Posted on 01/06/2011 5:38:55 AM PST by Kaslin
Energy Policy: Oil prices are surging to levels that will soon crimp economic growth. And what's our government doing about it? Just making it worse.
Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the price of oil has rocketed 117% to $90.41 a barrel and gasoline has jumped 67% to $3.07 a gallon. In the 34 industrialized nations, oil imports have surged 34% in the last year to $790 billion. The U.S. alone has seen a $72 billion jump.
All this imperils a fragile recovery from the financial crisis. "Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy," says Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency.
Given the clear threat, it's economically irrational to sit on our hands and fail to develop our own energy resources. At least 130 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas lie offshore, and hundreds of billions of barrels more are locked in shale deposits in the Northeast and West. Yet our policy remains leaving this wealth alone.
More than mere incompetence is at work here. It's becoming more and more obvious that Obama's energy policy is meant to raise prices by making fossil fuels harder to produce and use. Indeed, the White House has followed a deliberate policy of attacking Americans' use of energy, turning it into something of a moral crusade.
In just two years, as Steve Everley of the American Solutions blog has noted, the Obama administration has:
• Virtually shut down oil drilling in the Gulf. Yes, the six-month moratorium announced during the BP oil spill ended in November. But regulators have made it nearly impossible for oil firms to restart operations and have slapped strict new rules on drilling even in shallow waters.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Just like the Bush Tax Cuts, this is going to back Obama into an ideological corner. His heartfelt enviro-extremism is going to at some point run up smack against the reality of rising energy prices that will choke off the recovery and doom his 2012 reelection bid.
I suppose we are about to find out whether he is at all interested in a second term.
Make no mistake, the ultimate goal of leftists is to destroy the internal combustion engine. Their dream is a country with no gasoline-powered autos. Your bicycle or legs will suffice, because you will also be living in a rabbit hutch in a huge megalopolis. The bad thing for leftists like Obama is that most Democrats are not leftists. But hard leftists, like Obama, run the party. However, average Dems (at least the ones I know) do not like high gas prices any more than conservative Republicans. Sooner or later they will connect the dots, and they’ll realize that it wasn’t that nasty George Bush and his oil buddies who will have made driving a car a luxury.
Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the price of oil has rocketed 117%.Hell of a leader huh?.
***The GOP congress needs to make a visit out to Washington state and be photographed showing the American people the new port built to ship US coal to China***
That’s incredible, SL. Is it commonly known? If so, I’ll write to my House Rep. and ask him to take it on. No sense writing to my Senators because they’re both Obomaites.
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/11/cowlitz_county_approves_permit.html
George Will mentions it in this article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/29/AR2010122902899.html
Is this Obama's term in office --- or Clinton's or GW Bush's 3rd term?
He has nothing but former Clinton staffers around him and President Bush's and then extended his tax cuts. lol
Remember all the "McBush" slurs back in '08
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