March 13, 2009 — A slip of the tongue reveals the true intentions of Socialist, "Maxine Waters" (D) during a house hearing while arrogantly grilling oil executives including John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company.
This liberal, Maxine Waters starts to be honest by revealing herself as a Socialist, but stops, stumbles and then comes up with a more accepted answer.
Oops!
The guy next to her sighs with relief when she finally gets the words out America would want to hear her actually say, the lady next to him seems to be holding back her laughter.
A pathetic real time revelation of the true identity of one of our nations liberal Democrat decision makers.
As predicted, the Obama administration rescinded its promise to allow domestic offshore oil drilling yesterday. The Competitive Enterprise Institute reports that the Interior Department has placed an official moratorium on offshore drilling in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, as well as in the Gulf for the next seven years at minimum. What’s the excuse? The BP oil spill, of course.
The New York Times reports, “Ken Salazar said that a moratorium on drilling would be in force in those areas for at least seven years, until stronger safety and environmental standards were in place.”
Salazar explains, “As a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we learned a number of lessons, most importantly that we need to proceed with caution and focus on creating a more stringent regulatory regime.”
Art Robinson, Oregon’s GOP congressional candidate during the 2010 midterm elections, stated, “Government regulations caused the BP oil spill. There are so many regulations on the energy industry, that that’s why people have to go and drill three miles down on the ocean to find oil.”
Similarly, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin remarked that it was government kowtowing to environmentalists that brought about the Gulf oil disaster that forced oil drillers to drill in deep water as opposed to shallow water.
In response to the moratorium, the Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center of Energy and Development, Myron Bell, issued the following statement:
As a candidate, President Obama promised to work to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But the Obama administration’s announcement of a moratorium on offshore drilling in the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf is only the latest in a string of policies designed to make us more dependent on foreign oil by reducing domestic production.
President Obama is dishonestly pursuing policies that are the opposite of what he promised and that are against America’s economic interests and opposed by a strong majority of Americans.
The United States is the only country in the world with potential major offshore oil resources that is not actively exploiting them. The Obama administration has decided that it is better for Cuba to bring in China, Russia, and Venezuela to drill a few miles off the Florida Keys than to allow American companies to drill in American waters.
While creating green energy jobs requires taxpayer subsidies and government mandates, producing more oil in federal offshore areas would create hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs while producing hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal treasury in royalty and auction payments.
While Byron’s assessment is correct, perhaps we must contend with the plaguing truth that job creation is not a top priority for the Obama administration. After all, this White House has been a leading proponent of green jobs even while the implementation of green jobs hurts rather than helps the economy, and the best example of this can be seen in Spain. According to Gabriel Calzada, a Spanish professor, “We found that the jobs that we are creating, since you are taking the resources from other parts of the economy, this is ... destroying jobs in other parts of the country. For every job that you are creating, 2.2 jobs are lost.” Yet the Obama administration continues to push for the creation of green jobs.
Likewise, jobs appeared to be the least of President Obama’s concerns when he issued a drilling moratorium following the BP oil spill, even after a panel of 15 experts explicitly stated that a moratorium would do more damage to the economy. Eight of the 15 experts addressed a letter to the Interior Department indicating, “A blanket moratorium is not the answer. It will not measurably reduce the risk further and it will have a lasting impact on the nation’s economy which may be greater than the oil spill.”
Furthermore, if the health of the environment was the inspiration behind the drilling moratoriums, why did the Obama administration transfer $2 billion in American tax dollars to help fund the Brazilian oil company Petrobras so that the company can continue to drill in nearly 3,000 meters of water, nearly twice the depth of American oil companies?
It may be a mere coincidence that Petrobras is heavily supported by Obama's associate George Soros, who also invested millions into the Brazilian oil company.
What’s worse is that the $2 billion American investment into Petrobras coincided with a deepwater drilling moratorium immediately following the BP oil spill, which virtually meant that the Obama administration was eliminating all of Petrobras’ competition. Meanwhile, the moratorium was costing rig workers $330 million per month in lost wages.
Likewise, the cap-and-trade legislation so heavily endorsed by the Obama administration has been criticized as a jobs killer. According to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Budget Office, the overall effect of the cap-and-trade bill would likely slow future job growth. Under the most optimistic scenario, the EIA predicts that future job growth would be reduced by 388,000 to 2.3 million 20 years from now.
