Obama: Falling oil prices are not enough

Barack Obama addressed one of Americans' biggest economic concerns on Friday — gas prices.

The Democratic presidential candidate said that despite seeing smaller dollar figures at the pump, decreasing oil prices do not provide adequate long-term relief in energy costs for American families. He repeated his call for an aggressive focus on a new energy policy.

{mosads}“I think most Americans know what the experts know,” the Illinois senator said, “which is that the long-term trend is rising demand, and supply that is not rising as quick as demand.”

Obama also expressed concern on home heating oil prices, saying, “Every projection is that they are going to be significantly more expensive than they were last year."

Homes in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states are the most reliant on home heating oil for warmth between October and March, according the Department of Energy. Midwestern states — including some of the most contested battleground states — are second-most reliant.

Obama welcomed the recent downward trend in gas prices and said  further drops would be “terrific.” He called the price of gas “critical to the long-term health of our economy.”

The price of crude oil hit a three-month low during trading Friday, as light crude was off almost four dollars on the reported strength of the U.S. dollar. Oil traded at $116.05 per barrel before noon Friday morning. Heating oil traded at $3.14 per gallon.

Obama reiterated his call for a new energy policy addressing both energy prices and climate change, cautioning that a lack of action would be cause for regret in decades to come.

“What’s going to happen is we’re going to look back 20 or 30 years from now, just like we have for the last several decades, seeing that we didn’t take any serious action,” Obama said. “And our economy becomes more vulnerable.”

Obama’s statements come at the end of a full week of clamor by Republicans, who have targeted Obama, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), for letting Congress go to its August recess without allowing a vote on a Republican energy plan, which includes provisions allowing for offshore drilling.