Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reported yesterday that President Obama, moving toward the political center after the recent election, has expressed an interest in expanding drilling for natural gas. He has also implicitly backed a process called hydraulic fracturing to access large deposits in Pennsylvania and Texas, among other places. Chris Tucker, spokesman for Energy in Depth, a drilling industry group formed to fight off federal regulation of shale gas drilling, stated that he was surprised by the change of direction.
Mr. Morrissey comments:
"Yes, well, don't be terribly surprised. The key to this change in direction is in that last paragraph -- Pennsylvania. Democrats just lost control of that state on Tuesday, along with Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. There's a term for a Democratic presidential nominee who loses Pennsylvania and doesn't get the other three states in return: loser."
Mr. Morrissey also reports:
"Coal producers expressed disappointment that Obama failed to mention their industries in his remarks, but that may not be long in coming, either. Joe Manchin nearly lost an election he should have won by 30 points in large measure because of Obama's war on coal. Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana have fingers in the coal industry; Wisconsin doesn't produce coal, but they use a lot of it, and so does Michigan. If Obama wants to reconnect to voters in states he has to win in 2012, expect at least a temporary truce in the coal war, too."
It would be truly ironic if the political necessity that caused this change of direction wound up reviving the economy. However, the thing to be aware of here is that President Obama's apparent change in offshore drilling policy in last spring (see rightwinggranny.com) was not what it appeared to be. It will be interesting to see if the President follows through on this 'interest' in drilling for natural gas or only keeps the issue alive long enough to win him the votes he needs.
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