So let’s drop the guise that the federal government’s leading interest is to create jobs. Once again, the decisions made by this administration are about greater control and limiting American exceptionalism.
It appears the Obama administration may help George Soros realize his dream of the total collapse of the American dollar and the placement of China as the new global leader.
Last week before the Obama Administration made this announcement the offshore drilling firms were threatening to go abroad...now where do you think they're headed?
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar met with the offshore drilling industry Monday in Houma, La. The event highlighted building tensions in the wake of the Gulf oil spill.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, flanked by Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Michael Bromwich (c.) and Assistant Interior Secretary Tom Strickland, speaks to reporters at Gulf Island Fabrication in Houma, La., Monday, Nov. 22.
Maxwell S. Gersh/The Daily Comet/AP
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / November 22, 2010
Atlanta Gulf Coast offshore drilling companies, hoping for a stronger partnership with the Obama administration to make drilling safer without hobbling major plans, came away disappointed from a meeting Monday with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
In fact, companies and rig servicers raised the stakes by saying they're now actively looking to step up bidding for projects outside US waters as losses pile up.
Secretary Salazar met with the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition on Monday in the oil mecca of Houma, La. The event highlighted the building tensions between the White House and largely Southern-based drillers, even after drilling moratoriums were lifted.
In May, following the Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration stopped all new drilling. It then ended a ban on shallow-water exploratory drilling after two months and lifted a deepwater drilling ban last month. Yet since then, only a nominal number of permits have been approved, causing critics to charge that a de facto moratorium remains in place.
"The Obama administration is sort of caught in the middle here: Do you go for short-term economic benefits concentrated in one area or the longer-term risk of some other environmental disaster?" says Daniel Fiorino, an environmental policy expert at American University in Washington.
In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon accident, the White House explained its drilling policy involving moratoriums as a safety precaution. But it has come under growing criticism after the acting inspector general for the Interior Department said that the White House edited a key document to suggest that one of the moratoriums had scientific backing, when no scientists had actually reviewed the policy. The editing change was inadvertent and the result of hasty work, the White House said.
While shallow-water drillers have said they're looking for more transparency into the rule-writing process and better cooperation with the Interior Department, it appeared to take a political deal by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana to get Salazar to come to Houma. Last week, Senator Landrieu agreed to abandon her hold on the nomination of Jacob Lew to head the Office of Management and Budget if Salazar would come. But her promise of a "major announcement" from Salazar fell short Monday.
Instead, the Interior secretary gave few new details, saying only, “We will continue to work with the industry and stakeholders to provide certainty and ensure that everyone understands the rules of the road.”
Environmentalists say the Obama administration, by moving slowly and deliberately on permitting both deep and shallow drill sites, is abiding by a greater national imperative. Now, a key permitting hurdle is new requirements for environmental impact statements, which were routinely waived before the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
"We think it's more important to get [regulations] right going forward, and we also think the industry has had too great a say in how it's been regulated in the past," says Derb Carter, a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. "The fact that they did write their own rules, assessed their own risks, and proceeded with little oversight were major contributing factors to the BP spill."
But from the vantage point of drilling companies and rig servicers, the White House has made arbitrary permitting decisions based on political expediency, with little thought for the plight of tens of thousands of oil industry workers whose jobs are in danger.
It was after receiving "no commitments" from Salazar on Monday to enable plans to go forward that these companies and rig servicers said they'd try to step up bidding for projects outside the United States.
"You can't have a $2 million asset, for example, lay idle for six months and expect that strategic asset to be there in the future," said Jim Adams, the interim CEO of the Offshore Marine Service Association, after meeting with Salazar. "The irony is that the same assets that are going to make the Gulf safer are the ones that are looking for overseas markets now."
To critics, the administration's reluctance to involve the oil industry in its permitting deliberations hints at a deeper political ambivalence on the part of the president and his advisers. Specifically, the shallow-water permitting pullback, says Mr. Fiorino of American University, is "puzzling, since people in Louisiana are saying, 'Hey, wait a minute: [The BP oil spill] was not a shallow-well problem.' "
"I'd be interested in hearing how they can justify killing the local economy for no good reason," adds Rory Cooper, a former senior policy adviser to the Energy Department and currently the editor of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog. "I think the Obama administration wrote off Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida a long time ago politically, because they don't think they can win those states in 2012."
