I came across the video from April 28, 2008 below and a report from Ernest Istook from April 29, 2008. For those of you who don’t know Ernest Istook is “recovering from serving 14 years in Congress” where he was a representative for Oklahoma’s 5^th Congressional District. (His report can be found at this link)

Ernest writes “It’s time for consumers to strike back against the real culprits behind rising gasoline and food prices” and I can’t agree more. But who deserves the blame? OPEC, Oil Company Executives, Commodities Speculators? NO!!! It is our very own United States Congress that deserves the blame, along with the Presidents of the last 3 – 4 decades.

Congress has led our government into disastrous decisions by being a patsy to radical environmentalists and prophets of doom. Presidents have done little to resist the direction Congress has taken us and politicians try to evade and shift the blame. Reversing the misguided attempts of Congress can and will lower gas prices, and food prices too. I remember taking Economics 101 and learning about Supply and Demand. They should have learned this too, but they refuse to follow this important principle of Economics. They have choked off the domestic supplies and forced us to rely on foreign oil.

Ernest writes “Politicians keep promising a plentiful supply of alternative energy, but that remains far in the future, and much of it will be more expensive than $4-per-gallon gasoline. Ponder this: How could you afford any fuel that needs government subsidies to compete with $120-a-barrel oil? Those will never be affordable to consumers.” That is pretty straight forward and to the point. There is no shortage of oil and gas reserves in the U.S. but they have been placed “off-limits” to us. That is why 60% of our oil is being imported and over 1 million jobs have been lost in oil and gas during the past 25 years. Do we have “Green-Collar” jobs to replace them? NO!!!

Congress called the Oil Company Executives to come before them and discuss record-high profits, with the hope to justify taxing them another $18 Billion on top of the $90 billion they already pay. Of course this extra “tax” would be given to other types of energy (see corn farmers) that are too expensive to operate profitably. Another problem is “Boutique” blends of fuels, the majority of which shift corn from the food chain to the fuel chain.

Watch the Video and Read the Report!

You will find it interesting and there is more information there than I have posted here.