Democrat policy on oil production turns market over to thugs

Washington Post:

Here's how a small group of militants in West Africa can help keep an issue alive in presidential politics in Indiana and Washington.

On Sunday morning, an e-mail arrived from a representative of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) announcing that 36 hours earlier, the group had overrun a "heavily fortified" Royal Dutch Shell oil installation in Nigeria's Bayelsa state.

When commodity markets opened in New York yesterday, crude oil prices pierced the $120-a-barrel threshold for the first time before settling at $119.97, a record.

The $3.65 jump in crude oil prices helped sustain the intensity of political debates about gasoline prices, which yesterday stood at a national average of $3.61 a gallon -- a penny shy of a record and up about 55 cents this year. In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" yesterday, President Bush said that the price of gasoline troubled him "a lot" and that rising gasoline prices were "like a tax on the working people."

But however troubled Bush and other political leaders may be, oil experts said the small cushion of excess capacity around the world could mean a continuation of the recent volatility of oil prices at a high level. That could result in a long, hot summer for drivers, and it could leave the domestic U.S. politics of gasoline hostage to outside events.

"This continues to be a crisis-prone market, and that is reflected in the oil price," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "The fundamental fact is that it's a tight market."

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We are at this nutty point because of the Democrats' nutty policy on oil production. With their fingers wrapped firmly around the throat of production in Alaska and offshore around the US, we can't get the supplies needed so we have to depend on markets in volatile areas of the world. The Democrat policy is damaging our economy and national security.

It is based on an irrational belief that by strangling supplies it can force consumers to reduce consumption by driving up the price. What is happening is that consumption is going up around the world outside the control of Democrats. This when put together with their general hatred of all forms of energy production is driving up the cost of everything including food.

The Democrats energy policy is a disgrace and it should be an issue in this year's election.