Obama: U.S. can't drill out of gas crisis

From an article by Ben Jones in the Appleton Post-Crescent:

KAUKAUNA —As gas prices top $4 a gallon around the Fox Valley, Sen. Barack Obama said a reduction in consumption, not new domestic drilling, will provide relief.

"If we reduce our consumption of oil, that's what will reduce gas prices, the presumptive Democratic nominee said in a one-on-one interview with The Post-Crescent during a campaign stop in Kaukauna.

“There’s really no other way of doing it.”

“We can’t drill our way out of the problem because there's just a finite amount of oil out there and you have got increasing demand from countries like China and India.

“And so the way we are going to see gas prices reduced is when we start using the oil that we get, more intelligently than we are doing now.”

Obama said the U.S. needs to “ramp up” its use of alternative energy and improve vehicle fuel efficiency.

“The thing that is going to reduce gas prices over the long term is reduced demand,” Obama said.

“That’s something we have not focused on.

“(President Bush) has not had an energy policy to accomplish that, and I think that's been a mistake.”