After the delightful pictures of President Bush walking hand-in-hand with Prince Bandar, we learned that he failed to do anything about record oil prices. In 2000, when gasoline was selling for $1.61 per gallon and oil was $28 a barrel, Bush chastised Clinton for high fuel prices and told him to "jawbone" the prices down with the oil producers. Well so much for that idea. Oil is more than $50 barrel and gasoline is $2.26 per gallon and the Bush's jawboning has done nothing to lower oil prices.
Again yesterday Bush failed to address the one thing that both help to create the crisis and holds the key of providing some help in the midterm which is forcing higher mileage for SUVs, cars and trucks sold in the U S. Although the long-term solutions suggested by President Bush are necessary, help from his suggestions will not be effective for a decade or more. He fails to recognize that the increased consumption caused by trucks, SUVs and cars getting poor mileage is a major part of this problem. If four years ago he had reinstated reasonable increases in the miles per gallon of vehicles sold in the United States, this crisis would be far less drastic than it is today. What is disappointing is that Bush still does not recognize or is not willing to deal with real conservation by demanding that our cars, trucks and SUVs get higher gas mileage and cut the consumption of gasoline.