When it comes to energy, President Obama loves to take credit for all of the positives: increased exploration and production, as well as decreased dependence on fossil fuels. However, his actions reveal a completely different story.
Remember that big oil spill that happened in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010? After this disaster, the president bragged that the government’s response was the “largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation’s history.” However, in March 2011 the Coast Guard released a report stating that the Obama administration did not have an “effective” communication system due to “severely restricting” the release of “timely, accurate information.”
For example, the president told a group at Georgetown University in March 2011, “Part of our plan is to provide new and better incentives that promote rapid, responsible development of these resources” located on “tens of millions of acres of leases where [oil and gas producers] are not producing a single drop.”
Yet, eight months later, President Obama released an offshore drilling plan that closed off much of those acres that were opened during the Bush administration.
And when the president was running for his second term, he bragged about his oil and gas production record, while denying Mitt Romney’s claims of decreased 2011 production. Romney was right: domestic oil production on federal lands, which the president controls, was down 14 percent and gas production had fallen 9 percent in that year. Also, the number of new offshore leases issued had decreased by 61 percent from Bush’s second term to the end of Obama’s first term.
And let’s not forget the photo-op Obama took announcing his “fast tracking” of the southern leg of the Keystone project (phase 3a) even as he continued to stall approval—and now threatens to veto—the Keystone XL project (phase 4). By the way, the southern leg of the Keystone project did not require the president’s approval, yet he was quick to take credit for it.
Speaking of taking credit, here is a boastful Obama quote from Feb. 2013: “I’m proud of the fact that under my Administration oil production is higher than it has been in a decade or more.”
This may be true, but that’s in spite of his efforts rather than because of them. Oil production could have been much higher over the past six years without an obstructionist president who has consistently blocked energy initiatives.
So watch out for the president’s embellishments whenever he brags about American energy. Let his policies speak for themselves and let’s give credit or blame, where it’s due.
February 24, 2015