President Obama's proposal to expand deepwater drilling just a month before the Deepwater Horizon explosion was in large part a political concession to gain Republican support for climate-change legislation. But those political dynamics have fallen apart since the spill, leaving the White House with little motivation to appease the oil industry, says Joshua Busby, a public policy professor at the University of Texas at Austin. "There's nothing to be gained ... politically by rushing to get back out there and drill again."
The Obama Administration acted in contempt by continuing its deepwater-drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down, a New Orleans judge ruled.
Interior Department regulators acted with “determined disregard” by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling, following the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman of New Orleans ruled yesterday.
“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman said in the ruling.
“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt,” Feldman said.
President Barack Obama’s administration first halted offshore exploration in waters deeper than 500 feet in May, after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the Louisiana coast led to a subsea blowout of a BP Plc well that spewed more than 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Overly Broad
Feldman overturned the initial ban as overly broad on June 22, after the offshore-drilling industry and Gulf Coast political and business leaders challenged it. U.S. Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar said later that day that he would “issue a new order in the coming days that eliminates any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate, and within our authorities.”
In July, Salazar instituted a second drilling moratorium that was also challenged by an industry lawsuit claiming the ban was harming the Gulf Coast economy, which is heavily dependent on deepwater drilling activities. That ban was rescinded in October, before Feldman could rule on its validity.
Feldman later ruled that enhanced drilling safety rules Salazar imposed to permit companies to resume offshore exploration violated federal law, and he struck down those as well. Opponents of those rules complained to Feldman that regulators were continuing to block the resumption of drilling after Feldman’s rulings.
Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, said the government is reviewing yesterday’s ruling. He declined to comment further.
Informal Moratorium
The Offshore Marine Service Association, a group representing offshore service vessels and shipyards, urged the president to end what it called an informal moratorium on offshore drilling.
“President Obama claims to have lifted the Gulf moratorium, yet not a single deepwater permit has been issued in nine months,” Jim Adams, the association’s president, said in a release after the ruling. “As a result, thousands of workers are out of jobs, Americans are paying more for gasoline and heating oil, and our nation is becoming even more dependent on unstable nations for our energy needs.” Feldman also ordered the government to pay the legal fees of Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC, which filed the initial lawsuit. The company had described the fees as “significant.” Hornbeck “was put to considerable expense, after Judge Feldman issued the injunction, contending with the government’s litigation posturing and defiance of the court’s order,” Sam Giberga, the company’s general counsel, said today in an e-mail. “The government was not at liberty to impose its own will after the court struck down the policy,” Giberga said. “The government, like any citizen, had to obey the ruling, even if it didn’t like it.”
The case is Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar, 2:10-cv-01663, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).
as it should be. we should have made strong allies with both of our borders a LOOOOONG time ago. reagan actually tried to do this with mexico (and to some extent he did).
By Michelle Malkin • August 19, 2009 09:22 PM
Yes, it’s true.
Barack Obama has chipped in $2 billion in loans to exploit offshore oil resources in hopes of extracting a major new source of petroleum…in South America.
Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras’ offshore operations? Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Waiting for enviro-nitwits to chain themselves to gas pumps near the White House.
While the President refuses to lift a 7-year ban on offshore drilling here in the United States, continues to demonize the oil and gas industries, as energy prices continue to rise and as unemployment still hovers around 9 percent, Obama told a group of Brazilian businessmen at a CEO Summit during his trip to South America over the weekend they should begin drilling in their offshore oil reserves so the United States can be a paying customer in the future, adding that the United States would help them do it.
“We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers. At a time when we’ve been reminded how easily instability in other parts of the world can affect the price of oil, the United States could not be happier with the potential for a new, stable source of energy.”
The two Presidents also discussed intensified sharing of best practices with respect to the safe and environmentally benign exploitation of offshore oil and gas resources. Brazilian officials will meet with representatives of the U.S. Department of the Interior within two weeks to advance the dialogue on safe offshore oil and gas development. The United States and Brazil will hold workshops on deepwater production technologies and environmental management, the first planned for early October in Rio de Janeiro.
Not only is President Obama going against those in his base who believe offshore drilling is bad for the environment and that the burning of oil contributes to global warming, Obama is blatantly supporting the economic growth of another country while purposely hindering the economic growth of the American economy.
