Oil crisis fuels blame game

WASHINGTON — Runaway oil prices have set off a furious new blame game in which political leaders and key economic players are scrambling to deflect responsibility for the deepening crisis.

With outraged consumers protesting in the streets of many countries, oil producers are blaming speculators, speculators are blaming consumers and politicians are blaming one another. At stake is not just a tarnished image, but real damage to economic interests and political fortunes.

"Everybody's got their preferred culprits," said Frank A. Verrastro, a longtime U.S. energy official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Nobody wants to look in the mirror."

The process of assigning blame underscores the complexity of a crisis with multiple causes and explosive implications.

Nearly 30 years ago, skyrocketing energy prices and a sagging economy may have played a larger role in the defeat of President Carter than the Iranian hostage standoff, experts said.

"Oil prices were a straight-up pocketbook issue, and that, along with inflation, really turned the election," said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University who surveyed voter attitudes on energy this year. "The penetration of gas prices as an issue is pretty deep."

In Washington, President Bush on Wednesday blamed Democrats in Congress and called for an end to the nation's offshore drilling ban. Democrats have blamed Bush and Saudi Arabia, among others. The Saudis have blamed global financiers. Environmentalists and oil companies have come in for a helping of blame as well.

Overseas, growing demand for oil in China and India have been fingered, along with U.S. foreign and military policy, as countries worry about the international ramifications of rising prices.

Among the most frequent new targets are speculators. Oil retailers, oil producers, many Democrats and even some Republicans say that people who buy oil as an investment are causing much of the price increase.

"These Wall Street traders have pushed the economy to the brink of disaster," said Dan Gilligan, president of the Petroleum Marketers Assn. of America, a business trade group for gasoline retailers.

Exxon Mobil officials have told lawmakers that more than half the price of a barrel of oil can be attributed to speculation.