While the rhetorical level was dramatic, the policy proposals that followed were meek.

My policy preference would be to ban all earmarks. And we're working on various proposals to try to, if not totally ban them, make sure that they ... are fully justified and debated and ventilated, that the activities are conducted in the light of day rather than in the middle of the night and the next day a bill appears on everybody's desk and we vote up or down without having seen it.

It's more symbol than substance.

The biggest factor in the price increase right now is supply and demand. There is huge increasing demand in China and the U.S..

Deferring deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is more symbol than substance.

Short term is tough. We're living now with the consequences of policy decisions that were made over the past several years ? in some cases, over the past several decades. The core of the problem is skyrocketing demand in the United States and other countries and instability among key suppliers.