Recent developments in the American petroleum sector have utterly exposed the rhetorical excesses of Obama, suggesting his speeches are designed towards supporting a certain ideology over known facts. During a period where Barack’s energy policy can be succinctly quoted as, “We can’t drill our way out,” huge advances are being made in stateside production, daily. In fact, America recently passed Saudi Arabia as the world’s #1 petroleum producer. Moreover, the EIA announced the US will be fully energy independent by the year 2035.
It seems as if Obama is against developing new sources of native oil, given his recurrent embargoing of the industry. There are said to be few direct statistical correlations in economics, but one certainly stands out. Charles C. Mann declares this in What If We Never Run Out of Oil?:
…a basic truth: economic growth and energy use have marched in lockstep for generations. Between 1900 and 2000, global energy consumption rose roughly 17-fold, the University of Manitoba environmental scientist Vaclav Smil has calculated, while economic output rose 16-fold—“as close a link as one may find in the unruly realm of economic affairs.” According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the United States has experienced 11 recessions since the end of the Second World War. All but one were associated with spikes in energy costs—specifically, abrupt jumps in the price of oil.
I. Obama’s Anti-Oil Drilling Energy Policy
Given the importance of oil for America’s economy, one would expect our leader to put first securing supplies of the stuff. Sadly, this has not been the case. In fact, not only has Obama seemingly done everything in his powers to limit growth in the US energy sector, he has also stated blankly that America cannot meet its own needs by increasing domestic production. He stated: “You know there are no quick fixes to this problem, and you know we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices.” (audio) This type of leadership is devastating for investors in American energy companies, not to mention private consumers!A classic example has been Barack’s intransigent opposition to the Keystone Pipeline, which would have brought in almost a million barrels a day to the US, a significant part of our daily consumption. According to the WA Times, Obama has done the following to discourage development…
…barred drilling and exploration for oil on the vast majority of federal lands and waters, while camouflaging this policy by highlighting increased drilling on private lands that remain outside the scope of his anti-oil policies. Mr. Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has created a blizzard of conflicting regulations on oil producers, fuel manufacturers and petrochemical plants that raise energy cots by billions of dollars, are sometimes impossible to comply with, and accomplish little or nothing for the environment. Almost daily he calls for discriminatory energy-tax increases that could further raise the costs of producing oil and manufacturing fuels. Mr. Obama has made it clear in the past that his chief energy goal is not to lower fuel prices, but to get Americans off fossil fuels as quickly as possible by forcing up the price of petroleum products and heavily subsidizing “alternatives.”
II. Recent Developments in US Petroleum—Boomtown
There has been an astonishing sea-change in America’s energy futures in just the last few years, after decades of diminishing output. The US Energy Information Agency states that American production is surging. Investor’s Business Daily reports:The U.S. passed Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest petroleum producer in November 2012, according to recently released data of the federal Energy Information Administration. Over the last 5 years, domestic oil output has risen 40% and continually outpaces projections. Last year, domestic output increased by 800,000 barrels per day, the largest increase in annual production since the first oil well was drilled in 1859 in Pennsylvania.Read More: http://canadafreepress.com/
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