“$48.73. That's how much it costs to fill my gas tank these days,' said Lou Patello of Lansing, Michigan the other day. 'And I am sick of it. Why can't those politicians do something about this?'

Mr. Patello’s bewilderment is shared by every American with a gas tank to fill or a house to heat. A big part of the answer to his question is that many of our elected politicians are beholden to the oil companies, Wall Street, and commodities market speculators to line their ample campaign chests.

This campaign season, the Republicans in Congress are particularly vulnerable on the issue of high gasoline prices. Take, for example, the new hard-hitting ad attacking Colorado's Republican Senate candidate and former congressman, Bob Schaffer: “What kind of mark has Bob Schaffer made as a politician?,' asks the ad. 'He's left a definite imprint, accepting over $150,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests and voting in Congress to give oil and gas interests over $13 billion in tax breaks.'

There are those in Congress, mainly Democrats, who recognize the root of the problem: Unregulated oil traders and unaccountable oil corporations that control a well-oiled Congress by means of huge campaign contributions. But in the current Congress, independent and honest representatives and senators lack the clout to change matters much.

But things could change rapidly if Barack Obama captures the presidency, and the balance of power shifts toward the Democrats in Congress in November. This is what is needed in order to give progressive representatives more clout. The greedy oil companies (who have minted $609 billion during the eight years of the Bush administration) will then find themselves, at long last, over a barrel. When the power in Congress shifts more in favor of working people, Big Oil will have to start paying their fair share of the federal tax burden.

From their decades’ long super-profits a good chunk of the money needed to make the shift to green jobs – alternative energy sources, rail and other alternatively-powered public transit – could quickly come, as well as money desperately needed to rebuild our highways, bridges, schools, and the rest of the country’s decaying infrastructure.

Some, especially the Republicans and the oil-driven corporate media, try to divert the public’s attention from the true source of our energy woes by offering them what are basically individualist solutions aimed at reducing personal energy consumption. You know the mantra: turn off your ignition when you’re stuck in traffic or at the drive-through window of your friendly local bank, or when ordering your non-nutritious but cheap sack of hamburgers. Of course, such do-it-yourself approaches fall far short of addressing the nation’s energy problems.

There is certainly no question that there is a crucial environmental element to the energy crisis, including the very grave threat of global warming (which is, of course, very low on the Republican agenda). But what else have the Republicans to offer when it comes to energy prices, aside from buying a smaller vehicle and filling up your car in the wee hours of the morning before the fuel storage tanks at the service station begin to swell in the heat? Not much. They won’t enact a windfall profits tax on the oil giants (which Barack Obama supports and Senator McCain, beholden to Big Oil, loyally opposes), even though those profits have gushed so enormously under the Bush administration that “hurricane” or “typhoon-fall profits” would be a more appropriate description of their intensity.

The Republicans in Congress, still powerful enough to block measures that will help the American people, will not hear of an excess profits tax on some of their major campaign contributors like Exxon and Shell, both of whom recorded record profits of about $12 billion each this quarter alone, not even when the federal treasury is predicted to sink nearly half-a-trillion dollars into the hole this year.

So this is where the devotees of the free-market cult have brought us today. And if Lou Patello in Lansing is waiting for free-market solutions for his severe economic discomfort, he will have a very long wait, indeed.

Is there anyone who actually works for a living in this country still gullible enough to accept the Reagan/Bush model of social prosperity, i.e., that all anyone has to do to get ahead in a free-market society is pull themselves up by the bootstraps, dress for success, and carefully follow in the deregulated footsteps of the Enron energy traders and crude commodities dealers? Today, as we have learned to our misfortune, that path has proved extremely slippery for must of us, paved as it is with oil. The American economy has also slipped disastrously under the Republican Bush Administration. It is now time to take a road in a new direction.

New Offshore Drilling Won't Lower the Price of Gas Skepticism is also mounting about the latest Republican panacea: offshore oil drilling.

'This is a phony issue,' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said of the McCain-Bush offshore oil drilling proposals in an appearance on 'Meet the Bloggers,' a new online-program sponsored by the Brave New Foundation.

Responding to McCain campaign and congressional Republican claims that new offshore drilling is needed to counter rising gas prices, Reid pointed out that 'if they wanted to go offshore right now, any place in the world, [it would take] 10-to-15 years before they could get a drop of oil.' So there’s no hope to be found offshore for lowering prices at the pump anytime soon.

The only Republican defense of this basic flaw in their proposed offshore drilling plan is that “it will show the oil markets that we are serious about the problem,” that is, the scheme might succeed in driving down the price of a barrel of crude a couple of bucks for a few weeks – but with absolutely no impact on the price of a gallon of gas.

Reid also emphasized that oil companies already hold current leases on public lands, both on and offshore, which have long gone unused. 'They have 60 million acres they can drill on today,' he said. “So let them start there.”

