Gingrich woos with prospect of $2 gallon gas

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Gas prices

TULSA, Okla. — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is dangling the prospect of gas as low as $2 a gallon if he’s elected.

The former House speaker has spoken in the past of gas dropping to $2.50 a gallon under a Gingrich administration. Monday’s prediction, coming as Gingrich campaigned in Oklahoma, contrasts sharply with rival Rick Santorum, who told an Ohio audience that big-city Americans should brace themselves for $5-a-gallon gas.

Both candidates are citing new sensitivity over rising pump prices to push for relaxed regulation on domestic oil production.

According to AAA’s daily fuel gauge, the national average Monday for a gallon of regular gas was $3.56.

Gingrich and Santorum have been highlighting oil exploration in North Dakota and slamming the Obama administration for delaying a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich dangled the prospect of gas as low as $2 a gallon if he’s elected, playing off voter angst about rising prices at the pump.

Monday’s prediction came as Gingrich campaigned in Oklahoma, where the oil and natural gas sector is vital to a bustling state economy.

“With Gingrich policies, what we know is we will dramatically expand our independence in the world market, dramatically expand our capacity to produce energy without regard to our foreign potential enemies and in the process prices will clearly be a lot lower,” Gingrich said. “Now, I picked $2.50 as a stabilizing price for capital investment reasons. It could easily go down to $2.”

According to AAA’s daily fuel gauge, a gallon of regular gas was approaching $4 in some places and even topped it in California. The national average was $3.56 per gallon.

Gingrich boasted that gas cost as little as $1.13 per gallon when he led the House and that the national average was below $2 when Obama was inaugurated.

“Why do we have this assumption all of a sudden, ‘oh gee, that’s the distant past,’” Gingrich said. “He hasn’t been president that long.”

Santorum focused on fears of prices climbing to record highs while campaigning in Ohio.

The former Pennsylvania senator blamed Obama for failing to drill aggressively for more oil and gas in the U.S.

Santorum said the economy has begun to improve slightly but “all of a sudden we’re going to be hit with the same force of wind that hit us in 2008, in the summer, that caused us to go into a recession, all because of the radical environmentalist policies of this president.”

Gingrich and Santorum have been highlighting oil exploration in North Dakota and slamming the Obama administration for delaying a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline they say could mean cheaper fuel.

30 Comments

  1. txloanguy

    Yep, it can be done. Open up all of the offshore sites Obama closed after Bush opened them. Drill Alaska, CA. and the East Coast. XL? Of course. Since it takes 4-5 years to gear up, announce it and start. No trader wants to be held with the bag when it hits. Watch the prices drop.

    #1
  2. Mr. Stretcy

    Sadly there are those that believe claims like these from the GOP candidates that they can actually roll back the price of fuel. The fact is that oil resources are becoming more difficult and expensive to discover, extract and process. And just because we might use more resources under our own land or from a friendly neighbor like Canada does not guarantee the price will come down significantly.

    The price of oil is dependent on many factors such as supply and demand, economic conditions and international tensions. And since we have a free market system the oil companies are free to sell to whomever they choose to at the world based price.

    About all the President can to is set an energy policy and the sad reality is that any kind of policy that effectively plans for the future must include some things that are not popular such as increasing some costs and taxes to pay towards energy efficient methods such as higher fuel efficiency, increased fuel efficient public transportation and conservation.

    #2
  3. Cajun58

    The man is delusional!

    #3
  4. dsl987

    For gas to be $2.50 a gallon, crude prices would have to fall to $80-85 a barrel. How is Newt going to persuade OPEC to lower their price from $120 currently to $80? It’s not going to happen.

    #4
  5. xanegrey

    america should have spent the $ 1 trillion we blew in Iraq on local oil and alternative fuel development. as soon as Israel lights up Iran we will see $6 dollar gas or better.

    and Obama will be out of the white house before he has time to steal 1 spoon.

    letting big oil set foreign olicy and importing oil from the middle east was very stupid.

    brazil uses ethanol from sugar cane and is energy independent. they are smarter than we are.

    #5
  6. dbtexas

    If there are individuals that actually believe this man, then perhaps they deserve the disaster that would occur if he were elected president. Before all the Obama haters start, spend a little time looking at facts. Oil is a commodity with pricing established on the world market – including domestic production. And, drilling in the US is the highest in years. The pipeline so much in question was halted for concerns over the route. These concerns were expressed by the Republican governor of Nebraska, as well as advisers to President Obama. I full realize that the haters will never see anything positive in the current administration. My comments are not directed toward you.

    #6
  7. cielo

    I guess he didn’t learn from Michelle Bachmann when she embarrased herself with this same “promise.” POLITICIANS don’t affect the price of gas.

    #7
  8. john

    Has anyone looked at the rig count since Obama has been in office? Well, it has gone way, way up. Another thing people might remember, oil is a commodity traded all over the world and the demand has gone up in many places, e.g. China. Neither Gingrich or Obama can control the world energy markets. If we get $2 gasoline, it will mean we are in another deep recession.

