Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. speaks during a news conference at a gas station in Indianapolis, Friday, April 25, 2008. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

by John McCormick

INDIANAPOLIS -- With a sign showing $3.55 a gallon behind him, Sen. Barack Obama today called for increased federal action on energy prices as he answered a wide variety of questions from reporters.

The Illinois Democrat was responding to criticism leveled Thursday by the Republican National Committee and others for his opposition to a gas-tax holiday, as likely Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, has proposed.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has said she would support a break for consumers from gas taxes, while Obama said earlier this week in suburb Philadelphia that McCain's proposal was a "bad idea," setting up a rare policy difference between the two Democrats.

"Few costs, obviously, are rising faster than the ones people pay at the pump," Obama said in his opening remarks. "For the well off in this country, high gas prices are mostly an annoyance. But to most Americans, they're a huge problem, bordering on a crisis,"

Obama lambasted oil companies for record profits and blamed the Bush administration and his opponents for a lack of leadership on alternative energy.

"This problem goes deeper than the Bush administration because we've been talking about high gas prices in this country since Americans were sitting gas lines back in the 1970s," he said. "The only thing that is different now is that we are even more dependent on foreign oil, our planet is in even greater peril, and the price of gas keeps going up and up and up."

Without naming her, Obama suggested Sen. Hillary Clinton would have a harder time leading on the problem because she takes money from federal lobbyists. "I'm the only one who hasn't taken a dime from Washington lobbyists," he said.

A Los Angeles Times story earlier this week, however, pointed out that Obama continued accepting donations from oil company executives and employees last month even as he aired ads in which he stated he took no oil company money.

Obama has taken at least $263,000 from oil company executives, family members and employees since entering the presidential race last year, including $46,000 last month. At least $140,000 has come in chunks of between $1,000 and $2,300, the maximum permitted under federal law.

Factcheck.org, part of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, has chastised Obama for airing the spot.

That was a point Clinton spokesman Phil Singer made in a response statement: "Sen. Obama might say he doesn't take contributions from oil companies, but he took more money last month from oil company executives than any other candidate."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded this way: "Barack Obama rolled out the cameras, and then said nothing about his new opposition to immediate price relief for hardworking Americans who are seeing record prices at the pump. Barack Obama can't deliver for working people if he supports higher gas taxes when the price of fuel is at a record high, and is likely to get higher by summertime."

Asked why he opposes a tax freeze on gas prices, when he has supported them in the past in Illinois, Obama said he did oppose at least one gas tax freeze in Illinois while he was a state lawmaker and has a larger reason now.

"I don't want somebody to save essentially 25 bucks - that's what the savings would yield for the average driver - and now they're potentially driving over an unsafe bridge," he said.

Obama outlined energy proposals he has made in the past, including a windfall profit tax on oil companies, steps to reduce the price of oil and increase transparency on how prices are set, middle-class tax cuts, increased fuel-efficiency standards and $150 billion over 10 years to establish a green energy sector.

He had also pointed to both his opponents for a lack of making some of those things happen sooner.

"The candidates with the Washington experience, my opponents, are good people. They mean well. But they've been in Washington an awful long time and even with all the experience they talk about, nothing has happened," he said. "The country didn't raise fuel-efficiency standards for over 30 years. So, what have we got for all that experience? Gas that's approaching $4 a gallon. Because you can fight all you want inside of Washington, but unless you change the way it works, you won't be able to make the changes America needs."

Asked a question about ethanol, Obama gave an answer he often used in Iowa, pointing to his home state's large ethanol industry and calling the corn-based fuel a transitional technology.

"We're going to have to shift to cellulosic ethanol using biomass that is not part of the food chain and that is going to some time," he said.

Obama also discounted suggestions that his support of a so-called cap and trade system would simply drive gas prices higher.

"The cap and trade system will threaten to push electricity prices higher because industries that are producing electricity, whether they're using coal or natural gas or what have you, they would have to take into account the carbon they are releasing into the atmosphere," he said. "That would generate, though, billions of dollars and I've been very specific about the fact that a sizeable portion that's generated from the cap and trade system would them be reinvested in the form of rebates to people of moderate incomes, working families, so that they would not absorb all those costs. But, look, I've been very clear about the fact that we've got to transition into a situation where we are using energy more efficiently."

Obama is also meeting with the editorial board of the Indianapolis Star, a newspaper that has already called on him to do something he has indicated he does not want to do: have another debate with Clinton before May 6.

This evening, he will play a basketball game with people who worked with his campaign to register new voters in Indiana.