As predicted, the Obama administration rescinded its promise to allow domestic offshore oil drilling yesterday.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.

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.”

Ironically, many critics assert that it was federal regulations that led to the oil spill in the first place.

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.

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Larry Brown said:

President Obama should be confined within the four walls of the White House to conserve oil. The Department of the Interior should be defunded to limit the damage it causes.

December 02, 2010

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Steve said:

Ban it. I agree with James. Offshore oil drilling should be banned across the globe. If we have a comprehensive and legitimate plan to reduce our oil consumption, and if we don't trash the place while doing so, we can open up on-land drilling. What we can't afford to do is open up drilling all over the place and call it a day as if everything is hunky-dory. Our kids still need to deal with environmental factors and the fact that there is a finite supply of oil in the world. Has anyone considered that electric cars have been around since before the gasoline engine? Or that Buckminster Fuller made a car that got 50 mpg carrying 13 people? Granted, it was long and had three wheels, but still. Or that we had electric cars quickly on the rise in the '70's here before it was ended? We have to ultimately look at other options to oil. There is no choice. And if we're being honest with ourselves, we have to look at the power the oil industry currently has in D.C. and wonder if they haven't been quite successful in stalling progress for decades. And it's not just the gas in our cars. Petroleum is in everything. Everything. We need to get serious, and real soon. In the meantime, on land drilling - with a plan. And the legalization of industrial hemp. Can be used for fuel, cloth, paper, grows like a weed, and oxygenates the environment like crazy.

December 06, 2010