Memories get short. As I get older they get even shorter. But, when you are very involved in a process you tend to remember. Newt Gingrich stated the Drill Here, Drill Now process during the presidential campaign. Gasoline was $4 a gallon and crude was thought to go as high as $200 a barrel. Newt dragged a million petition signatures off to Washington. Obama stepped right up to the plate and went on record saying he supported offshore drilling. It was a Reverend Wright moment. He opposed it and all US efforts to find homegrown hydrocarbons for his entire political life. But, facing a million signatures on a petition and irate Americans over gasoline prices, he had yet another instant epiphany.
Now, two years later, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will announced he will toughen regulations to drill for oil and gas on federal lands, including offshore. Crude is inching up once again. Gasoline prices are moving up in lock step. Hopes of a real and lasting economic recovery need reasonable energy prices to keep momentum going. Plus, the recovery itself will increase demand for energy driving up crude and fuel prices. Mr. Salazar, your timing couldn’t be better.
Offshore productions makes up 11% of our natural gas and 5% of our oil. The import/export ratio has taken a turn for the worse. We are now running a huge trade deficit. So, let’s not drill here, drill now. Let’s put in place a whole new set of regulatory hurdles to make any domestic production improbable. Let’s break, yet another, campaign promise. Let’s make another bad decision to keep the rabid environmentalists on our team. Let’s appease Al Gore. Let’s dumb down even more. Let’s keep unemployment above 10%.
Let’s watch mainstream media overlook another story of major import. Let’s hope Obama voters will have another reason for voter remorse. Let’s drive another nail in the hopes for economic recovery.
Let’s watch Obama’s job disapproval rating go above the 54% in the latest Rasmussen poll. Let’s push health care reform depite the recent poll that show’s only 36% agree with the plan.
Meanwhile, wind power, the big Obama replacement for oil and gas, also gets Salazar’s attention. The big effort to put windmills in Nantucket Sound that has been floundering for nine years, will get a hearing from the man who wants to stop offshore drilling. Since Senator Kennedy died, the man who really blocked the Cape Wind project for nine years is gone, courage is being shown by Salazar. Blocking wind projects is the new environmental zealot team sport. That’s why wind in one-half of one percent of our power. Blocking every energy effort is a national sport.
Supposedly, Mr. Salazar is going to a hearing to resolve the Cape Wind project. If it can’t be resolved, he will step in and say it’s a go. Just that easy. No congressional hearings. No Obama approval, just Salazar.
Salazar power is the same power that will stop all offshore drilling or drilling on federal lands.
So when energy costs go back through the roof throwing recovery off the tracks, remember Salazar power. I put him in the same category as Janet Napolitano when it comes to qualifications. The dumber they are the more havoc they can wreak on the public. Napolitano will get us killed and Salazar will freeze widows and orphans. The one-term president has really stocked his cabinet with lots of bananas.
