texas to be processed into usable petroleum. The pipeline that would create countless jobs, and create fuel that would then bring down the cost to consumers due to the laws of supply and demand. 

Instead, Obama has said no to Keystone, which means that Canada will now sell its crude oil to China. It not only is going to cause more pollution in transportation of the oil, because (duh) China is farther away from the Great White North than Texas, but also because China doesn’t have as clean of a refinery process as we do here in the states. Officials have stated that denying the Keystone Pipeline will result in greater pollution to the planet than approving it.

Do I even need to mention ANWR? 

Liberal policies of restricting our access to oil to make our machines run is just plain silly. Sure, it would be nice to live in a world where everything ran on sunshine and sprinkles, but we’re not there yet. Right now we live in a world where fossil fuels run our economy, and if the government gives a grant to a green energy company with taxpayer dollars, that company bends the rules, goes bankrupt, and then throws their product in the trash. 

We need the oil. We need it here, and we need it now. As long as Obama continues to restrict that, and the Republican candidate promises to deliver it, we’re going to have a new president in 2013.

This post is part of a weekly conversation with our 5 Moms Matter 2012 political bloggers. To see the original question and what the other bloggers have to say, read Who's Responsible for Our High Gas Prices?


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