High gas costs fuel energy debate
Candidates spar over remedies
With gas prices hitting record highs nearly every day, the major presidential candidates tangled yesterday over energy policy.
Barack Obama said that Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain are part of a Washington establishment that has failed to stand up to oil companies. McCain and the Republican National Committee are accusing Obama of flip-flopping on the idea of suspending the federal gas tax to help consumers. And Clinton is bashing Obama for voting for an energy bill that included tax breaks for oil companies.
Obama stoked the back-and-forth by appearing at a gas station in Indianapolis to say that gas prices are "bordering on a crisis" and to press his argument that he is the only candidate who can bring meaningful change because he is not beholden to lobbyists and special interests.
"The candidates with the Washington experience - my opponents - are good people," he said. "They mean well. But they've been in Washington for a long time, and even with all that experience they talk about, nothing has happened. . . . So what have we got for all that experience? Gas that's approaching $4 a gallon."
"It's time to free ourselves from the tyranny of oil," he added.
The Illinois senator cautioned that "there's no easy answer to our energy crisis" and that it wouldn't come overnight, but rather from long-term changes and investments in clean energy and energy efficiency.
Republicans, however, say Obama is ignoring soaring gas prices and his own record by not backing a quicker solution: McCain's proposal this month for a gas tax holiday that would suspend the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal levy between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
The Republican National Committee points out that Obama supported a similar measure with the state gas tax while in the Illinois legislature in 2000.
Obama said that he did support a temporary suspension of the state gas tax but later voted against a permanent reduction because the savings weren't being passed on to consumers. That's a key reason he opposes McCain's proposal, his campaign says.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in response: "Barack Obama rolled out the cameras, and then said nothing about his new opposition to immediate price relief for hardworking Americans who are seeing record prices at the pump. Barack Obama can't deliver for working people if he supports higher gas taxes when the price of fuel is at a record high, and is likely to get higher by summertime."
Clinton has been more open to the gas tax holiday idea, as long as the loss in revenue is made up in the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road and bridge repairs.
Meanwhile, Clinton has criticized Obama for voting for a 2005 bill in Congress that included tax breaks for oil companies. Obama said he fought against those tax breaks but eventually supported the measure because it included the biggest advances yet for renewable energy.
Clinton voted against the bill.
"He might say he'll stand up to the oil companies, but he's the only candidate who voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill that was written by energy lobbyists and has been called the best energy bill corporations could buy," Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement. "With gas prices this high, talk is cheap. The American people need solutions."
Both Democrats' solutions are similar in major respects.
They call for measures such as levying a windfall profits tax on oil companies and using the proceeds to help families pay energy costs; investigating possible market manipulation; and halting purchases for the federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to reduce demand and lower prices. Longer term, the Democrats both want to invest in clean energy technologies, both to wean the country from Middle East oil and to create so-called green-collar jobs.
The national average price for regular unleaded hit another record yesterday at $3.58 a gallon, up from $3.26 a month ago, and $2.88 a year ago, AAA and the Oil Price Information Service reported. In Indiana, where Clinton and Obama face off in the May 6 primary, regular unleaded hit $3.63 a gallon. 