Doc Hastings, Natural Resources Committee Chairman, is not impressed:
“Rather than creating American energy and American jobs, President Obama is in Brazil advocating for deepening the United States’ reliance on foreign energy."
“The President has clearly learned nothing from recent world events. He appears to believe the answer is to shift our foreign energy dependence from one part of the world to another. The real answer is to produce more American energy. The ‘potential for a new, stable source of energy’ can be found with our own resources here at home. Resources that the Obama Administration is purposely choosing to keep under lock-and-key.”
Let's not forget Obama has blocked access to U.S. oil and natural gas production by issuing a moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and has revoked onshore leases since taking office. Don't be fooled when the Administration says they have been working to open up energy resources in the United States as the Administration has only issued three permits allowing for deep water exploration, not drilling.
So much for keeping jobs from going overseas and so much for lessening our dependence on foreign oil (1)
We have very high unemployment in the United States. Why is the President financing foreign offshore oil drilling while prohibiting the same being done in the United States? Why if oil is a hazardous, polluting substance contributing to Global Warming is It OK for Brazil to drill for oil but it is not OK for the United States?
Lexington Libertarian has your answer. You might remember that Obama wants to redistribute the wealth. Most observers have seen that as a program for the U.S.A. Ah, but what Obama really wants to do is redistribute world wealth. SO HE WANTS TO TRANSFER SOME OF THE UNITED STATES WEALTH TO POORER NATIONS OVERSEAS. DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A PATRIOTIC AMERICAN WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE GUARDING THE INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES? Does this sound like a program to reduce our dependence on foreign oil?
CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS TODAY AND LET THEM KNOW WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS.
It’s no surprise that gas prices are on the rise as President Obama returns from his truncated excursion to Rio. The commander in chief has shown more interest in helping Brazilians develop their energy resources than he has in helping ease the pain of Americans stung by spiraling prices at the pump.
Three months into the new administration, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, received approval for at least $2 billion in U.S. government-backed loans. The money will go toward the purchase of advanced U.S. equipment that will further boost Brazil’s energy independence. If only the administration had the same commitment to developing American resources.
Thanks to Mr. Obama and his congressional allies, Alaskan drilling is off-limits, oil-shale development on Western lands is forbidden, oil-and-gas development off Virginia’s coast is prohibited, and almost all new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is thwarted. Those Gulf energy fields, which long have been the nation’s most productive, remain blocked even after a federal judge found the administration in civil contempt for its refusal to allow more permits. According to Energy Information Administration estimates, Gulf oil production this year will be 130 million barrels fewer than pre-ban levels.
Louisiana State University business professor Joseph R. Mason told a March 17 House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that what critics call the “permitorium” has been even more economically detrimental than previously forecast. He estimated the drilling ban has killed 13,000 jobs in the Gulf region. “The lost output will not be regained, and the lost wages cannot be spent,” Mr. Mason said.
The president may be back from his exotic vacation, but it’s hard not to believe that his heart lies elsewhere.
By Alister Bull
WASHINGTON | Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:07am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will set an ambitious goal on Wednesday to cut U.S. oil imports by a third over 10 years, focusing on energy security amid high gasoline prices that could stall the country's economic recovery.
Obama will outline his strategy in a speech after spending days explaining U.S.-led military action in Libya, where fighting, accompanied by popular unrest elsewhere in the Arab world, has helped push gasoline prices toward $4 a gallon.
Discussing the speech, the Democratic president said the country must increase its energy independence.
"What we were talking about was breaking the pattern of being shocked at high prices and then, as prices go down, being lulled into a trance, but instead let's actually have a plan," Obama told party activists in New York late on Tuesday.
"Let's, yes, increase domestic oil production, but let's also invest in solar and wind and geothermal and biofuels and let's make our buildings more efficient and our cars more efficient. Not all of that work is done yet, but I'm not finished yet. We've got more work to do," Obama said.
The White House says this is a deliberate turn toward energy security and will be followed by other events to highlight his strategy.
"He'll be laying out the goal ... that in a little over a decade from now we'll reduce the amount of oil we import from the rest of the world by about a third," a senior administration official told reporters in Washington.
Obama will lay out four areas to help reach his target of curbing U.S. dependence on foreign oil -- lifting domestic energy production, encouraging the use of more natural gas in vehicles like city buses, making cars and trucks more efficient, and encouraging biofuels.
