Artificial energy scarcity hurts the poor most

Fuel Fix:

When exploring solutions to income inequality policy makers pay close attention to the costs. The cost of healthcare. The cost of food. The cost of child care. The cost of housing.

What about the cost of energy?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012 the average U.S. family spent over $4,600 or about 9 percent of their budget to heat and power their homes and fuel their vehicles. Families in the bottom fifth of income earners spent nearly 33 percent more of their budget on energy costs than average $2,500 a year or 12% of their annual budget.

... low-income families spend two and half times more on energy than on health services. Unlike food and housing, consumers cannot shop around for the lowest cost energy. Bargains can be found in the supermarket, but, prices at the pump do not vary from one station to the next. Conservation similarly is not an option when it’s a choice between driving to work or saving a gallon of gasoline.

A solution to remedying income inequality is tackling rising energy costs. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects the price of electricity will rise 13.6 percent and the price of gasoline by 15.7 percent from now until 2040. Rising global demand, aging and insufficient energy infrastructure and restrictive government policies all play a role in increasing costs.President Obama has the ability to reverse this trend and lessen the blow to all consumers.
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Big Green and their Democrat allies are imposing this additional cost on Americans by conspiring to restrict the domestic supply of oil and gas through EPA regulations and attempts to block access to drilling on federal control sites.  They are also trying to block the Keystone XL pipeline on the absurd proposition that we will use less oil.  That is not how the market works.  We wind up having to buy from sources that ship over the ocean which cost more and it exports energy jobs to those countries rather than provide work for Americans.  Big Green is the enemy of the poor and the American taxpayers.