During Election 2000, the Republican Congress scrapped an Al Gore-sponsored initiative that would have increased the average auto gas mileage by 5 mpg. Had that measure become law, Americans could be enjoying a nearly 0% dependence on Middle East oil today.

Also during the election campaign, oil companies created artificial shortages in America’s Heartland, causing gas prices to spiral rapidly upwards. George W then ridiculed Gore for his inability to “jawbone OPEC”, and declared that only he himself had the Middle Eastern clout to keep future gas prices low.

In 2002, the Republicans shot down the Kerry/McCain bill, which mandated a 10 mpg increase in fuel efficiency by 2015. The automobile lobby played its usual cheater cards: stringent fuel guidelines cost jobs, are bad for the economy, and translate into decreased auto safety–all old arguments long ago demonstrated false.

After election 2004, with Bush’s second term secure, gasoline prices began to skyrocket. Although the five major energy corporations fell back on their usual litany of woes, it was hard to ignore their exponentially increasing profit margins–the largest corporate gains in history. Surely it was time for a good jawboning from George W…

Instead, Bush’s Iraq war (which energy companies helped plan, in those no-longer-secret meetings of Dick Cheney’s) reduced that country’s oil outflow to a minimum–raising oil prices. Bush’s Middle East sabre-rattling caused ever-more instability in the oil regions–raising oil prices. Oil companies used Katrina and China as props for–raising oil prices. The Bush administration stored an unprecedented amount of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Preserves–raising oil prices.

As Americans became accustomed to paying sky high gasoline costs, with predictions of still worse to come, Bush finally began the jawboning he promised way back in the day. Only instead of the gougers, he began jawboning Americans themselves for being so addicted to oil. Meanwhile, the now-much-richer oil companies threatened Congress: vote us even more tax subsidies, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, or we’ll take our oil and go home.

When all was said and done, George W. Bush actively participated in the largest gas price hikes, and the highest overall gas prices, in American history. Guess we’re the ones who got some kind of boning.

Rightwing Rationalizing

How Oil Companies Manipulate Prices

What Really Makes Prices Fluctuate?

What We Were Saying Six Years Ago

The Memory Hole: What the GOP said about gas prices during Election 2000
After the five major energy companies decided “individually” to re-distribute spring & summer supplies, creating gas shortages and a 40% price hike (to $25 pb) during Election 2000, this is what the House Republicans said:

“The Clinton Administration has failed in its duty to develop a policy to deal with our national energy supply and is therefore directly accountable for the higher prices Americans are now paying at the gas pumps… I am also a cosponsor of a Sense of Congress resolution calling upon the President to release the strategic petroleum reserves as needed to ease the current pressure on the American fuel supply demand. “
Rep. Terry Everett, (R) AL

House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused the Clinton administration Friday of misleading members of Congress about the causes of skyrocketing gas prices in the Midwest.

“Northern Californians are being held hostage at the gas pump. The Clinton-Gore Administration has demonstrated a complete and total lack of leadership in preventing this problem. It is a clear failure of domestic and foreign policy.”
Rep. Wally Herger, (R) CA

“In recent weeks, gas prices have surged to their highest level in a decade. Prices for home heating oil and natural gas are expected to rise by about 30 percent this winter… Gore’s recipe for quick relief is releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)… but using the taxpayer funded SPR to bail out his campaign is, quite simply, unethical. 

“Part of Gore’s escape and evasion tactics — funded by the taxpayers — is to use his elected office to order the Federal Trade Commission to investigate what he calls “profiteering” by “Big Oil.” Attacking business has been a favorite tactic of Gore’s, but courtesy of a memo from his own Department of Energy he has known for months that “profiteering” has nothing to do with rising prices. The memo instead found Clinton-Gore administration regulations to be one of the primary factors.

“In reality, Gore’s attacks on oil producers are designed to distract attention from his own culpability for the price spikes.”
Glenn Spencer, shill for Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks (currently lobbying against healthcare reform)

“Consumers have seen only token relief at the pumps over the last few months, gas prices are climbing again, and oil prices are at their highest peacetime point in a decade. When will this Administration learn that they have to make policy, not just talk about it?”
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, (R) WI

“The White House’s only real complaint is that the oil cartel raised prices instead of letting the President do it by hiking ‘carbon taxes’… Clinton and Gore can talk all they want about lowering prices, but in the end that’s not what they really want, and their ineffectiveness shows it.”
Rep. Tom Petri, (R) WI

“Wisconsinites have been paying for the Administration’s short-sightedness… the Administration has made one misstep after another.”
Rep. Paul Ryan, (R) WI

“”Thanks to the lack of a national energy plan from this Administration, we are more dependent on foreign oil than we were a decade ago. That’s a threat not only to our national economy, but to our national security.”
Mark Green, (R) WI

“Millions of American families and small businesses are hurting because of higher gasoline prices. My administration is doing everything we can to make gasoline more affordable. In the near-term, we will continue to encourage oil producing nations to maximize their production. Here at home, we’ll protect consumers. There will be no price gouging at gas pumps in America.”
George W. Bush, 4.24.06

Did you know?  During the First Gulf War, oil prices rose from $13 per barrel to $40 pb.

Did you know?  The increase in US oil consumption since 2000 is nearly equal to China’s entire oil demand.

“Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”
Dick Cheney, July 2001

“Rising gasoline prices is like taking a, is like a tax, particularly on the working people and the small-business people… If we find any price gouging it will be dealt with firmly.”
George W. Bush