Obama’s Ultimate Betrayal
January 12, 2011
by John Myers

Welcome to 2011; another year for President Barack Obama, whose energy policies are dictated not from the White House but from Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Obama’s Christmas gift to the nation was the December announcement by the President himself to clamp down further on domestic oil and gas drilling. Welcome to the New Year where pump prices now average more than $3 per barrel.

Despite the worst recession since the Great Depression, we are paying the highest gas prices since 2008. All thanks to Obama’s need to go Green, which is enriching Arab oil producers while putting America’s future at risk.

Obama regulators have been busy slipping in ill-advised energy policies. First came the pre-Thanksgiving announcement that oil exploration and drilling in Alaska would be curtailed. All for a good cause, said the Obamaites, to help save vast expanses of polar bear habitat. Then Obama’s Department of the Interior made a pre-Christmas policy change that would further cut domestic oil supplies by making energy-rich lands untouchable.

It seems that Obama forgot that designating Federal lands as wilderness areas was supposed to require an act of Congress. Yet the day before Christmas Eve, Obama’s Department of the Interior did a coup d’état. As a result, the Obama administration alone is able to judge where oil can or cannot be drilled. In doing this, Obama has thwarted George W. Bush’s policy that restricted unilateral action by the White House.

Then there is the drilling in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico. Nearly three months after the Obama administration lifted its ban, oil companies are still waiting for approval to drill the first new oil well in the Gulf. In fact, the petroleum industry expects the wait to continue until the second half of 2011, and perhaps well into 2012.

This long delay by the Obama administration is costing Big Oil billions of dollars that they have tied up in Gulf projects; projects that are now on hold while petroleum companies pay out thousands of dollars every day on rigs that stand idle.

Last week the Wall Street Journal wrote this indictment of Obama’ energy policy:

“Their impact goes beyond the oil industry. The Gulf coast economy has been hit hard by the slowdown in drilling activity, especially because the oil spill also hurt the region’s fishing and tourism industries. The Obama administration in September estimated that 8,000 to 12,000 workers could lose their jobs temporarily as a result of the moratorium; some independent estimates have been much higher.

“The slowdown also has long-term implications for U.S. oil production. The Energy Information Administration, the research arm of the Department of Energy, last month predicted that domestic offshore oil production will fall 13 percent this year from 2010 due to the moratorium and the slow return to drilling; a year ago, the agency predicted offshore production would rise 6 percent in 2011. The difference: A loss of about 220,000 barrels of oil a day.â€