Supporters of new offshore drilling even insist that new technology has eliminated accidental oil spills and other hazards associated with offshore drilling. In response to such recent claims by John McCain and other Republican politicians that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in no oil spills, Reid remarked: 'I keep hoping it will end up like that book I read when I was a kid – Pinocchio. I expect to see all these big noses out there on the Senate floor, because these are outright fabrications.'

Reid added that along with new spills as a result of the storms, oil slicks in the Gulf have often caught on fire. And just recently, while Obama was wowing them in Europe, John McCain was prevented from making yet another campaign stop in New Orleans by two things: an oil barge overturned and stopped all traffic on the Mississippi, and the oil-rig he was intending to visit in the Gulf of Mexico to make his drilling pitch was shut down due to the threat from Hurricane Bertha.

The country has to be realistic and honest about new oil production, Reid said. 'America has less than three percent of the oil in the world, counting ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) and all that offshore stuff, but we use 25 percent of the world's oil everyday. You can't produce your way out of the problem. Drilling won't do it.'

Environmental and labor organizations also oppose new offshore drilling as the solution to America's energy crisis. This past week the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental organizations, circulated a petition against new drilling.

'We call upon the Congress to say no to coastal drilling in protected areas and yes to a comprehensive solution, a 'New Apollo Program' for America, that will invest in clean, renewable energy and homegrown fuels, and create millions of high-quality, green-collar jobs,' the petition read.

To combat high gas prices, the federal government should open the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), say groups like Americans United for Change (AUFC) and the Center for American Progress.

McCain and the Republican's 'best answer to out-of-control oil prices is offshore drilling that wouldn't yield a drop of new oil for 10 years. That's not a solution – that's a distraction advocated by the same big oil companies who are making record profits,' said Caren Benjamin of AUFC.

Releasing oil from the SPR, 'would also prick the speculative bubble that contributes to record prices,' says Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress. When past presidents ordered releasing oil from the SPR, oil prices fell from $5 to $10 per barrel, Weiss noted.

Weiss blames George W. Bush, John McCain, and their Republican allies in Congress for the current record-high gas prices, because they have for years opposed and blocked immediate relief for high gas prices (such as opening up SPR), as well as long-term solutions such as higher fuel economy standards in vehicles that would allow consumers to save money on gas.

Gas prices have steadily risen in the face of the Bush administration’s systematic efforts to turn new land over to oil companies for drilling, the Audubon Society of New York noted in a recent statement: 'Gas prices have doubled in New York, even as the federal government has opened millions of acres to drilling – and done virtually nothing to address our need for renewable energy sources.'

Higher oil prices are not unrelated to supply and demand questions, said investment consultant Andrew Horowitz. 'But the fact of the matter is that the frothier part, the reason why we have had such a parabolic move in oil prices, is because the so-called 'Enron loophole' has continued to remain open,' he noted. 'That is perhaps the most important factor.'

Authored by John McCain's economic adviser, former Sen. Phil Gramm in 2000, the 'Enron loophole' allows energy commodity trading to be done without any regulatory oversight. Incredibly, this loophole has remained open, even after the collapse of Enron due to rigging, insider deals, and fraud that cost investors, pensioners and employees of that company hundreds of millions of dollars. Gramm was forced out of an official capacity in the McCain campaign after characterizing people who don't like high gas prices or the sagging economy as 'whiners.'

Congress recently brought natural gas trading under the purview of federal regulatory agencies as part of the Farm Bill passed last May, but has so far not passed new oversight over petroleum commodities generally.

Speculation is driving the current spike in prices, Horowitz emphasized. 'The commodities markets are today being run rampant by speculators who have, under the radar, but, more importantly, without regulatory oversight, been able to push oil prices dramatically higher.'

To the speculation explanation, author and economist Ismael Hossein-zadeh, a recent article, added the ongoing threat of war against Iran, generalized Middle East instability, and the ongoing depreciation of the US dollar.

In a recent report, Art Perlo, who chairs the economics commission of the Communist Party, argued that growing markets in China and India, as well as the Iraq war, which daily consumes as much oil and gas as a small country, are also part of the price-rise equation. But rampant speculation remains the main driving force.

The impact of the cost of energy on America’s low- and middle-income working families – those who are forced to rely on gas-guzzling cars to drive long distances to and from work and those who are awaiting record-high home heating costs this winter – is becoming increasingly unbearable. Relief is needed immediately.

One proposal that would have an immediate positive effect would be for the federal government to issue fuel stamps to help pay for gas and heat. These days more and more people are turning to food stamps to help feed their families, even though the stamps do not go very far anymore, given the rapid growth in supermarket price inflation (itself driven by the rise in oil prices).

People in the most powerful country on earth should not have to face starvation, malnutrition, freezing in under-heated homes, foreclosure, or bankruptcy, because of the failure of successive right-wing administrations to provide any protection against the depredations of Big Oil, Wall Street speculators, or the more powerful than ever military-industrial complex – which daily devours the nation’s wealth and blood in a discredited endless war for oil.

Watch the video with Sen. Reid here: