In response to rising gasoline prices, a problem that put Bush in the media spotlight daily, Obama says,”Oil productions from federally controlled waters in the Gulf of Mexico actually had reached and all-time high in 2010. So, any notion that my administration has shut down oil production might make for a good political sound bite, but it doesn’t match up with reality. We are encouraging offshore exploration and production.”
Yes, the first part of the statement is true. But, 2010 production came from permits and rigs from years earlier. The truth is that future production will suffer by the actions of Obama. First, the moratorium that resulted from the BP spill. And, second, he and his guy Salazar are making permitting more of a nightmare. So, under pressure he lifted the moratorium, but with Obama it’s not what he says, it’s what he does. Either overtly or covertly, he has Salazar tighten up and drag out the permitting process. Plus, dump hundreds of new regulations on existing wells.
Then, he drags out the tired old excuse that oil companies aren’t drilling on the lands they have available to them now, why issue new permits? This, of course, assumes Obama thinks you are totally stupid. He expects you to believe that international oil companies will go to hostile places like Russia to drill for oil when they are sitting on hundreds of productive leases right here in the old USA. It’s called exploration and production because you do a lot of work before you bring in a million dollar a day rig. If that work shows you spent money for a lease that won’t produce oil, you move on. Candidate Obama got skewered in 2008 for trying this assertion. He learned then to drop that argument when Politifac.com labeled Obama’s same claim then as completely false.
It’s really time to stop misleading the public about what we aren’t doing to develop our domestic oil. Lies, scams, half-truths, and whole un-truths are growing tiresome.
Watch, what few comments this president makes, about the few questions he gets regarding rising gasoline prices, will all be whoppers. If he knows it, he’s not about to speak the truth on this subject.