U.S. Treasury Secretary visits state fair, blames congress for gas prices

The U.S. Treasury Secretary was in Des Moines yesterday, and he blamed Congress, in part, for skyrocketing gasoline prices. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow spoke Friday at the Iowa State Fair, and he said the nation’s economic recovery is running into some “head winds.” Snow says “those head winds in an otherwise strong economy” are energy prices. He says pump prices are “way, way, way too high.”Snow says “if the Congress had acted on the President’s energy legislation” energy prices wouldn’t be so high. Snow says American policy needs to promote “alternative” energy like the wind and the corn-based fuel additive ethanol.Snow says use of American energy sources reduces our dependence on “uncertain energy supplies from parts of the world that are subject to instability.” Snow says he hopes the U.S. Senate and House come to an agreement soon that will get the energy bill passed through Congress. Republicans control the debate agenda in the House and Senate, and the energy bill has passed by the House and Senate in different forms. A conference committee of House and Senate members has yet to strike a compromise.