Pelosi hits back at Bush on gas prices

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sought to knock the ball back into President Bush’s court on gas prices Thursday, calling on him to reduce demand by suspending purchases by the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

“I call upon the president today to work with Democrats to lower gas prices,” Pelosi said.

{mosads}Her call came after a week in which prices rose nearly 14 cents a gallon on average and Republicans coined the phrase “Pelosi Premium,” an indication that the rising cost of gasoline was in some way connected to her tenure as Speaker.

The White House immediately rebuffed Pelosi’s call. Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said attempts to use the SPR to lower prices have been “ineffective.”

But the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee and the House Republican leader appeared to be splitting from the administration on this issue, a clear sign that exorbitant oil prices will play into this year’s elections.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has called for a holiday from the 18-cent federal gas tax, has supported the concept floated by Pelosi while campaigning for president. And House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the idea was “worthy of discussion,” though he was quick to point out that the result would be a minor decrease at the pump.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she’d stop adding to the reserves and even release oil to push down gas prices. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) agrees that the government should stop buying for the SPR.

On the Hill, more and more lawmakers are seeking to find ways to legislate on the issue. A group of Democrats Thursday said they would seek to block an arms sale to Saudi Arabia unless it opens the oil spigots. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said he would try to add a measure blocking shipments to the SPR to the Iraq supplemental.

In addition to calling for Bush to stop adding to the SPR, Pelosi urged Bush to lift his veto threats on legislation she said would “hold OPEC accountable for price-fixing,” crack down on “price-gouging” at the pump and end what she considers subsidies to oil companies.

“All of these are part of saying the leverage is with the consumer and not Big Oil,” Pelosi said.

Stopping shipments to the SPR, Pelosi said, could reduce prices by anywhere from five to 24 cents. She said the reserve is almost full now, and filling it takes 70,000 barrels off the market.

The reserve hit its all-time high of 700 million barrels under President Bush. The administration sold 11 million barrels after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.

“It’s just one concrete thing we can do,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who has sponsored a similar measure to stop shipments to the SPR. Welch said he’d been bothered by the Republican floor campaign on gas taxes.

“It’s a bit galling to have Republicans make blatantly hypocritical charges,” he said.

Republicans spent the past week heckling Pelosi for her “commonsense” plan, and coined the term “Pelosi Premium” to highlight the $1.11 increase in gas prices since she took over as Speaker.

“Republicans, over the last several cycles we were in the majority, fought for energy bills which would include conservation, would include alternative sources of energy, biofuels, more nuclear energy and more domestic production of oil and gas,” Boehner told reporters on Thursday. “We were fought every step of the way in that process of getting more domestic production, and today we’re paying the price.”

Democrats noted that gas prices have gone up much more than that, about $2, since Bush took office. And they say that given Republican ties to oil companies, they have a lot more to worry about politically.

“They’re trying to deflect attention away from the White House,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.

Manu Raju contributed to this article.