President Obama's re-elect team defended White House energy policy on Sunday as gas prices shoot toward the $4 mark and beyond, a level that could devastate voters' pocketbooks as well as Obama's chances for a second term.

Nationally, gas prices are $3.53 a gallon, up 25 cents since Jan. 1, and likely headed to $4.25 a gallon by late April. Republicans have demanded more oil production at home, as well as building the Keystone XL pipeline across the middle of the U.S. to allow oil from Canada to reach Texas refineries.

Obama rejected the plan, but one of his spokesmen, Robert Gibbs, said the president is looking to increase domestic energy production.

"Just on Friday, the Department of Interior issued permits that will expand our exploration in the Arctic. The president has increased our fuel efficiency and energy efficiency standards so we do use less energy, which will help drive down the price," Gibbs said.

“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that I will sign today -- a plan that meets the principles I laid out in January -- is the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history.” -- President Obama at the Feb. 17, 2009 signing of his stimulus first stimulus package in Denver.

The deteriorating situation in the Middle East may end up making this election an unexpected battle over foreign policy.

Given the new dangers and uncertainties sewn by the Arab Spring last year, particularly the emboldened regime in Iran and the anxiety in Israel, the chances for a regional conflagration are higher now than at any time since U.S. troops, now withdrawn, invaded Iraq in 2003.

That could bring $5 gasoline, economic disruption and a severe testing of old alliances.

Religious leaders told a House panel Thursday the Obama administration was violating basic rights to religious freedom with its policies for requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to birth control coverage.

The unity of the religious leaders contrasted with the partisan divide among lawmakers on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, with Democrats saying they had been denied the ability to present witnesses who might support the government stance or speak for the rights of women to reproductive health coverage. They asked why not one of the 10 witnesses at the hearing was a woman.

The issue has sparked a political firestorm for the administration, with Catholics and other religious groups strongly protesting an original Health and Human Services ruling that religion-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities must include free birth control coverage in their employee health plans.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said Thursday morning that leading Catholic organizations who seemed to initially support President Obama's latest contraception rule are growing increasingly hesitant as they study the changes in detail.

"It is instructive that as time as passed on and there has been further opportunity for analysis, there are questions the Catholic Health Association itself is rightly asking," said Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., testifying at a House hearing on religious freedom under the Obama administration.

Both the Catholic Health Association and Catholic Charities USA were cautiously supportive when the administration revised the mandate last week to exempt not just churches, but also religiously-affiliated hospitals, charities and schools from covering contraception for their employees.

But they later issued more doubtful statements, saying they were still trying to get answers about how the mandate would apply...

The top U.S. Catholic bishop vowed legislative and court challenges Tuesday to a compromise by President Barack Obama to his healthcare mandate that now exempts religiously affiliated institutions from paying directly for birth control for their workers, instead making insurance companies responsible.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he trusted Obama wasn't anti-religious and intended to make good on his pledge to work with religious groups to fine-tune the mandate.

"I want to take him at his word," Dolan said in Rome, where he will be made a cardinal Saturday.

President Barack Obama’s right hand man said over the weekend that the revised mandate the administration put into place requiring insurance companies to distribute birth control and abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost is here to stay.

The Obama administration has revised its controversial mandate that had forced religious employers to pay for health insurance coverage that includes birth control and drugs like Plan B, the morning after pill, and ella that can cause abortions.

The revised Obama mandate will make religious groups contract with insurers to offer birth control and the potentially abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost. It will have religious employers refer women to their insurance company for coverage that still violates their moral and religious beliefs.

“The good news is that the president seems to have noted the tremendous unanimity among people of all faiths, or none at all, that this was a dangerous intrusion into the integrity of the internal life of the church, and has indicated a willingness to offer some mitigation. The bad news is that the terribly restrictive mandate still stands.” -- Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, talking to the New York Times while waiting for his luggage at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport.

The federal government will no longer require religious organizations to purchase health insurance that covers pills and procedures that violate their faiths. Instead, the federal government will require these organizations to purchase health insurance that comes with a free side order of such pills and procedures.

The president is trying to let himself off on a technicality.

The Obama administration has revised its controversial mandate that had forced religious employers to pay for health insurance coverage that includes birth control and drugs like Plan B, the morning after pill, and ella that can cause abortions.

Responding to a firestorm of opposition from pro-life organizations, Catholics groups and even some Democrats, the Obama administration has revised the mandate in a way that pro-life advocates are saying is even worse.

The revised Obama mandate will make religious groups contract with insurers to offer birth control and the potentially abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost. The revised mandate will have religious employers refer women to their insurance company for coverage that still violates their moral and religious beliefs.

President Obama on Friday backed off a plan requiring religious organizations to provide free contraceptive coverage, shifting the responsibility to insurers in a move he claimed would preserve religious liberty as well as "basic fairness" for women who want the coverage.

The announcement comes after a contentious week of debate in Washington and across the country about the rule, which stems from the federal health care overhaul. Religious groups, particularly Catholic organizations, decried the policy, while lawmakers on both sides of the aisle charged it was an infringement on religious freedom.

But supporters defended the intent of the policy -- to make sure women at all income levels have access to affordable birth control no matter where they work.

It's unclear whether the change will satisfy critics. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, called it a "fig leaf, not a compromise"...

Sen. Marco Rubio on Thursday took the Obama administration to task for its new mandate that religious organizations pay for their workers’ birth control, calling President Obama a “terrible president.”

Speaking to a receptive crowd at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, the freshman Florida Republican characterized the mandate as un-American and unconstitutional.

“You may not agree with that [religious] institution, but that’s not the point. The point is, the First Amendment still applies,” said Mr. Rubio to long, robust applause.

“This isn’t even a social issue — this is a constitutional issue. … I know what the U.S. Constitution says about it, and what it says is the federal government does not have the power to force religious organizations to pay for things that that organization thinks is wrong.”

Mr. Rubio said the president has divided the country and has “pit Americans against each other”...