Second, it would do more harm than good. Prices are important signals about relative scarcity and expectations about the future, and federal intervention to distort prices would send inaccurate signals to consumers and thus harm, not help, the economy. Third, it has no business doing so. You can read the Constitution backwards and forwards and find nothing in it empowering the government to manipulate prices. The best energy policy is no energy policy.
Oil is like any other commodity.
High prices will encourage new production, more efficient consumption and alternative fuel use. We should hold tight and wait OPEC out. The invisible hand will moderate prices. High oil prices will increasingly tempt OPEC members to cheat on their production quotas, a temptation that will become too great to resist at some point. Think of the OPEC cartel as a dam that attempts to hold back a mighty river.