Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama Administration has stated that it may have to reject seven permits for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico if a federal judge in New Orleans forces them to make a quick decision. 

The article reports:

“In court filings late Friday, the Interior Department said the permit applications are flawed or incomplete, and that Judge Martin Feldman’s order that it decide on them before the end of the month disrupts the normal back-and-forth negotiations between oil companies and federal regulators.”

This is garbage.  The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has issued one drilling permit since the BP explosion in April of last year. 

The bottom line here is simple.  As the Middle East erupts in flames and there is a strong possiblity that the countries that supplied America with oil will no longer be friends of America, the Obama Administration is cutting back domestic production of oil.  If have said before that unless this Administration changes its domestic energy policy, we will be paying upwards of $5 a gallon at the gas pumps.  Unfortunately, that is rapidly becoming a reality.  The rapidly rising cost of gasoline has the potential to end any economic recovery we may now be experiencing.  The answer to America’s energy needs are within our own country if we would develop them.  Developing them would also lead us out of the current economic challenges we are experiencing.  It is unfortunate that the green special interest groups and the Obama Administration have prevented that from happening.