During his energy-policy speech on Thursday afternoon, President Obama was right when he said that even if we immediately greenlighted all of our energy projects and started to drill, drill, and drill some more, it would still take years for these actions to significantly affect the price of gasoline -- it does take some time to get the production and supply of said projects up and running. But, then the President also turned around and threw out a bunch of impressive statistics about how domestic oil production has only gone up during his administration, there are a record number of oil rigs operating now, etcetera. ...Anyone? Anyone?
As White House spokesman Jay Carney said this week "Oil and gas production in the United States has risen every year since the president's been in office. Oil production is now higher than it's been in eight years."
Industry analysts say production is rising -- not because of President Obama, but in spite of him.
"Today on federal land, the area where the president has control, production in the Gulf of Mexico is down 30 percent. Lease sales in Rocky Mountains on federal lands are down 70 percent," Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute said.
He says the president has put 85 percent of the outer continental shelf off limits and overall, is only making 3 percent of the areas under his control available for development.
So, the Obama/White House All-Purpose Strategy Numero Uno goes something like: blame the Bush administration's policies for everything from the terrible economy to the dragging war in Afghanistan, but gloss over and take credit for the long-term effects of the Bush administration's policies when it helps Obama to quell voters unhappy with rising gas prices. Got it.
In this case, at least, President Obama is technically correct that there's no "silver bullet" to bring down gas prices overnight. But one of his favorite new catchphrases is "an American economy built to last" -- so start building it already! Even if it takes five-ten years to get our new resources into the market, we can lay the economic foundations and build an infrastructure to really plan for "winning the future" -- and doing so will start creating lots of new jobs right now.
And now, for your listening pleasure, here's Dennis Prager absolutely stomping on Obama's 'algae' energy policy. Brilliant:
Join the conversation as a VIP Member