U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar expressed frustration Wednesday that Republicans are using high gas prices to attack Democrats.
The Colorado Democrat also said President Bush probably won’t heed Democrats’ call to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves because Bush believes “that keeping gas prices high helps the Republicans.”
Polls show that greater numbers of Americans support allowing more offshore drilling and increased oil production.
Republicans in Washington took to the floor of a vacant House this week to protest what they said was a lack of Democratic action on high gas prices, and some Democrats politically at-risk have backed increased drilling.
Salazar said it was surprising that Republicans had been able to capitalize on high gas prices at the expense of Democrats.
“I am surprised because at the end of the day, it was two oil men in the White House that got us here,” Salazar said.
The senator made his remarks at a gas station in Denver, where he echoed other Democrats in calling for Bush to release oil from the country’s strategic reserves in an effort to boost petroleum production and lower gasoline prices.
“If he (Bush) triggered it today, the petroleum would start flowing within 13 days,” lowering prices quickly, Salazar said.
But he said he doubted the president would actually release oil from the reserves.
Joe Brettell, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a Fort Morgan Republican, said Democrats should reconvene Congress to vote on the energy plan offered by Republicans. Musgrave is among the GOP lawmakers who, from Washington, are calling for their colleagues to return from recess.
“We have 25 Republicans who have stayed in Washington to ask the speaker to bring us back into session and give us an up-or-down vote on our comprehensive energy policy,” Brettell said.
He said it was wrong to tap the strategic oil reserves when the country has “natural reserves” lying off its own coasts and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
“Republicans are here talking in a darkened chamber, and the Democrats are on vacation,” Brettell said. “You tell me who’s doing more for the American people.”
Meanwhile, on the steps of the state Capitol, an assortment of lawmakers, environmental groups and social justice advocates gathered Wednesday to urge the oil and gas industry to be more responsible with its windfall profits.
“We’re here to call on the oil and gas industry to stop putting their profits ahead of the people here in Colorado,” said state Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder.
Staff writer John Ingold contributed to this report.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