U.S. LOVE OF DRIVING CHEAPLY
Analysts and experts said Obama's goal was ambitious, and not surprising.
"All U.S. presidents since the early 1970s have outlined ambitious plans to reduce their reliance on imported oil. It is not the first time and probably won't be the last," said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Banque Saudi Fransi.
Truly reforming U.S. energy use would involve sweeping changes, including possibly fuel taxes to encourage Americans to change their habits, analysts said.
"The whole U.S. model is based on you having your car and being able to travel from A to B cheaply," said Harry Tchilinguirian, the head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas.
While polls show Americans have mixed feelings about getting entangled in a third Muslim country, with the United States still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are clearly worried by high gas prices before the summer driving season.
The latest measures of consumer confidence have also been dented by rising energy prices, which sap household spending and could derail the U.S. recovery if prices stay high enough for a long time, hurting Obama's re-election prospects.
A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday showed that 48 percent of American voters disapprove of Obama's job performance, and 50 percent think he does not deserve to be re-elected in 2012, compared with 42 percent who approve and 41 percent who feel he does deserve to be re-elected.
Those were his lowest ratings ever, Quinnipiac said.
Voters also oppose the U.S. involvement in Libya by 47-41 percent, according to the survey, which was concluded on Monday, as Obama addressed the nation about Libya. It said voters say 58-29 percent Obama has not clearly stated U.S. goals there.
"The president certainly understands the extra burden that rising gas prices put on millions of Americans already going through a tough time," the administration official said.
Some analysts reckon Obama may tap America's emergency oil stockpiles if U.S. oil prices hit $110 a barrel. Prices were hovering just under $105 a barrel in late Tuesday trade.
Over half of the petroleum consumed by the United States is imported, with Canada and Mexico the two largest suppliers, followed by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
The Department of the Interior estimates millions of acres (hectares) of U.S. energy leases are not being exploited by oil companies and the White House wants that to change.
This argument also helps the administration push back against Obama's Republican opponents, who claim he is tying the hands of the U.S. energy industry by denying leases and restricting offshore drilling in the wake of the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
"Part of our plan is to give new and better incentives to promote rapid, responsible development of these resources," the official said, but declined to go into greater detail before Obama speaks speech at 11:20 a.m. (1520 GMT).
In addition, the official said Obama will set a goal to break ground "on at least four commercial-scale cellulosic or advanced bio refineries over the next two years."
Pitching the promise of energy independence, President Barack Obama cautioned Wednesday that it's going to be tough to transition from America's oil-dependent economy and acknowledged there's little he can do to lower gas prices over the short term.
"I'm just going to be honest with you. There's not much we can do next week or two weeks from now," the president told workers at a wind turbine plant. It's a theme Obama's struck before as he tries to show voters he's attuned to a top economic concern with gas prices pushing toward $4 a gallon.
Obama said he wants to move toward "a future where America is less dependent on foreign oil, more reliant on clean energy produced by workers like you." That will happen by reducing oil imports, tapping domestic energy sources and shifting the nation to renewable and less polluting sources of energy, such as wind, the president says. He has set a goal of reducing oil imports by one-third by 2025.
Flex fuel is the solution to our reliance on foreign oil.
Last week, President Obama announced his “bold, new” goal to reduce America’s oil imports by one-third by 2025. While many critics have rightly objected that the administration offered no program of action to actually achieve that goal, there is a bigger problem. The goal itself is inadequate.
Obama wants to reduce oil imports by 33 percent in 14 years. But oil prices have risen by 44 percent in the past 14 fortnights, and 900 percent in the past twelve years. In 1999, Americans paid $90 billion for all their oil, less than 5 percent of what they paid in federal taxes. At current prices of $108 per barrel, Americans this year will pay over $800 billion for oil, an amount equal to 33 percent of all federal tax revenues, with two thirds of the take going to fill the coffers of foreign regimes. If current trends continue, there is every prospect that oil prices will more than triple by Obama’s 2025 target date, leaving us paying more for oil than we pay to the federal government.
In other words, the Obama plan is a strategy whose stated goal entails the total defeat of the United States in the energy war.
The likely impact of the Obama administration’s surrender to continued petroleum extortion can be predicted by looking at the effects of the oil-price hikes we have suffered for the past four decades, including those in 1973, 1979, 1991, 2001, and 2008. Each oil-price rise has been followed by a sharp rise in American unemployment.
