Political hot potato: rising gas prices

Harry Reid is taking steps to further regulate the gas industry in the name of low gas prices:

Nevada Senator Harry Reid says it may be time for Congress to do something about soaring gas prices.

The Senate majority leader says he has directed key committee chairmen to begin assembling a package of proposals aimed at addressing the growing impact that high gasoline and other energy prices are having on the economy.

Reid declined to say what proposals are being considered. But he says the plan is to bring a package to the Senate floor before Memorial Day.

Whenever an issue gets hot, this is always the first instinct of the Democrats. Whatever package they produce, you can bet it will include major punitive actions towards energy producers while having zero positive effect on the long-term price of gas. It is always a show with these guys.

The reality of the situation is that it has been years of this kind of behavior that has produced the inflated prices we see now:

For decades, Congress has led our government into disastrous decisions by being the patsy of radical environmentalists, naysayers and prophets of doom. Recent presidents have done little to resist.

Now American consumers pay the price while politicians try to evade and shift the blame.

However, we can lower gas prices by reversing misguided federal policies, and lower food prices, too. It's all about what we learned (or should have) in Economics 101 – supply and demand.

The stifling of domestic oil and gas production and the suppression of new refineries and nuclear power plants have choked off the supplies of domestic energy, forcing us to rely on foreign oil. In the international market, we must bid against the growing energy appetites of China and India, and we're held hostage by the oil cartels of OPEC. The world market is unstable and expensive, and we shouldn't be at its mercy.

Reducing regulation is the last thing any Democrat is inclined to do. Reagan's old saying about a big government view of the economy is apt here; "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

There is another side to this coin though. Republicans in Congress are dropping the ball too. Where are the Republicans who are willing to call the Dems out on their hypocrisy? How can Nancy Pelosi demand perpetual $2.00 a gallon gas prices while also demanding we break our addiction to foreign oil and promote "green" energy? The Dems are completely inconsistent on this point yet never are called on it. Republicans should begin to hit this point while also promoting clean nuclear energy (for heaven's sake, even the Greenpeace founder now agrees with us on this issue).

We should then promote a systematic deregulation of the gas industry to provide some relief from artificially government-inflated high prices. But that does not mean prices will go back to where they were 5 or 10 years ago. And what is so terrible about prices slowly rising as long as it is determined by the market?

As market prices rise incentives for developing alternative forms of energy rise as well. This moves us closer to breaking our addiction to foreign oil, which I believe is a national security imperative.

Republicans also should be aware that rising gas prices are the only hope of moving the issue of ANWR through the Congress. Democrats who continually refuse to allow us to tap our own resources here at home while prices rise are in peril of being exposed politically.