Bush faults Democrats for gas prices

President Bush yesterday characterized Capitol Hill Democrats as hypocrites for demanding that Saudi Arabia pump more oil while blocking attempts to increase domestic drilling in such places as Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

Saudi Arabia announced on Friday that it would meet Mr. Bush’s request to increase oil production, though the jump of 300,000 barrels per day was less than the president had wanted.

But rather than criticize the Saudis, Mr. Bush — after a round of meetings with Middle East leaders at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik — instead heaped blame on congressional Democrats for skyrocketing gasoline prices.

“Those who are screaming the loudest for increased production from Saudi Arabia are the very same people who are fighting the fiercest against domestic exploration, against the development of nuclear power and against expanding refining capacity,” said Mr. Bush yesterday after talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Bush called this combination “one of the interesting things about American politics these days.”

Some Democrats have threatening to kill a $1.4 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia unless the kingdom pumps at least 1 million additional barrels a day. With gasoline prices pushing $4 a gallon, energy costs have become an issue in U.S. politics — for example, presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain have called for a gas-tax holiday.

Saudi officials said they are producing all the oil the kingdom’s customers want. They added that their decision to pump another 300,000 barrels per day — which would push their output to 9.45 million barrels per day — had been made a week ago and was not in response to Mr. Bush’s Friday visit with King Abdullah in Riyadh.

Energy analysts saw the increase as a mere token, and oil markets responded by boosting prices to $126 a barrel.

Mr. Bush said he was grateful for the additional oil, but that “it doesn’t solve our problem.”

“Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration,” he said. “Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy, and continue our strategy for the advancement of alternative energies, as well as conservation.”

The newest working U.S. oil refinery was built in Louisiana in 1976 — a situation frequently blamed by Republicans on onerous environmental and licensing rules.

The president also said yesterday that he warned Abdullah that skyrocketing prices are not in his kingdom’s long-term interests either.

“I said very plainly, I said, ‘You’ve got to be concerned about the effects of high oil prices on some of the biggest customers in the world. And not only that, of course, high energy prices [are] going to cause countries like mine to accelerate our move toward alternative energy.’ ”

The Democrat-controlled Congress has passed legislation in recent months that included increased subsidies for the development and production of renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, and biofuels, such as ethanol.

But Democrats have repeatedly thwarted Republican attempts to increase oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and off Florida’s Gulf of Mexico coast.

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