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Gasoline pump prices high despite crude fall Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-17-bush-gas-prices_x.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-17-bush-gas-prices_x.htm
Bush to speak on high gas prices
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — President Bush will lament the high price of gas in an energy policy speech this week but doesn't plan to promise an immediate solution.
The average price of a gallon of gas has risen nearly 50 cents in a year, according to a recent survey.
Eric Risberg, AP
"There's no magic wand that can reduce the price of gas overnight," says Dan Bartlett, Bush's counselor. "This is an issue that requires national debate as well as substantive change of policy and habits over time."
The average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas is $2.25, according to the American Automobile Association's Web site, www.fuelgaugereport.com. A year ago it was $1.78.
Bush is focusing on the issue amid signs that the high cost of driving is worrying consumers, slowing the economy and hurting him politically. The University of Michigan's consumer-confidence measurement Friday was the lowest in 19 months, and gas was the biggest reason, Steve Stanley, an economist at Greenwich Capital Markets, said in an e-mailed analysis.
Bush will speak Wednesday at the U.S.-Hispanic Chambers of Commerce legislative conference in Washington. His message, as laid out in his weekly radio address Saturday, will be that passage of an energy bill that's been stuck in Congress for four years would have helped prevent soaring prices.
Congress will debate the bill again this week. It would allow drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, encourage conservation and promote alternative energy sources. In his radio address, Bush said passage is "the first order of business." In the coming weeks, he said, he'll "talk more about what we need to do in Washington" about the problem.
Eventually, Bush said on April 8, Americans must change "the types of automobiles we drive." He has proposed spending $1.2 billion over five years to develop cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and other Democrats have urged Bush to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of more than 600 million barrels of oil to drive prices down. But Bush spokesman Scott McClellan says the reserve should be kept for emergencies.
McClellan said last week that Bush discussed gas prices in two meetings with members of Congress and that the issue will come up when Bush meets next week with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah. But Bush has not lobbied members of OPEC, the consortium of oil producers. In 1999, he criticized Vice President Gore for rising prices and said President Clinton "must jawbone OPEC members to lower prices."
Gas prices have political and economic implications:
•Bush's job-approval rating in USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Polls has fallen from 57% in February to 50%. In that period, the number of people who called fuel prices the top economic problem rose from 1% to 9%.
President Jimmy Carter learned the connection in July 1979, when long lines at gas pumps and soaring prices lowered his approval rating to 29%.
•Weak retail sales in March are a sign that consumers may be limiting spending because they're worried about high energy costs, says John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia, a financial services company based in Charlotte, N.C. The Commerce Department said last week that retail sales rose 0.3% in March, less than half the 0.7% increase predicted by Wall Street.
Silvia says gas prices have slowed SUV sales and hiring as consumers and employers brace for big energy bills. "You have to say that already the energy situation is having an impact on the overall economy," he says.
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