Good morning,
This week, as gas prices hit four dollars a gallon, oil companies like ExxonMobil announced skyrocketing profits-- while still receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.
There's something wrong with this picture, and in this video President Obama outlines the steps we're taking to make it right:
A few weeks ago, I emailed you about rising gas prices, and I want to give you a quick update on three important steps:
- Ending oil and gas subsidies. Oil companies are receiving $4 billion a year in taxpayer subsidies that don't make sense and that we can't afford. That's why President Obama has called on Democrats and Republicans in Congress to stop subsidizing the oil and gas industry so that we can afford to invest in the clean energy economy of tomorrow.
- Stopping oil market fraud. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a working group focused on rooting out the cases of fraud in the oil markets that might affect gas prices (the President discussed this in his Weekly Address last Saturday ).
- Reducing our dependence on oil. Stepping back to look at the bigger picture, President Obama recently unveiled his Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future that set a goal of reducing our imports of foreign oil by a third in a little over a decade. To do this we have to increase our domestic energy production, reduce our demand for oil by building cleaner, more efficient vehicles, and fully utilize alternatives to oil in the transportation sector like natural gas and advanced biofuels.
These are difficult issues to tackle, and it's going to take all of us working together to move forward. For years, politicians in Washington have kicked this problem down the road, but we simply cannot afford the price of inaction any longer.
Sincerely,
David Plouffe
Senior Advisor to the President