The distress to American workers caused by such events is manifest, but the economic damage goes far beyond the impact on the unemployed themselves. A sustained oil price of $100 per barrel will add $520 billion to the U.S. balance-of-trade deficit. Furthermore, there is a direct and well-established relationship between unemployment rates and rates of mortgage defaults.
Thus the $130-per-barrel oil shock of 2008 didn’t just throw 5 million Americans out of work, it made many of them default on their home payments, and thus helped destroy the value of the mortgage-backed securities held by America’s banks. This, in turn, threatened a general collapse of the financial system, with a bailout bill for $800 billion sent to the taxpayers as a result. But that is not all. The destruction of spending power of the unemployed and the draining of funds from everyone else to meet the direct and indirect costs of high oil prices reduce consumer demand for products of every type, thereby wrecking retail sales and the industries that depend upon them. And as the economy goes down, so do federal tax revenues, thereby exploding the national deficit.
This wrecking operation on our economy is being perpetuated by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel of tyrannies and kleptocracies largely hostile or indifferent to the prosperity of the industrialized West. This cartel, which controls 80 percent of the world’s commercially viable oil reserves, is currently limiting its production to 1973 levels — despite a doubling of the size of the world economy in the nearly four decades since. As a result, we and our allies are having our economies looted as oil prices go through the roof, with even worse consequences falling upon the world’s poorest. An oil impost that causes depression in the advanced world can cause starvation in the Third World.
We need to break free of the extortions of this cartel. The only way to do that is to enable our economy to run on low-cost fuels whose production does not depend on resources under OPEC’s control.
Fortunately, such a fuel is available. It’s called methanol, or wood alcohol. It’s a major chemical commodity that can currently be produced in quantity from natural gas, coal, recycled garbage, or any kind of biomass without exception. The cost of production of methanol is about $0.60 per gallon, and its current spot price is $1.20 per gallon, without any subsidy — equivalent in miles per dollar to gasoline at $2.18 per gallon. While not drinkable like ethanol, methanol lacks the carcinogens contained in gasoline, burns cleaner, and is safer to handle — in fact, windshield-wiper fluid is one-third methanol. It is also less likely to cause a dangerous fire in the event of a crash. In short, methanol is cheap, clean, safe, and readily producible from resources that are widely available both here and around the world.
The only problem is that the cars on the road today can’t use it. But this can be readily fixed.
Flex-fuel vehicles can be now be made, at an incremental cost of only about $100 per car, that can run equally well on methanol, ethanol, or gasoline, in any combination, thereby giving the consumer complete fuel choice.
Were Congress to pass a law requiring that all new cars sold in the U.S. be fully flex fueled, it would change not merely the American auto fleet, but the global auto fleet, as foreign car makers would be compelled to switch their lines over to meet the standard. Thus Japanese cars sold in Japan, China, and India would also be flex fueled, as would Korean and European cars marketed worldwide. If we make flex fuel the American standard, it will become the effectively the international standard.
This would solve the chicken-and-egg problem that has prevented the creation of a competitive fuel market worldwide. Without large numbers of methanol-capable cars, there is no incentive to install methanol pumps.
Without methanol pumps, there is no incentive for consumers to buy methanol-capable cars. But if we require flex-fuel capability for new cars, the invisible hand will be unchained and the pumps will appear.
Gasoline, methanol, and ethanol would then be forced to compete at the pump, thereby putting a permanent competitive constraint on the price of petroleum at about the $50-per-barrel level. As the market for methanol expanded, investment funds would flow into research on cheaper ways to produce it, driving the global price for liquid fuels down even further over time.
This would completely break the power of OPEC to limit the availability or control the price of global liquid-fuel supplies, and insure our economy against disruption when the inherently unstable regimes that compose the cartel ultimately met their fate.
In the last Congress, a bipartisan bill that incorporated such a provision, the Open Fuel Standards Act, was introduced into both the House and the Senate. As a critical national- and economic-security measure, it needs to be introduced again, and this time brought to a vote and passed.
America needs an energy policy designed to bring it victory and prosperity, not depression and defeat. The Obama administration’s strategy fails that test. It’s time for Congress to act.
