Obama's Simply Not Telling the Truth About Domestic Oil Drilling

Obama's Simply Not Telling the Truth About Domestic Oil Drilling
by Roger Hedgecock Posted 04/08/2011 ET

Now Obama is posing as the driller-in-chief.

Stung by the savvy American consumer connecting the dots between gas price pain at the pump and Obama's repeated moratoria on oil drilling, the President did what he's done so many times. He told us his words speak louder than his actions.

In his March 30 energy speech, Obama said he supports more domestic oil drilling, and, under his leadership, domestic oil drilling is at an all-time high, but the U.S. only has 2% of the world's oil, and anyway it's the oil companies' fault because they are sitting on a zillion offshore leases that they refuse to drill.

Nonsense. All of it—a pure head fake.

Obama has shut down, shut off, and canceled more oil drilling than any President since Carter.

After the BP oil spill last year, Obama shut down all offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, idling 78,000 jobs and cutting off billions of dollars of tax revenue to state and local governments in the Gulf Coast region.

After U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman found the Gulf moratorium without factual basis, Obama lifted it, granted no permits, then reinstated the same moratorium. The same judge then found the second moratorium illegal and held the administration in contempt of court for ignoring the first order.

Seven drilling rigs have left the Gulf for friendlier waters.

Obama also reversed the Bush plan to sell leases off the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and around Alaska, even rescinding leases already granted and paid for in Alaskan waters.

It's not just oil drilling that Obama opposes. His actions say he opposes all energy development.

A recent study by the American Consumer Institute concludes that coal, natural gas, nuclear, transmission infrastructure, and even renewables were among 351 energy projects delayed or canceled by Obama. These projects represented 1.9 million jobs and an investment of $1.1 trillion.

Record drilling under Obama?

Domestic oil production increased until the BP spill because of Bush's pro-drilling policy. In 2011, the Energy Information Administration estimates, the U.S. has seen a decline in production of 220,000 barrels a day, and it projects a reduction of 150 million barrels in 2012 from the Gulf.

Two per cent of the world's oil?

The figure comes from an Energy Information Administration estimate of world proven reserves already being drilled. The 2% statement ignores federal estimates of likely reserves in the U.S. (placed off limits by Obama) that total more than three times Saudi Arabia's reserves.

Oil companies sitting on existing leases?

If oil companies are not drilling on federal leases for which they have already paid a fortune, it's because exploratory wells have not hit oil, or because they have and it has taken years to get a federal permit for production wells.

Obama's proposed tax on leases "where they aren't producing a thing" would tax companies for not using a lease the feds have not yet allowed them to use.

If you think actions speak louder than words, Obama's actions betray a pattern of anti-energy moves that have driven up prices for every American consumer, increased our dependence on unreliable foreign energy sources, and aborted scarce jobs in this "recovery."

If you believe the words of the presidential teleprompter, you'll have to shut your lyin' eyes.