The article, Chu states:
"When I became secretary of energy I represented the U.S. government and I think that right now in this
[COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]economic[/COLOR][/COLOR] -- very slow return -- that we need to have, these prices well could affect the comeback of our economy and we're very worried about that," said Chu. "And so, of course, we don't want the price of gasoline to go up. We want it to go down."
That seems like a reasonable response. He still believes higher gas prices would help us move toward energy independence but that's not as important as helping the current econony get back on track. So he has two values and right now the economic value trumps the renewables value.