Markey on Republican Gas Price Statements: It's O-PEC, Not O-bama

WASHINGTON (March 10, 2011) – Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, today responded to statements from House Speaker John Boehner, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and others that ignored or dismissed the notion that Middle East strife was to blame for higher gas prices, instead attacking President Obama. Domestic oil production last year under President Obama was the highest since 2003.

“When it comes to high oil prices, this is about OPEC, not Obama.

“These ill-informed statements give Colonel Gaddafi and other members of the OPEC cartel a pass for what they are doing to the global economy and to American families and businesses.

“I find it shocking that Republicans would first attack the President of the United States before pointing a finger at Colonel Gaddafi.

“American oil production reached an 8-year high in 2010, and yet prices continue to climb. We need to finally enact clean energy solutions that will tell Gaddafi and the Saudis that we don’t need their oil any more than we need their sand.

“Despite the Republican rhetoric, the oil and gas industry has more leases to drill for oil in the U.S. then they can even make use of. Last year the Bureau of Land Management issued 4,090 drilling permits, but industry drilled only 1,480 new wells, or just a little over a third of what they own. An of the 79 million acres of public lands the oil companies hold under lease, they are only actually producing oil on 18.5 million acres, only under a quarter of what they hold.”