Peyton Knight sent over this observation:

High fuel prices are among the contributing factors forcing General Motors to lay-off 30,000 employees and shut down 12 plants and parts facilities. Ford also announced that it would be eliminating 4,000 jobs, a full ten percent of its North American white-collar work force, due to slumping profits. In a trend that began well before hurricanes devastated the Gulf Region, the soaring cost of gasoline has taken its tollon sales of SUVs and pickup trucks, which account for nearly 80 percent of Ford and GM profits in North America.Seemingly oblivious (or just plain indifferent) to the ill-effects of America’s dwindling domestic oil production, 25 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives led by Rep. Charles Bass (R-NH) are intent on blocking access to oil in ANWR.

Not only would drilling in ANWR help keep gas prices down, but it would create jobs. Estimates of the number of new jobs that would be created by oil drilling in ANWR range from the tens of thousands to over two million.

High oil prices have a damaging impact across much of the economy. Every time gas prices rise just one penny, a billion dollars are siphoned from Americans’ pockets.

One of GM’s now-doomed plants is located in Pittsburgh, PA. Pennsylvania Republican Congressmen Jim Gerlach and Michael Fitzpatrick are two of the 25 Republicans stonewalling oil production in ANWR.

How will they explain to former GM workers in Pennsylvania that they opted to bury their heads in the tundra instead of supporting environmentally sound oil drilling in ANWR?