Much Ado About $100 Oil

If you write about energy, apparently nothing can fill up your E-mail inbox like oil briefly hitting the $100-per-barrel mark for the first time. Here is a sampling of the reactions to the crude oil price run-up that I’ve been urged to note:

Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, speaking at the Lugar Center for Renewable Energy at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis: “As oil prices have hit $100 per barrel, the income of oil exporting nations is soaring…. Energy is the most vital topic of this presidential election…. Energy is the issue with the widest gulf between what is required to make our nation secure and what is likely to be achieved through the inertia of existing programs and congressional proposals.”


Lester Lave, an energy economics expert and professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, noting that only 7 percent of gross domestic product is spent on energy, compared with 14 to 15 percent in 1981: “Prices are not high enough for middle-income consumers to change their behavior.”

From the office of Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a Maryland Republican and a founder of the Congressional Peak Oil caucus, lawmakers who argue that the world is geologically reaching the end of its ability to increase supply: “Why has oil increased to $100/barrel? With a nod to James Carville, it’s economics, stupid.”

Rep. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, demands an independent investigation of the Bush administration’s plan to continue building the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “amid $100-per-barrel price shock.”

US News and World Report