Obama Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters “no one knows” how high gasoline prices might go, and declined to rule out the possibility of $9-per-gallon gasoline, the Washington Examiner reports.
“Where it all will end, no one knows,” said Salazar.Salazar attempted to deflect the Obama administration’s responsibility for economic pain at the gas pump, asserting “we do not control the price of oil.”
As reported in the April issue of Environment & Climate News, the number of oil and gas leases granted by the federal government in the western United States declined by 44 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration versus the last two years of the Bush presidency,
In states like Utah and Colorado, the Obama administration has been especially restrictive of oil and natural gas production. Salazar canceled 77 oil and gas leases in Utah for environmental concerns just one month into the Obama administration. In Colorado, the Obama administration in 2011 offered just 4,400 acres of federal land available for leasing, a 98 percent decline since 2006.
