Norris Column: Get Off Your Gas! Drill and Vote Gingrich! [Part 1]

Since Jan. 1, the price of gas has soared 45 cents a gallon — the highest on record for this time of year. AAA reported this past week that the national average of unleaded gasoline climbed from Feb. 28's $3.71 per gallon to March 2's $3.73 per gallon and then up again to $3.76 per gallon over the weekend — the 25th straight increase in the past month.

According to The Associated Press, the nationwide price of gas is expected to reach $4.25 by the end of April. But in many cities across the nation, people don't have to wait for April showers to bring May's misfortunes.

Consider what gas prices are right now in just these few cities: Los Angeles, $4.33; San Francisco, $4.35; Honolulu, $4.20; Anchorage, Alaska, $3.99; New York, $3.99; Medford, Ore., $3.98; Seattle, $3.96; Bridgeport, Conn., $3.96. In my wife's hometown in California, gas is already a staggering $4.59 a gallon for regular. (By the way, the average price for regular gas when President Barack Obama took office, in January 2009, was $1.79. But who's counting?)

And the reason for soaring gas prices? According to The Christian Science Monitor, Obama — instead of admitting to a string of mea culpas — is "blaming recent increases on a mix of factors beyond his control, including tensions with Iran, hot demand from China, India and other emerging economies, and Wall Street speculators taking advantage of the uncertainty."

Obama's Democratic cronies and his mainstream media minions are trying to come to his aid by saying that the rise in gas prices is "really complicated," with "no one person ... to blame for pricing."

Yet Forbes ran recent articles saying that the "primary reason" for the spike in oil prices is "the dollar has lost value" and that the Fed has announced an explicit goal "to devalue the dollar by 33 percent over the next 20 years."

But the Obama administration doesn't bear any responsibility in the spike of gas prices? This administration is a crashing currency culprit via its disastrous recovery plan — borrowing astronomical amounts of money from countries with which we are already in vassalage relationships (such as China), bailing out corporations that should have gone bankrupt, bamboozling the American public with Obamacare, and placing our posterity in bondage with more than $15 trillion of national debt.

And what about Obama's further oil restrictions, regulations and intentional avoidances to increase petroleum production and supplies here in the U.S.? The fact is, as U.S. News & World Report noted, "even tiny disruptions to supply can cause a spike in prices when consumers fill their gas tanks."

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu confessed in February 2011 to Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday," "The price of gasoline over the long haul should be expected to go up just because of supply and demand issues." So therefore, couldn't the price likewise go down if U.S. production were increased?

In November, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that "unlocking vast reserves of shale gas could solve the energy crisis, the jobs crisis, and the deficit."

Proof again came just last week, when a three-university study revealed that drilling into Ohio's Utica shale will create more than 65,000 jobs and $9.6 billion of related economic development by 2014, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

Increasing U.S. production of petroleum-based energy (not restricting and reducing it, as Obama's administration has done) is key not only to lowering our gas prices but also to restoring our economy. And that is exactly what former speaker of the House and current GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is proposing.

Gingrich's plan? It is the polar opposite of Obama's. Newt is ready on day one of his presidency to begin to expand leasing of federal lands for oil and gas development, condense regulations to make it easier for companies to build new extraction sites, tap more shale reservoirs, start building the Keystone XL pipeline, release (at least some of) the oil in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (as even some congressional Democrats have advocated), replace the Environmental Protection Agency with a new, economically rational Environmental Solutions Agency, and tell the Iranians to take a flying leap across the Strait of Hormuz.

With these bold solutions, America would end our dependency on foreign oil, reduce the cost of gas, increase millions of domestic American jobs, and bring in billions of dollars of new revenue for the U.S. by becoming one of the largest global exporters of various fuels.

You can review many more details of Newt's energy-, economy- and job-building plan by watching his 30-minute address at http://bit.ly/xcKGuT.

I believe that what we need this week of Super Tuesday is a super energy solution, and only Newt has the bold solutions that would actually change Washington, restore our republic, and offer us economic answers that would add millions of jobs and even could lower gas to $2.50 a gallon.

Don't misunderstand me. My endorsing Newt and his strategies is not my saying that I agree with every decision he ever has made (because I don't). Conservative columnist Thomas Sowell (who is also a Newt supporter) said last week, "Does Gingrich have political 'baggage'? More than you could carry on a commercial airliner."

But Sowell and I (and many other conservatives, including former GOP presidential candidates Rick Perry and Herman Cain) also believe that Newt's the only real Reagan conservative left on the battlefield who has the experience, strategy and staying power to bring real change to Washington.

If you are ready for that real change — if you want to stabilize our economy, restore our republic and lower gas prices simultaneously — then shout it out to Washington and the nation: "Get off your gas! Drill and vote."

Next week, I'll give further evidence of how the Obama administration is covering up the real reason it's not intervening while Americans are being gouged at the pump.

Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook's "Official Chuck Norris Page." He blogs at http://chucknorrisnews.blogspot.com. To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.