“The Energy Department isn’t working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.”
Politico reports:
The Energy Department isn’t working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.
Instead, DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu told House appropriators during a hearing on DOE’s budget.
But Americans need relief now, Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) said — not high gasoline prices that could eventually push them to alternatives.
“I can’t look at motivations. I have to look at results. And under this administration the price of gasoline has doubled,” Nunnelee told Chu.
“The people of north Mississippi can’t be here, so I have to be here and be their voice for them,” Nunnelee added. “I have to tell you that $8 a gallon gasoline makes them afraid. It’s a cruel tax on the people of north Mississippi as they try to go back and forth to work. It’s a cloud hanging over economic development and job creation.”
Chu expressed sympathy but said his department is working to lower energy prices in the long term.
(…)
High gasoline prices will make research into such alternatives more urgent, Chu said.
“But is the overall goal to get our price” of gasoline down, asked Nunnelee.
“No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” Chu replied. “We think that if you consider all these energy policies, including energy efficiency, we think that we can go a long way to becoming less dependent on oil and [diversifying] our supply and we’ll help the American economy and the American consumers.”
Does Steven Chu have a friend who can advise him how callous his prescription for fuel efficiency comes off? We understand reinforcement schedules. We are not laboratory animals for your diabolical theories!
Come on Mr. Secretary, tell me which fuel will replace gasoline and desil and be cheaper for the American public?
Ethanol? We all know what a joke that is. We use more gasoline with ethanol than we did before it became the dream fuel of the enviros (We used less gasoline because our mileage perforance was 15% better).
, let alone the cost increase we have seen at the grocery store because of high corn prices..
Electric cars, are they your answer? How cheap are those, and who can afford them, even though the taxpayer is paying part of the purchase price?
What other source of vehicle fuel are you waiting for Mr. Secretary? Hydrogen? Where is it? Where are the prototypes?
Or, are you expecting us to ride bycycles, trains, and buses where ever we go. Or better yet, do you expect us all to stay home and let the government house, feed and clothe us?
It’s been almost thirty years since I was in Mississippi, but while I was there I saw/smelled a vehicle that appeared to be running on some form of homemade ethanol. Will Mr. Nunnelee please tell us more about this?
In the long term, which PBO just told us could be more than ten years, if we force ourselves to double our energy costs now then we will be OK. And this helps the economy and consumers. And since red is blue we know that Tuesday comes after Wednesday? Is anyone else absolutely bewildered? And this guy has a science background?