What Chu said
Chu is a a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who served as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a federal energy research center. His quote about European gas prices has become somewhat notorious since he uttered it almost four years ago.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in late 2008 -- before Obama was elected and at a point when Chu had no ties to Obama -- Chu told the newspaper that he favored raising gasoline taxes gradually over 15 years to coax consumers into buying fuel-efficient cars and discouraging sprawl.
"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Chu said in an interview with the Journal in September 2008. The quote did not appear in print until December, when the Journal ran a story after news emerged that Chu was being tapped as energy secretary.
It has been a target of criticism numerous times since then.
"The popularity of ChuÂ’s now-infamous quotation tends to track the rise and fall of gas prices: It enjoyed a huge surge of attention last spring and summer (2011) before largely vanishing from view in the fall, leading up to this monthÂ’s renaissance," reporter Bob King wrote in a story in POLITICO.
As it happens, after Gingrich's comment, Chu backed away from what he said. At a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on March 13, 2012, Chu said, "Since I walked in the door as secretary of Energy IÂ’ve been doing everything in my powers to do what we can to Â… reduce those prices."
Chu added, according to POLITICO, that the "most important tool in DOEÂ’s tool chest is moving off oil."
"So are you saying you no longer share the view that we need to figure out how to boost gasoline prices in America?" Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked him.
"I no longer share that view," Chu said.
"When I became secretary of Energy, I represented the U.S. government," Chu added. "Of course we donÂ’t want the price of gasoline to go up, we want it to go down."
PolitiFact | Gingrich said energy secretary advocated raising gas prices
So stop acting like that's his policy, ya brainwashed MORONS.