Our nation's energy crisis

Is there really an energy crisis? Is that what our administration wants us to believe?

On March 2, 2011, the Southeast Missourian published an article titled "Does the president want $8/gallon gasoline?"

The article states that on Jan. 19, 2009, the day of President Barack Obama's inauguration, the price of gasoline was (averaging) $1.83. Since then, gas has fluctuated to as high as $3.87 on June 11, 2011.

According to a website, www.nyse.tv, on Jan. 16, 2009 (three days before Obama took office), crude oil was $36.51 a barrel and a year later it was $82.75. This is an increase of 226 percent. As of July 1, 2011 crude oil was $94.94 a barrel. It also shows that from Dec. 30, 2005, until July 4, 2008, crude oil prices rose 238 percent ($61.04 to $145.29) in 31 months. After July 4, 2008, prices dropped to a low of $36.51 on Jan. 16, 2009. A 398 percent decrease in 29 weeks. How can prices fluctuate that much?

In that same article Steven Chu, Obama's energy secretary, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal in September 2008 that "somehow we have to figure out a way to boost the prices to levels of that in Europe" that at the time averaged $8 a gallon.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is also contributing to the problem, canceling 77 oil/gas drilling leases in Utah and having issued orders to the Bureau of Land Management to cease energy development in areas of "wilderness characteristics" making them off-limits to exploration.

JEFF CURNELL, Scott City, Mo.