Yesterday the Washington Examiner posted a story about President Obama's energy policy. The article quoted the President as saying, "There is no magic formula to driving gas prices down." That's a very interesting statement. I would agree that there is no instant formula to drive gasoline prices down, but there is a long term policy that would result in lower prices fairly quickly. It's not magic--it's just common sense.
The article states:
"It involves either persuading Obama to reverse his opposition to significant expansion of domestic energy production, or replacing him in the Oval Office in November 2012."
I think that pretty much sums it up!
The article cites President Obama's handling of the Gulf oil spill. Initially, he claimed that scientists had approved his blanket moratorium on drilling after the oil spill. That claim was later proved to be false. The administration that defied a federal court by replacing the original moratorium after it was struck down with an essentially identical moratoriam. The administration was found to be in contempt of court. Meanwhile American offshore oil production is down 13 percent. Because of the ban on deep-water drilling and the slowdown in approving drilling applications, the Wall Street Journal reports that America is losing about 375,000 barrels of oil a day of production. This also represents a loss of $40 million a day of oil revenue.
The article concludes:
"At today's prices, the Obama-induced loss of production represents $40 million per day in lost oil revenue. Spread over a full year, that comes to $14.6 billion that could be supporting thousands of sustainable, good-paying American jobs at no cost to the taxpayer. That is a much better deal than Obama's $800 billion stimulus package, which appears to have added far more to the national debt than it ever will to national employment. It seems clear that ideological and not economic considerations are at work in this administration's energy policy. The same politician who once said that energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket" under his plan seems less intent on job creation or energy security than he is on putting oil producers in a regulatory straitjacket and browbeating Americans into accepting the lower standard of living that inevitably results from energy scarcity."
I sure hope the Republicans have a good candidate in 2012.
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