Obama Sets Drilling Limits, Continues War on Oil
IDBEditorials.com
Enemy Of Oil: President Obama has said that his administration has an all-of-the-above energy plan. Apparently "all" doesn't include offshore drilling. No president has ever offered fewer offshore leases.
The Congressional Research Service reports that the Obama administration is offering 15 offshore drilling leases in a new plan.
Even Jimmy Carter, America's first green president, had a better record. He offered 36 leases to be sold in response to the 1978 amendments to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
If not for Section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that requires the Interior Department to submit energy plans to Congress that include proposed public lease sales in U.S. waters, it's safe to say that the Obama administration likely would be offering zero offshore leases.
As it is, it appears it is doing just enough to comply with the law, and no more.
Perhaps worse than offering a paltry number of leases, this administration has canceled previous lease offers and conducted only 11 of the 21 sales that were scheduled by the Bush administration for 2007-12.
This White House has even been found in contempt for refusing a judge's order to lift an illegal moratorium it had placed on offshore drilling.
When gas prices were soaring, Obama thought it clever to point out that oil output has increased on his watch. Unlike many of his other claims, this was true.
But the increase has been from development on private property, not public lands rich in energy resources. It's not an increase he can take credit for. It's an increase that occurred in spite of his policies.
Though he misused data for his political advantage, it would be a mistake to peg Obama as a friend of oil. It would be more accurate to say that he sees crude and the rest of the fossil fuels that power our economy as enemies that have to be eliminated.
After all, this is the president who: as a candidate promised policies that would bankrupt any company that had plans to start a coal-fired power plant; blocked while in office the Keystone XL pipeline; and threatened on Monday to veto a bill that requires the federal government to expand its offshore leases.
He is the nation's chief executive who hired an energy secretary — Steven Chu — who demanded in 2008 that "Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," which are roughly $9 a gallon in many countries.
And he also employs an interior secretary — Ken Salazar — who said he would still oppose offshore drilling even if gasoline hit $10 a gallon in the U.S. The same Ken Salazar is known, as well, for saying Washington needed to keep its boot on the throat of BP as the company was capping the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Then-press secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully indicated that Salazar's comment was not a wildcat statement but a position supported by the administration.
Obama's war on oil plays well among his voting bloc. But it is more than hostility toward oil — it's also an assault on jobs and economic growth.
It doesn't have to go on, though. Voters can end it in November.