White House: No good answer to energy ills

WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- No single answer is satisfactory for U.S. consumers watching gasoline prices rise at the pump and energy bills climb, a White House spokesman said Thursday.

"From our perspective, what we need to do is keep this economy growing and focus on rising wages and job growth so that people can deal with the reality of higher oil prices," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said during a news briefing.

The Bush administration is concerned about low-income Americans that use a higher proportion of their income to pay for energy, he said. Programs such as the Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Program is designed to help qualifying people cope with higher prices.

"(But) our focus has to be on growing the U.S. economy, growing wages so that people can deal with these (higher energy costs)," Fratto said, "because it is going to take a long time to deal with changes and transformations in the energy markets."

Crude oil closed at $110.15 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after topping $111 in intraday trading.

The Bush administration has taken steps to reduce the U.S. reliance on foreign sources of oil in ways that use more renewable and alternative energy sources, Fratto said.