Press Releases

(Evansville, IN) – Congressman Larry Bucshon (IN-08) released the following comment regarding rising gas prices.

Congressman Bucshon (IN-08) states:

            “Being back in Indiana this past week, many constituents of the 8th district have voiced their concern over high gas prices.  It is detrimental to the economy and hurts families when the price of gas increases to these unusually high levels.

“The President’s policies have failed and I strongly urge him to embrace an ‘all of the above’ approach and to end his war on fossil fuels.  Gas prices have more than doubled since the Obama administration has taken over our nation’s energy policy, which has lacked a clear strategy from the beginning.  I have voted numerous times to speed up the permitting process for offshore drilling and drilling on federal lands.  Also, approving the Keystone XL pipeline will help provide long term relief.  To reduce our dependency on foreign oil coming from countries that don’t like us, we must increase oil production in the United States.”

Background:

Congressman Bucshon wrote an op-ed on rising gas prices that appeared in the March 1, 2012 edition of the Evansville Courier & Press.  You can read it in full here.

Gas prices have more than doubled during the Obama administration.  When President Obama took office, the national average of gas prices was $1.84 per gallon, compared to $3.93 per gallon today.  The current average in Indiana is $4.02 per gallon.

In the 112th Congress, Congressman Bucshon has voted to expand offshore energy production, open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for oil and natural gas production, encourage the development of 1.5 trillion barrels of oil shale in the Rocky Mountain West, and approve the Keystone XL pipeline project.

On Monday, April 2, 2012, the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, spoke on the future of the Keystone XL pipeline during a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  According to the Wall St. Journal’s MarketWatch, Prime Minister Harper stated,

“Look, I’m a strong and firm believer in the economic importance of our relationship, the security importance, and the importance of the United States and the world,” Harper said in his Washington speech, widely reported in Canadian media.

He then added:

“But we cannot take this to the point where we are creating risk and significant economic penalty to the Canadian economy.”

Not diversify to Asia, when Asia is a growing part of the world, “just simply makes no sense,” he added. And he’s right.

The full article can be read here.

Canada is the leading source of oil imports for the United States, sending over 2.5 million barrels per day to U.S. refineries in 2010.

Alberta’s oil sands resource is estimated to amount to over 1.7 trillion barrels of oil in-place, with 170 billion barrels technically recoverable with today’s technology. Only Saudi Arabia has larger proven oil reserves (260 billion barrels). While production from Alberta’s oil sands produces 1.7 million barrels per day, a recent report by the Canadian Energy Research Institute projects production will reach 2.1 million barrels per day by 2015 and 4.9 million barrels per day by 2035. Approximately 53 percent of Alberta’s oil sands production is currently exported to the United States.

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