Get used to emptying your wallet or purse at the gas station, is the advice coming from the White House. A spokesman today told WND that there is no quick fix for the problem of high fuel costs.

Spokesman Tony Fratto was responding to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House. He asked: "Could you briefly summarize the White House reaction and proposed solution to reports from California of gasoline now selling at $4.00 a gallon or more?"

""Briefly summarize? No, I don't think that's possible, and you're not going to have immediate short-term solutions on things like gasoline prices. It took us a long time to get to a place where the price of gasoline is where it is. It's going to take us a long time to get off of oil as much as possible," he said.

"We've already taken steps through the energy act in terms of conservation and increasing CAFE standards, and also replacing oil with alternative fuels. And so that will continue and we hope it does bring down the price of gasoline. We'd also like to see increased production from oil producers," he said.

(Story continues below)

WND has reported the newly revised estimates of billions of gallons of oil in North Dakota and Montana as well as a process that potentially could be one of the biggest energy breakthroughs in history – genetically manipulating bacteria to quickly convert anything that grows out of the Earth into oil.

That plan, however, continues to be ignored by the biggest names in the national media.

The process was described in a WND story last month. In it a new technique where altered bacteria "rapidly digest" everything from grass clippings and wood chips, turning them into hydrocarbons for fuels such as gasoline and diesel. If done on a large scale, it could provide billions of barrels of renewable oil every year.

The apparent inattention comes as a big surprise to the agricultural researcher pioneering the process, J.C. Bell, the CEO of Bell Bio-Energy, Inc.

"We've been on several radio stations, but nothing really national," he said. "We haven't talked to anybody. Nobody's called us – nobody from the Associated Press or CNN or Fox News Channel, which kind of surprised us. We thought it would generate something."

Bell even has given an overview of his plans at the U.S. Defense Department's Worldwide Energy Conference & Trade Show in Arlington, Va., where more than 750 Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine, Coast Guard and federal organizations were represented.

"He was very well-received there," said Wesley Cox, owner of WCGA Radio, a news/talk station in St. Simons Island, Ga. But Cox complains, "The mainstream media has been ignoring systematically the facts about energy creation and use, and they've been doing it for years."

The price of crude oil today surged past $117 a barrel, and AAA reports average gasoline prices this week were approaching $3.40 per gallon.

In a second question, Kinsolving asked: "How does the White House react to the growing number of predictions that the terrible deadlock will be ended in Denver by nominating Al Gore on the second ballot?

"I don't think I have any reaction to that at all," Fratto said.

 

---

Do you have a tough question you'd like to ask the White House? WND's MR. PRESIDENT! forum is your big chance.

 

---

Related offers:

"Black Gold Stranglehold" proves oil does not come from dinosaurs!

Oil does not come from dinosaurs

'I'm pro-choice – on light bulbs' – Bumper sticker sends Congress message over its banning Edison's invention

Proof Al Gore full of hot air on 'global warming'

 

---

Previous stories:

National news media burying amazing oil breakthrough?

Billions of gallons of oil in North Dakota, Montana

Foreboding oil future called 'grim reality'

Shell exec says world not running out of oil

Anything that grows 'can convert into oil'

New data: Maybe oil isn't from dead dinos

Discovery backs theory oil not 'fossil fuel'

Brazil reports massive oil discovery

$1 billion a day for foreign oil

Massive oil field found under Gulf'

'Black Gold' strikes Big Oil 'nerve'

'Hundreds of years' of oil available

Forget everything you know about oil

Previous columns:

How exactly do 'fossils' make 'fuel'?

Mexico's Cantarell Field caused by meteor impact

What if we don't run out of oil?

Why ANWR drilling makes sense

Thunder Horse in the Gulf

Saudi Arabia: 1.2 trillion barrels of oil ... or more

We will never run out of oil

Brazil's giant offshore oil discoveries

Why the ANWR battle must be won

Russia?s largest field is far from depleted

Senate should make oil executives come clean

'Hubbert's Peak' is a failed theory

Saudi Arabia isn't running out of oil!