President Barack Obama today dismissed the notion that a shift toward more domestic drilling for oil could bring down the gas prices whose rise now threatens a swelling economic recovery.
“There is not a silver bullet, there never has been,” he said in Miami.
But gas prices were an issue during the 2008 campaign again, and while the candidate did at time warn of quick fixes, he also indicated that his policies would keep prices from rising in the medium term.
"I want to invest that money in clean, affordable, renewable energy sources like wind power, and solar power, and biofuels, so that we're not talking about high fuel prices next summer or the next summer after that, or the summer after that," he said in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on April 29 of that year.
Obama was battling Hillary Clinton's proposal simply to reduce the tax on gas, a move he warned would simply extend the American dependence on oil. But neither shift to renewable sources, which his White House has encouraged, nor the lingering economic weakness, which has suppressed demand, seems to be keeping prices down.