Oil, Democrats and Iraq

Today, gas prices are high and it seems there's no end in sight. The "tipping point" of $4 a gallon (as Eric Snider says) has been reached and people are finally concerned about how this affects them financially.

And finally, finally, Congress gets off their duffs to at least acknowledge the issue.

Unfortunately, seeing as to how Congress is Democrat-controlled, here's what we gotten so far:

"It's Bush's fault!'
"It's Exxon-Mobile's fault!"
"It's the speculator's fault!"

Ever wonder why Nancy Pelosi and others are so shrill about blaming others?

It's because they're the ones at fault. Congress (and this obviously includes Republicans) for decades has blocked the building of any new domestic oil refineries.

They have blocked any domestic drilling for oil.

They have blocked the building of nuclear power plants.

They have blocked the building of wind turbines.

They have blocked the building of dams for hydroelectric power.

In essence, Congress has been sitting around hoping for the arrival of some magical new energy source (perpetual motion, maybe?) while shutting down the expansion of oil exploration and refinement in our own nation and shooting down every attempt to actually implement alternative energy technology.

And then, when we come to the day when world demand is up and other nations increase the price of the oil they sell us (Econ 101), we're stuck, and Congress is desperately looking for a scapegoat.

My fear is that we'll spend the next few months and years wasting time trying to get the blame to stick somewhere instead of actually doing something to solve the problem. Of course, these "somethings" we can be doing are earth-unfriendly (or at least that's what the eco-nuts say), so more likely than not we're not going to take any positive steps in the direction of nuclear or whatever.

So prepare for some tough times, people.