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 8, 2011 - After imposing a nearly three-year moratorium on new offshore drilling by discarding the 2010-2015 lease plan that allowed for new development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), the Obama Administration announced a draft plan today that closes the majority of the OCS to new energy production through 2017. The Administration’s draft five-year plan prohibits new offshore drilling and only allows lease sales to occur in areas that are already open. The draft plan includes lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic – leaving portions of Alaska and the entire Atlantic and Pacific Coasts off-limits to new energy production and job creation.
“In 2008, a bipartisan agreement was reached to lift the decades-long ban on new offshore drilling and open new areas off the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic coasts. Since President Obama took office, he has systematically taken steps to re-impose an offshore drilling moratorium and today he is one step closer to making that a reality for the next five years,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings. “The Obama Administration’s draft plan places some of the most promising energy resources in the world off-limits and indefinitely abandons the scheduled lease sale off the coast of Virginia that was supposed to take place last year.
“No new drilling or new lease sales will occur during President Obama’s term in office – despite the overwhelming support of the American people for new offshore energy production. The President’s plan is to simply say ‘no’ to new energy production and ‘no’ to new American jobs created by new offshore drilling. It’s a plan that is sending American jobs overseas, forfeiting new revenue, and denying access to American energy that would lessen our dependence on hostile Middle Eastern oil.
“Developing the United State’s offshore resources would create over a million jobs, generate billions in revenue and significantly reduce foreign oil imports. It’s been six months since the House has passed bipartisan bills to reverse the Obama moratorium and allow new offshore drilling and the Democrat-controlled Senate has failed to act.”
Background – Timeline of OCS Leasing and Development:
Beginning in 1981 -
Congress annually passes a moratorium on new OCS development.
1990 -
President George H.W. Bush institutes an Executive Moratorium on OCS leasing (overlapping the annual moratorium imposed by Congress).
July 14, 2008 -
President George W. Bush lifts the Executive ban on OCS leasing.
July 30, 2008 -
President George W. Bush announces the beginning of a new “five-year plan” to provide a blueprint for OCS leasing in the 2010 to 2015 period. This would replace the five-year plan for the 2007-2012 period, which did not provide for any lease sales in areas that were covered by the moratorium.
October 1, 2008 -
Responding to public outcry over high gas prices and mounting pressure from Republican lawmakers, Congress lifts the ban on new oil and gas leasing in the OCS.
January 16, 2009 -
Bush Interior Department issues a Draft Proposed OCS oil and gas leasing program, and solicits comments on all aspects of the plan. The proposal includes 31 OCS lease sales in all or some portion of 12 of the 26 planning areas—4 areas off Alaska, 2 areas off the Pacific coast, 3 areas in the Gulf of Mexico, and 3 areas off the Atlantic coast.
February 10, 2009 -
Secretary Salazar announces he will delay the Bush Administration 5-year plan for oil and natural gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf for six months. He begins a “listening tour” in spite of the fact that the Bush Administration had already solicited public opinion on this plan.
September 17, 2009 -
Secretary Salazar states that the Administration may not complete a new OCS lease plan until 2012.
September 21, 2009 -
The Administration’s extended public comment period on the draft proposed 2010-2015 Outer Continental Shelf plan comes to an end – yet the Administration still makes no announcement regarding the future of offshore drilling.
January 26, 2010 -
The Department of the Interior announces it will delay the Virginia offshore lease sale scheduled for November 2011.
January 27, 2010 -
President Obama mentions offshore drilling in his State of the Union address – leading many to believe he is open to expanding drilling in the OCS.
February 1, 2010 -
President Obama releases his FY 2011 budget proposal that shows revenue from new Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing declining from $1.5 billion in 2009 to only $413 million in 2015. The only way revenue would decline is if less of the OCS is offered for leasing for energy production.
February 4, 2010 -
The Wall Street Journal reports that public comments collected by the Department of the Interior ran 2-to-1 in favor of the new 2010-2015 lease plan.
March 3, 2010 -
Secretary Salazar confirms that the Administration will not put a new OCS lease plan in place until 2012, which means no new drilling will take place during President Obama’s term in office.
July, 2010 -
The date new areas would be available for leasing under the original 2010-2015 lease plan if it were not for the “Obama Moratorium,” which has delayed implementation of a new lease plan until 2012.
