5 Biggest Whoppers in Obama's Energy Speech

 

IBDEditorials.com

Energy: The White House billed President Obama's energy policy speech as a response to mounting criticism of record high gas prices. What he delivered was a grab bag of excuses and outright falsehoods.

Obama's main message to struggling motorists was: It's not my fault, so stop whining. The speech only got worse from there, recycling excuses and myths that Obama's peddled for years. But there were some standout whoppers that deserve debunking. The five biggest:

"We're focused on production."

Fact: While production is up under Obama, this has nothing to do with his policies, but is the result of permits and private industry efforts that began long before Obama occupied the White House.

Obama has chosen almost always to limit production. He canceled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended them in Montana, delayed them in Colorado and Utah, and canceled lease sales off the Virginia coast.

His administration also has been slow-walking permits in the Gulf of Mexico, approving far fewer while stretching out review times, according to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permit Index. The Energy Dept. says Gulf oil output will be down 17% by the end of 2013, compared with the start of 2011. Swift Energy President Bruce Vincent is right to say Obama has "done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting."

"The U.S. consumes more than a fifth of the world's oil. But we only have 2% of the world's oil reserves."

Fact: Obama constantly refers to this statistic to buttress his claim that "we can't drill our way to lower gas prices." The argument goes that since the U.S. supply is limited, it won't ever make a difference to world prices.

It's bogus. New exploration and drilling technologies have uncovered vast amounts of recoverable oil.

In fact, the U.S. has a mind-boggling 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to "fuel the present needs in the U.S. for around 250 years," according to the Institute for Energy Research. The problem is the government has put most of this supply off limits.

"Because of the investments we've made, the use of clean, renewable energy in this country has nearly doubled."

Fact: Production of renewable energy — biomass, wind, solar and the like — climbed just 12% between 2008 and 2011, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

"We need to double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising."

Fact: Renewable energy simply won't play an important role in the country's energy picture anytime soon, accounting for just 13% of U.S. energy production by 2035, according to the EIA.

"There are no short-term silver bullets when it comes to gas prices."

Fact: Obama could drive down oil prices right now simply by announcing a more aggressive effort to boost domestic supplies. When President Bush lifted a moratorium in 2008, oil prices immediately fell $9 a barrel.

Obama said in his speech that Americans aren't stupid. He's right about that, which is why most are giving his energy policy a thumbs down.