Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman: Expect Up To 3 Years Of Fuel Pain.

Source: MSNBC (there's a video from Meet the Press here, too)

So thanks to Bush, Katrina, Iran, China, and God only knows whom or what else, we will see extremely high gas prices for the next three years.

Convenient. Isn't Bush scheduled to go in three years, too?

Gasoline prices have soared an average of 60 cents a gallon in less than a month because suppliers are unable to keep up with demand, a situation that could persist up to three more years, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Sunday.

Bodman said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the shortfall was a sign of a stronger economy under President Bush, but he acknowledged that, at least for now, "the suppliers have lost control of the market."

"The oil has gone up because the suppliers are unable to make the flows equal to the demand," he said. "...Clearly, it's going to be a number of years, maybe two to three years, before suppliers are going to be able to keep up with those demands."

Bodman blamed demand from China and India, reduced refining capacity after Hurricane Katrina, and inadequate planning for shifts to cleaner fuels like ethanol and low-sulfur diesel for causing market "dislocations" that led to rising prices, but Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry trade group, said the war in Iraq played a major role, too.

Oh, really?

Here's another statement worthy of the "o rly? owl," too:

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said the price of gasoline had almost doubled since Bush took office. "All of these things were predictable," he said, pointing to provisions of the energy bill Bush signed last year, which did not shield producers of cleaner-fuel additives like MTBE from legal liability, thereby slowing the transition and squeezing gas supplies.

Wow, people, it was predictable. The minute Gore was declared the loser all the way back in 2000, I knew we'd seen the last of $1/gal gas. Ah, those were the days.

It pains me to say that. Hell, I'm sure these days, people would take a presidential blowjob over presidential corruption.

Tags: [Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman], [Meet the Press], [prices have soared an average of 60 cents a gallon in less than a month because suppliers are unable to keep up with demand], [Katrina drove up gas prices?], [oh, the Iraq War fits in there somewhere, too], [Red Cavaney], [American Petroleum Institute], [high gas prices could last for up to three years], [ending right around the time Bush gets out of office...what tinfoil hat?]