The Washington Post reports today, “Soaring gasoline prices are biting into household incomes and nibbling at Americans’ fuel consumption — and support for President Obama, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. About six in 10 respondents said they had cut back on driving because of rising fuel prices, and seven in 10 said that high pump prices are causing financial hardship.”

ABC News adds, “With gas up 26 percent this year to an average $3.88 a gallon, seven in 10 Americans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll report financial hardship as a result, six in 10 say they’ve cut back on driving — and, among those hardest hit, Obama’s ratings are suffering. This poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, finds the president’s job approval rating 13 points lower among people who say the price of gas is causing them hardship. Forty-three percent of them approve of the president, vs. 56 percent of those who report no hardship. And among the four in 10 feeling ‘serious’ hardship, just 39 percent approve of Obama’s work in office.”

According to ABC, “Political support usually rests heavily on economic performance, and there the sharply rising price of gas is taking its expected toll. Economic pessimism — the number of Americans who say the economy is getting worse — has doubled this year to 44 percent, and it rises to 54 percent, among those who report serious financial hardship from gas prices.”

Unfortunately, President Obama has given Americans little reason for optimism on gas prices, thanks in part to his energy policies. In an op-ed last week, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell went through the many troubling actions of the Obama administration on energy issues: “His administration has delayed, revoked, suspended, or canceled many energy development opportunities. No matter how much they say they want lower gas prices, the regulations issued by this administration add up to one thing—a war on American energy production and the jobs that come with it. President Obama has proposed raising energy taxes of up to $90 billion over the next 10 years—most of which would be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher gas and electricity prices. The taxes could also slow down domestic oil production, enough to put up to 165,000 jobs in jeopardy over the next 10 years. The administration has issued only 10 permits for deepwater drilling basic exploration projects in the past 11 months. If that current slow pace continues, offshore energy production will decrease by 13 percent in 2011. And fewer deepwater drilling projects mean fewer jobs and billions of dollars lost in investment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has blocked access to potential offshore resources by refusing to provide permits to explore for oil off the Alaska coast, which holds an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil and would create 55,000 jobs per year. . . .That same EPA is imposing through regulation what it couldn’t through legislation, the regulation of carbon emissions—despite Congress expressly voting against giving the EPA any such power. These backdoor regulations could increase the cost of gasoline and electricity by 50 percent and destroy more than a million jobs. And the administration won’t even have a conversation about exploring for oil in a remote, 2,000-acre piece of land in northern Alaska that could bring approximately one million barrels of oil to market per day.”

 Leader McConnell concluded, “The problem is that the liberal Democrats in Washington won’t let us use the energy we already have. . . . Republicans have proposed two simple ideas that would provide real relief at the pump. First, we should seriously reform the rules and regulations holding America back from increased domestic energy production. And second, we should block any new regulations that would drive up the costs of energy production. Together, these two steps would unlock our energy resources and promote job growth. Plus, they’re just common sense. Unfortunately, common sense is a rare thing in Washington these days—perhaps rarer than domestic energy.”

 Rasmussen Reports:

Those Confident That America’s Best Days Lie Ahead Down to 31%

66% Believe U.S. Economy in Recession

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