    #8
  9. Lamer

    Gingrich boasted that gas cost as little as $1.13 per gallon when he led the House and that the national average was below $2 when Obama was inaugurated

    When he led the house, China and India were non factors and when Obama took over, the economy was in free fall. The speculative oil bubble had burst and that’s what drove oil and gas prices down. Oil was over 150 and gas was close to 4 under the last republican administration. So Newt plans to tank the economy again?

    #9
  10. johnd2

    Any Republican would pursue policies more friendly to lower gas prices than Obama. It is all about fear of global warming via CO2. Gingrich just made a pitch that he would be more agressive than his rivals.

    Fair enough, but this is not much reason to choose him over one of them.

    #10
  11. mcfiesty

    Saying this as a conservative, I HATE these Republican candidates, except for Ron Paul.

    #11
  12. clr55

    Gingrich reminds me of Yul Brynner in The Ten Commandments, “So let it be written, so let it be done!”

    #12
  13. BubbaT

    With all the oil we have in this country gas should never be more than 1.50. But the criminals in Washington and all their oil pals make tons of money so why would they ever drop the price?

    #13
  14. PayAttention

    Unless Newt is proposing to regulate the futures market, he is just selling lower environmental standards with false promises. Oh, and his lips are moving, so you can put it all together.

    #14
  15. Paul Staton

    I am not sure Newt Gingrich knows the difference between Gasoline and Natural Gas.

    #15
  16. scooter

    If this fool convinces the people of Oklahoma he can bring the price of gas down to $2 … he also has some beach front property in Del City he is selling at a heckuva price too

    #16
  17. TransAmer99

    Aww… c’mon, Newt! Push that badboy price back to where it was when I first started driving – around fifty cents a gallon! That might buy my vote. Oh, wait a minute – I work in the energy industry and they won’t be able to pay my pension at those prices. Nevermind!

    #17
  18. hexture

    Does it seem a bit short sighted to use up all your domestic supply before you really need to? The oil in the American ground becomes more valuable for every barrel sucked out of the sand.

    #18
  19. Tedde

    This is not a pie in the sky achievement. This is doable as it only costs about 5 bucks a barrel to get oil out of the ground. Go crazy and add shipping and refining and you might end up with $50.00 per barrel. The price of gas goes up about 4 cents each time the cost of a barrel goes up a dollar. 50x.04=2.00. But OPEC needs to make at least $80.00 per to live their life style and pursue their dream of worldwide Islam.

    #19
  20. WriterDude

    “Two dollar gas, and a chicken in every pot!”

    Proof Gingrich doesn’t have a good grip on reality, and will say whatever to get elected.

    #20
  21. shay

    newter gingrich

    #21
  22. Dune

    The sad part is thier are voters who will believe him.

    #22
  23. lukeduke

    Opec does not run the world. The United States does. It is simply supply and demand if we have a supply we do not have to deal with Opec. do you think we always bought oil from over seas no. We as a Nation have this grand idea to save our oil and use the rest. Well the rest of the world caught on and spiked the prices. Get off foreign oil America and watch the prices drop to where we can buy again. we are the biggest consumer of oil Opec needs the U.S. the U.S. does not need Opec.

    #23
  24. matt

    This fat load goes on about the free market and capitalism, now he is gonna promise price fixing. Oil companies are not gonna voluntarily lower prices if the market is already paying what it does. Gas prices are not that high considering stagnant wages and bigger salaries demanded by CEOs and business owners.

    #24
  25. Mike Christensen

    Haha, this gets me thinking: With how often the price changes these days (even a little bit), and with the kind of technology we have had for a long time already (even if they used the least expensive kind) why have fuel stations been taking so long to get around to replace their plastic number signs that they have to update so difficultly like this, with electronic ones that they could change so easily just from the counter inside, or from a desk in the office?

    Even the most inexpensive e-sign technologies, with just one color of LED, which we’ve had around since back in the early-to-mid-’80s, or maybe even as far back as the ’70s0–even the kind without a processor but just a little chip that can do no more to it but switch numbers manually (which may have been somewhat expensive back then but should be dirt-cheap now comparered to the newest types) would be suitable for the task, would they not? Why is this one of those old-fashioned things that has just stuck around and survived and survived through all this technology we have had around us for so long now?

    #25
  26. Mike Christensen

    Oops, typo with “’70s0″ there!

    #26
  27. Robert Paterson

    like i said before, Newt Gingrich is going to clinch the Republican nomination, California and Texas will be won by Gingrich, he will win all the Southern Conservative States, and he will clinch the nomination, it will be Gingrich * Obama 2012 and how things are it can go either way!

    romney seen as crazy mormon sycho, and santorum is lost in the moon.

    #27
  28. daisy swadesh

    Oh, Wow! Forget about letting the market set the price. Newt-(ala Hugo Chavez)-Gingrich is going for socialism to buy our votes with cheap oil. He’s a classic example of a demagogue.

    #28
  29. Frank

    Tedde,
    Go back to ecomomics class…and this time don’t sleep through it.

    #29
  30. ralph upchurch

    the only hing about stupid oboma is doesnt have to pay for any fuel because we stupid american people payes for it so that he can take his family and who know who else on vacation trip going to about anywhere that he want to as long as the tax payers pay his way get rid of the stockmarket and the people that raises the oil prices so that they can make a bigger profit maybe gingrich can lower the price of the fuel who knows

    #30