The president is clearly in campaign mode. In Tuesday’s State of the Union address, he said, “This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy — a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.” I applaud the sentiment. Unfortunately, sandwiched between his campaign speeches have been three painful years of failed policies.
It’s like a real-world version of the movie Groundhog Day. Americans keep hearing the same promises for domestic energy production and green jobs, but then they wake up to political pandering and green scandals.
This is the same administration that placed a moratorium on offshore oil drilling, costing the country up to 220,000 barrels of domestic oil per day in 2011, according to estimates from the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency.
Advertisement
And who can forget cap-and-trade? The same president who is now proposing increased domestic energy supplies attempted to build an expansive new bureaucracy that, in the president’s own words, was designed to make energy prices “skyrocket.” When cap-and-tax failed, the president shifted gears and regulated what he couldn’t legislate. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already declared carbon dioxide an air pollutant and has begun the process of expanding its bureaucracy to create onerous new costs for power plants and refiners.
This is also the same president who has fallen far short of fulfilling one of his hallmark campaign promises: 5 million new jobs in a “green economy.” Well, do more lawyers count as green jobs? The administration seemed to have rushed DOE to approve the $535 million in loans to Solyndra to build solar panels, despite concerns from Obama’s own economic advisers. When it became clear that Solyndra was in financial trouble, the administration reworked the loan to ensure political cronies who invested additional capital in the company would be repaid before taxpayers.
Then, just last week, the Obama administration rejected the Keystone pipeline. This is a private-sector investment that could result in 100,000 American jobs. Moreover, for America’s energy security, the timing could not have been worse. Iran’s finger is on the trigger of the oil weapon; Obama is simultaneously staring down its barrel and helping to load it.
Faced with sanctions for its illegal development of nuclear weapons, Iran threatened to forcibly close the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flows. In the middle of this standoff, the president rejected a secure supply of oil in deference to environmental concerns that he has never been able to articulate.
The State Department’s claim that it simply did not have enough time to evaluate the pipeline application is laughable. The pipeline has been in development since 2008, but, conveniently, the president does not feel he will be prepared to make the controversial political decision until after the next election.
In the meantime, Canada is not amused by this political pandering. Upon hearing that the U.S. would reject the Keystone pipeline, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper told the president that Canada would begin hearings on a proposed pipeline west for Asian markets.
Perhaps the only actual attempt President Obama has made to increase domestic energy supplies has been his support for ethanol policies. The president has been a huge proponent of the mandate that forces Americans to buy ethanol, though it is debatable whether ethanol even produces as much energy as is required to produce and ship it. This year, the EPA approved introduction of motor fuels blended with up to 15 percent ethanol, despite universal protestations from car manufacturers that the fuels will void warranties, decrease gas mileage, and damage engines.
With nearly a year until the next election, Americans can expect to hear plenty more promises from a president in campaign mode. These promises should be weighed against the president’s actual record.
People may disagree with me, but I believe that had the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico not happened, the president would be more amenable to energy development. Prior to the BP spill, he was opening up oil development off our coasts.
The accident and its aftermath embarrassed him and he is nothing if not a vengeful man. Once humiliated by oil, his support for energy development came to an abrupt halt.
For evidence, look at how his attitude toward China has changed since he was snubbed on his visit to the nation in 2009. See how he reacted to Governor Brewer just the other day and Governor Jindal in the past. Barack
Obama holds grudges and oil development exposed him as a weak manager and leader. He will never forgive energy for that slight.
Comrade Obama said LONG before the Gulf oil spill that he wanted gas prices to go to $10 a gallon.(just slowly so that people would not object.)
"once is accidental,twice is coincidence,three times is enemy action."
Comrade Obama blocked nuclear power by closing Yucca Mountain,is going after coal via EPA,has blocked Gulf and ANWR oil drilling,and is now going after fracking,doing everything possible to block US oil production. Coal,oil,and nuclear is over 70% of US energy sources.
See a pattern here? there's a concerted effort by Comrade Obama to reduce US energy supplies,which DIRECTLY diminishes the US economy.
It's all part of his efforts to weaken the US economically,politically,and militarily.
He's already insulted our allies and aided our enemies,blocked military equipment such as fighter jets,and qu eered up the military.
People may disagree with me, but I believe that had the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico not happened, the president would be more amenable to energy development. Prior to the BP spill, he was opening up oil development off our coasts.
The accident and its aftermath embarrassed him and he is a vengeful man. Once humiliated by oil, his support for energy development came to an abrupt halt.
