Shocker: Administration official who wants high gas prices tells Congress he's not interested in lowering gas prices

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You can call Department of Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, many things including "uncaring", "foolish" and "wrong-headed" but if you call him those things, you better call him "principled" as well, doggone it.

The man who said a few years back that we need European level gas prices told Cogress lowering gas prices here domestically really isn't much of a priority:

The Energy Department isn’t working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.

Instead, DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu told House appropriators during a hearing on DOE’s budget.

ut Americans need relief now, Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) said — not high gasoline prices that could eventually push them to alternatives.
“I can’t look at motivations. I have to look at results. And under this administration the price of gasoline has doubled,” Nunnelee told Chu.

“The people of north Mississippi can’t be here, so I have to be here and be their voice for them,” Nunnelee added. “I have to tell you that $8 a gallon gasoline makes them afraid. It’s a cruel tax on the people of north Mississippi as they try to go back and forth to work. It’s a cloud hanging over economic development and job creation.”

Chu expressed sympathy but said his department is working to lower energy prices in the long term.

“We agree there is great suffering when the price of gasoline increases in the United States, and so we are very concerned about this,” said Chu, speaking to the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee. “As I have repeatedly said, in the Department of Energy, what we’re trying to do is diversify our energy supply for transportation so that we have cost-effective means.”

Being a green energy zealot means never having to say you,re sorry, we suppose.




Here's a nice little infographic that summarizes how bad things have become under the current regime courtesy Gateway Pundit:

(click to enlarge)

We're not opposed to alternative energy. What we are opposed to is a Department of Energy subsidization program of not-yet-ready-for-market alternative energy technology that very much appears to be a crony fund for friends of the administration of which Mr. Chu is in charge.

That we have a reliable energy source setting beneath our feet that could grow the economy and thus provide capital for the research and development of alternative energy without wasting tax-payer dollars, yet we don't go after it represents the height of stupidity.

Americans, particularly those rubes living in fly-over country, we're sure could really care less about the long-term viability of green technology in a crappy economy and especially when they are now spendig $50, $60, $70 bucks to fill up their car or truck.


As we have said before, liberals can afford their statist policies, the rest of us can't.

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