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:

Watch the Video

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

what video?

Ummmm, I seen regular gas here for $4.60 a gallon!

I just paid $4.30 a gallon to fill my tank up at a gas station in the low lands here.

Obama is just blowing smoke up our azzes!

That would be ok if he would use the money saved to pay down the debt.

What's this??? Conservatives calling for government regulation of that last bastion of freedom, the Wall Street speculators? Say it isn't so!

Whattsa matter, Wild West casino...errrr, free markets giving you heartburn in the wallet? $4.00/gal gas with record Big Oil profits doesn't taste so good with 9% unemployment?

Don't say nobody told you so when you put Republicans at least partially back in power again. BTW, where-oh-where is the Tea Party contingent in this whole affair? Hiding out? Elect Dr. No for POTUS, we need $5.00/gal gas.


-Kerry O.

I didn't realize ending tax breaks and subsidies is classified as regulation.

The moratorium on new off shore drilling is regulation and the price jump in oil is a direct result in tightening supplies.

Good call on that one.

The geniuses in the white house want high gas prices so Government Motors can sell more $40,000 Volts..

They want to sell their shares and don't want to have to explain to the tax payer why we are going to take a $10 billion dollar loss.

I think if you'll do the dilgence to check, there is no 'tightening of supplies', just the fearmongering meant to drive prices up at the expense of the working class. Thus, it doesn't matter how many new wells are drilled, there will STILL be a glut on the 'free' market.

This is the same faulty reasoning as trickle-down economics. We've heard for decades how that was the Holy Grail of Republican policies, yet here we are with millionaires being minted at a pace never seen before in American history, and the middle class is STILL losing ground. We heard how productivity is the single biggest factor that has kept the American worker stuck in place financially, yet last year the American worker was the most productive in the world and we STILL have 9% unemployment.

Maybe it's just me, but I think there's nothing more pathetic than an abused ox that loves its yoke and shows it by putting people like Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania in office with all his 'Club for Growth' hogwash theories.


-Kerry O.