For evidence, look at how his attitude toward China changed after he was snubbed on his visit to the nation in 2009. See how he reacted to Governor Brewer just the other day and Governor Jindal in the past.
Barack Obama holds grudges and oil development exposed him as a weak manager and leader. He will never forgive energy for that slight.
Obama has one department selling oil leases so that he can talk about opening up new areas for drilling, while he has another refusing to issue drilling permits, without which the leases are worthless. At the same time he claims credit for increased oil production, failing to mention that the increase is due entirely to drilling permits issued during the Bush Administration, with production coming online after the 2008 elections. Then he talks about wanting to increase energy production on all fronts!
Talk about having your cake and eating it too, this hyocritical bit of legerdemain is classic Obama pandering to special interest groups, knowing that (with the aid of a compliant media) he can fool most of the people, most of the time.
At what point do people begin to realize that EVERYTHING this man does is about getting either elected or re-elected? He is a purely political, purely partisan animal, and is in full campaign mode 24/7/365. That is absolutely all he knows, and the only thing at which he excels.
Palin and "Drill, Baby, Drill" probably irked Barry to no end.
What would be better for the environment than to move most heating of homes to Natural Gas, it is efficient and clean. Besides, there are probably 15 million (or more) home oil tanks that are filled, spilled, and ready to leak in the US. Getting those out of the way - big difference.
Coordinating and promoting the pipeline networks needed for all of the new oil fields in the US. Having input in the planning will improve the network efficiency, but the Administration has been an enemy not advocate.
The Alaska Oil Pipeline is aging, we need to extract the north slope fields now rather than later where a replacement pipeline is needed. The offshore oil should also be steadily extracted, we really need to stop using Middle East oil to just kill OPEC's clout.
Electrical Power - we are pushing old plants offline by EPA mandate, but we are not encouraging any replacements. Only Coal, Hydro, or Nuclear have the scale to make a difference. But no Fed action. Transmission lines were found to be wanting about a decade ago, no Fed action there either.
By just policy changes and private $ we could really boost the economy and invest in our infrastructure. Much better than the Trillions we have flushed.
The oil spill had NOTHING to do with obama's position on domestic oil production. He is a leftist and their hard core position is 'alternative fuels' which translates into wind and solar for the most part. No credible expert believes that either one of these 'boutique' energy sources will be able to replace fossil fuels, natural gas or coal in the forseeble future if ever. The cost of current energy sources is so much cheaper than the 'boutique' fuels favored by the left that it may never serve as an alternative.
How about the Federal Government just write a yearly $20B check to Archer-Daniels-Midland and in exchange don't mandate fuel that destroys my expensive property.
It would be cheaper for taxpayers on the front end and will stop breaking our cars, boats, and lawn mowers on the back end.
Why is any of this surprising. Had people read the energy policy published on his website during his campaign, they would have seen that he had no idea what he was doing. He promised $150 billion for wind and solar and nothing for coal except a mention of "clean" coal and no mention of nuclear except to increase security regulations and shut down Yucca. Here's some easy to mind information from the web. In its useful lifetime, a photovoltaic solar panel will generate only 48% of the energy that went into its manufacture, installation and operation. Wind is so erratic that 80% of existing standard generating facilities are kept in standby reserve status. Of the 4% of Co2 in the atmosphere from fossil fuels, only 10% is from electricity production, 3% of that is from oil, so that the replacing fossil generation with wind and solar does effectively nothing in the short term to reduce Co2 emissions from power generation. What cannot be overcome here is the fundamental concept of energy density. Because wood has a higher energy density than wind and solar by a factor of 10x, coal is 2x wood and uranium is 2-million times coal, nothing can even come close to nuclear. The new solar plant being built at Deming NM will cover the same footprint as Palo Verde Nuclear Station in Arizona. It will be 3200 Acres (5-square miles) and produce 300 MW or 300 MW x 8hrs (only works in sunlight) x 320days = 770 GWatt-hrs./yr. PVNGS produces about 4,000 MW, or 4,000 MW x 24 hrs x 320days = 30,000 GWatt-hrs./yr (nearly 40x the power). If we normalize to an 8 hour day due to the limitations of solar, a solar plant would have to be in the neighborhood of thirteen times the size of a nuclear plant to deliver the same power during daylight hours on a clear day AND we would still need a power source of comparable size for the remaining 16 hours each day. In my calc, I’m giving solar cells 50% efficiency for all of the folks that are banking on the "future" of "more efficient" solar. In fact, the best cells produced today are less than 20% efficient with little hope that technology will ever come close to 50%.
