Do you pay too much for gas?
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During the summer of 2008, with the presidential cam-
paign in full swing, gas prices topped $4 a gallon.
Republican candidate John McCain, formerly a solid envi-
ronmentalist, called for laws allowing oil companies to
drill for oil in U.S. coastal waters. Sarah Palin, Governor
of oil-rich Alaska and McCain’s running mate, put it more
succinctly: “Drill, Baby, Drill!”
Senator Barack Obama had opposed offshoredrilling. Weeks earlier, he had told residents of
Jacksonville, Florida, “I intend to keep in place the
moratorium here and around the country that pre-
vents oil companies from drilling off Florida’s coasts.”
But as gas prices rose, his lead in the polls slipped.
With the election less than two months away, Obama
reversed course. Now he supported off-shore drilling.
Democratic leaders in Congress, scrambling to clamber
onto the offshore drilling bandwagon, pushed
through a law ending the quarter-century old ban on
drilling for oil in federal waters off the Atlantic and
Pacific Coasts.