December 1, 2010 -
Effectively reinstated the ban on offshore drilling, placing the entire Pacific Coast, the entire Atlantic Coast, the Eastern Gulf and parts of Alaska off limits to future energy production until 2017 at the earliest.
November 8, 2011 -
Announces a new draft 2012-2017 lease plan that closes the majority of the OCS to new energy production. The draft plan prohibits new offshore drilling and only allows lease sales to occur in areas that are already open. It includes lease sales in the Western Gulf of Mexico and Alaska – leaving portions of the Arctic and the entire Atlantic and Pacific Coasts off-limits to new energy production and job creation.
President Cain will not only over turn THAT ban, but probably call on Perry to dismantle... one of those agencies... ummm... you know... maybe... well, ... ummmm
HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama is expected to order wide swaths of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans placed permanently off-limits for oil drilling, people briefed on the administration's plan said, in an 11th-hour push for environmental protection before he leaves office.
Obama was planning to announce the move on Tuesday, said the individuals, who requested anonymity to discuss the decision before the announcement. The White House declined to comment.
The move helps put some finishing touches on Obama's environmental legacy while also testing President-elect Donald Trump's promise to unleash the nation's untapped oil and natural gas reserves. Environmental groups were hoping the ban, despite relying on executive powers, will be difficult for a future president to reverse.
Obama is expected to use an arcane provision in a 1953 law to ban offshore leases in the waters permanently. The statute says that "the president of the United States may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf."
A permanent ban would mark the culmination of a slow reversal by Obama's administration, which had been considering opening a broad area of the Atlantic Coast to drilling, but then backed away from that idea. Earlier this year, the administration removed potential Atlantic lease sales from its blueprint for offshore drilling. But that ban only applies to a five-year period starting in 2017, and could be more easily reversed by Trump in his own five-year blueprint.
In issuing a permanent ban, Obama appears to be trying to tie the hands of his successor. Trump has vowed a domestic energy revolution and is filling his Cabinet with nominees deeply opposed to Obama's environmental and climate change actions.
Along the Atlantic seaboard, states have had mixed reactions to the possibility of drilling. In Florida, the administration of Gov. Rick Scott, a Trump supporter, has raised concerns about the possible effects to the state's beaches and fishing industry, and residents in North Carolina's Outer Banks protested a move toward ocean drilling. But officials in South Carolina and Virginia have expressed support for the economic benefit of new oil jobs.
Environmental groups were calling for a permanent ban even before the presidential election, but Trump's victory has provided greater urgency for them and for businesses that rely on tourism and fishing. Trump has said he intends to use all available fuel reserves for energy self-sufficiency — and that it's time to open up offshore drilling.
Industry groups are confident that the ban will not stand and Trump can simply issue a new proclamation after taking office that would allow for oil and gas production in the Atlantic. They point to President George W. Bush, who in July 2008 lifted some executive bans on Outer Continental Shelf leasing and drilling.
"There's no such thing as a permanent ban," said Erik Milito, a policy director at the American Petroleum Institute.
But Niel Lawrence, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the result of a Trump proclamation isn't so clear-cut. He said the statute says a president can withdraw waters from the country's leasing plans and "it doesn't say you can put back in."
If Trump does issue an order reversing Obama's proclamation, it would be up to environmental groups or others to challenge his actions in court. If he doesn't, then it would be up to Congress to intervene.
"My guess is that Congress has better things to do," Lawrence said. "The industry is not clamoring to get into these places. Any return on investment is decades away."
The Trump administration could also take a more gradual approach of changing the nation's five-year leasing plan to put the waters back in play. That would buy groups on both sides time to make their case about the need or lack thereof to drill off the Atlantic coast.
Milito said keeping oil and gas production in the Atlantic as an option is important in the event U.S. reserves elsewhere are depleted. The U.S. should not have to rely on other countries for oil and gas supplies to ensure affordability and availability, he said.
"We have to look to the future so that we can maintain our status as an energy superpower and so that we can continue to rely on U.S. oil and gas production to fulfill our economic needs," Milito said.
Fourteen senators have signed a letter calling on Obama to ban offshore drilling permanently. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., disputed the notion that future administrations could undo Obama's order without congressional approval.
"Declaring the Atlantic and the Arctic off-limits to Big Oil is a step the president can take immediately to show that we as a nation are committed to the future of our shore towns, our beaches and our environment," Menendez said.
