To the editor:

In blaming the Obama administration for high gasoline prices, Tom Shewmon wrote in his March 22 letter that “we’ve not seen the highest high of a gallon of gas – not even close.” He’s probably right because, in 2008, Bush’s last full year in office, gasoline reached an all-time high of $4.11 per gallon. Fox News, alarmed at the blame directed at Bush, produced and aired reports demonstrating that a U.S. president cannot control oil prices. Then the worldwide price of crude oil crashed, dropping to a low of $36.51 per barrel in January 2009 just before Obama took office.

And Fox News got it right. Historically, U.S. gasoline prices and world crude oil prices directly correlate. Interestingly, U.S. crude oil production during the eight years of the Bush administration dropped from 5,801,000 barrels per day (2001) to 4,950,000 barrels per day (2008). Domestic oil production during the Obama administration, however, has risen to 5,673,000 barrels per day (2011), but U.S. demand is down and we now export gasoline and diesel. Yet our gas prices, mirroring the world oil prices that U.S. refiners pay, have gone up, showing again that the price of oil is affected by such things as dangers and threats in the Middle East and the increasing demand for gasoline and diesel in India and China.

If only a U.S. president could control the world price of crude oil and thereby the price of gasoline — a lovely thought from the land of wishful thinking.