Gasoline priced at $5.89 for regular is advertised at a Shell station, Monday, Feb. 27, 2012, in Orlando, Fla. Oil prices are falling as investors lock in profits after a seven-day surge. Retail gasoline prices continued to climb, adding a penny on Monday for a national average of $3.70 per gallon.(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
(CNSNews.com) - Former Shell Oil President John Hofmeister predicted that the U.S. won’t have enough oil to fill gas tanks whatever the price and that high gas prices could lead to another recession, because people won’t be able to buy things.
The host of “Washington Journal” asked Hofmeister if he agreed with the head of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, that the U.S. won’t see $5 a gallon gas and that the rhetoric over Iran is responsible for driving up gas prices temporarily.
“There’s a lot of views out there, and I’ve been articulating a $5 price. Where he is perhaps more correct than I am is our U.S. economy will start to falter and could even go back into recession as we get to $5. I’m deliberately being an alarmist. I know that, because I am fearful that the American people are being so misserved by the political class in this country - and as I said, both Republicans and Democrats – that something has got to be done,” he said.
“The American people have got to get a grip on the politicians who refuse to deal with the future needs for energy, because if it’s not $5 this summer, guess what. If we stay on the plan we’re on, which is no plan whatsoever, we’ll be at $5 next summer or $5.50 the following summer, or we’ll be standing in gas lines wondering whatever happened to this country,” Hofmeister added.
Hofmeister predicted that Americans won’t have enough oil to fill their gas tanks no matter the price, which will lead to another recession.
“We’re not going to have enough oil to fill the tanks everyday of consumers at whatever price it might be, so Rex may be correct in the course of the next several months that the economy could falter because people don’t have the money to both buy clothes and books and food and medicine, because they have to get to work every day, and the higher priced gasoline courtesy of the American government is causing people to choose to not buy things,” he said.
“That’s what will take the country back to recession. That’s what will cause higher unemployment, and the sooner we get a plan for energy, the better off every American will be,” Hofmeister added.