John Boehner 8TH DISCTRICT OF OHIO

The taxpayer-funded expedition will take President Obama to Cushing, OK – a key point along the popular Keystone XL pipeline, which he rejected and personally lobbied against – where he will make a show of his support for … the part of the pipeline that didn’t need his approval and is moving forward with it.

But this week’s costly dog-and-pony show isn’t likely to fool anyone. The president wants the American people to think his policies have nothing to do with rising gas prices, but the facts tell a different story:

• The president blocked, delayed, and restricted access to America’s energy resources – leading to a seven percent drop in federal energy production – even as his administration worked to expedite taxpayer-backed loans to failed companies like Solyndra.

• Charles Krauthammer said the president’s decision to block Keystone XL “gratuitously prolongs our dependence on outside powers, kills thousands of shovel-ready jobs, forfeits a major strategic resource to China, damages relations with our closest ally, and sends billions of oil dollars to Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin and already obscenely wealthy sheiks.”

• Despite his “all of the above” overtures, the president still hasn’t urged Senate Democrats to take up House-passed energy bills, allowing them to focus on election-year point scoring.

• And now the president is pushing for higher taxes that would make gasoline even more expensive forstruggling Americans.

No wonder a new survey from The Hill found 68 percent of Americans believe “Obama’s policies will result in gasoline prices increasing,” and a plurality believe “they will cause the United States to become even more dependent on foreign oil.” Similar surveys by ABC News/ Washington Post  and CBS News/New York Times show overwhelmingly disapproval for the way the president is handling gas prices.

While the president and Democrats are scrambling and playing defense, Republicans are working to remove barriers to American energy production and stop policies that drive up gas prices. Learn more about theAmerican Energy Initiative on Facebook, click here for a list of House-passed energy bills still awaiting a vote by the Senate, and visit jobs.GOP.gov for a closer look at the Republican plan for jobs.