OPINION: Government And Gasoline

The high prices at the pump aren’t caused by Big Oil so much as they’re caused by Big Government.

America uses about 7-billion barrels of oil a year; about half of that is imported. But our government has placed 48-billion barrels of recoverable oil off-limits, and has restricted access to 800-billion barrels more that we could extract from oil shale.

If government lifted the restrictions, we could be self-sufficient and put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work in the industry.

Instead, we pay billions in subsidies for alternative energy that costs more and doesn’t work as well. Take ethanol: It has a third less energy than gasoline, so it lowers your fuel mileage even as it gets billions in tax subsidies, and raises food prices by shifting corn supplies to fuel.

Big government doesn’t fix high prices; it causes them.

From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook.

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