India, China boom led to higher fuel prices: White House

Herald Globe (IANS) Wednesday 22nd February, 2012

The White House has attributed the rising fuel prices in America partly to the economic boom in countries like India and China and unrest in other parts of the world.

"The rise in gas prices is clearly the effect of a variety of factors on the global price of oil. They include unrest in certain regions of the world. They include growth in areas like China and India," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday.

The hike in global oil prices underscores the need to improve upon the alternate sources of energy and putting into place a comprehensive energy policy, he said when asked about a comment by Republic presidential candidate Newt Gingrich that Obama wants more expensive gas.

"The fact that this is happening only underscores the need, as it did last year when prices went up, and as it did two years before that -- underscores the need to have a comprehensive energy policy," Carney said noting that President Barack Obama has been putting such a policy into place.

"That has resulted in more domestic oil production than we've had in the past eight years, greater sales of leases in the Gulf and elsewhere to increase our production, the reduction in our reliance on foreign energy sources," he said.

Carney said these are the kind of policies that have long-term, positive impact on the American economy and on national security.

"We can reduce our reliance on foreign sources of energy if we expand in every direction ... to dramatically reduce our consumption of oil and save Americans $1.7 trillion in costs," he added.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)