With pump prices edging closer to $4 a gallon, it's tempting to level blame at someone -- other than your own demands -- every time you whip out the wallet to fill up your gas tank.

President George W. Bush, with his administration's ties to the oil industry, makes for a tempting target.

"The American people have got to understand that, here in the White House, we're concerned about high gas prices," he said in a late April news conference.

But can the president really do anything to ease pain at the pump right now?

The answer is, not much. And, his policies are more focused on a long-term strategy.

"We ought to be encouraging investment in oil and gas close to home if we're trying to mitigate the problems we face," Bush told reporters in February.

At the same time, he wants to reduce the country's dependence on oil altogether "by investing in technologies that will produce abundant supplies of clean and renewable energy, and at the same time show the world that we're good stewards of the environment," he said in a March speech to the International Renewable Energy Conference.

Even if he were to persuade Congress -- today -- to go along with his call for opening a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, and other offshore areas, to oil exploration and production, it would be years before that oil would reach consumers.

Besides, Alaska wilderness and U.S. offshore drilling have prompted pitched battles in Congress for decades. Experts in opposing camps disagree over the size and economic viability of the oil fields, and with Democrats largely opposed to the drilling -- and controlling Congress -- drilling there would appear to be off the table of options.

What other options does Bush have? Lawmakers have recently offered two possibilities.

Congress sent Bush legislation May 14 directing him to temporarily halt shipments of 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the government's emergency reserve in the hopes of increasing supply and pushing prices down. Bush opposes diverting imports away from the emergency reserve, but the measure has overwhelming support and he may sign the bill into law.

And he hedged when asked whether he supported calls from two presidential candidates for legislation offering consumers a temporary gas-tax holiday this summer. Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton pushed the proposal hard in April, and Bush didn't reject it out of hand.

But he summed up his position in the same April news conference in which he said the White House felt the country's pain at the pump.

"If there was a magic wand to wave, I'd be waving it," he said. "If there was a magic wand, I'd say, 'Drop price...' There is no magic wand right now.'"