As the former governor of one of America’s largest energy-producing states, a state oil and gas commissioner, and chair of the nation’s Interstate Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, I’ve seen plenty of such studies. What we need is action
—Sarah Palin
As soon as it was announced that Barack Obama was going to "reverse" his stance on offshore drilling, when knew two things. One, it was a scam, and two, Sarah Palin was going to take him to the woodshed.
While Obama and his media partners are talking about opening up certain offshore areas to "exploration" in reality, Obama and company have actually closed off areas that were previously open, and canceled lease sales already in the works.
There is a lot in play here, but at a glance, this is what Obama has done:
* Canceled five lease sales off the Alaska coast that were planned over the next 2 years.
One of the areas is estimated to hold up to 77 billion barrels of oil, or more than 3 times
US reserves.
* A study of the southern Atlantic OCS, with the findings due back next year….no leasing
* Delaying a planned lease sale off Virginia until at least 2012
At a time when America’s economy is in free fall, unemployment is heading toward record highs, and Obama has created a national debt that is higher than all of the debt created by the previous 43 Presidents COMBINED, this is unthinkable, and borders on criminal.
We send nearly $1 trillion dollars each and every year overseas to purchase oil. Not only is this a trillion dollars that leaves our economy, forever, it’s tens of thousands of lost jobs, and billions in lost tax dollars, to both the state and federal treasuries.
At a time when Obama and his corrupt Congress have passed into law an unsustainable "health care" bill, that will raise taxes on Americans by over half a trillion dollars, and will cost millions of jobs, while prolonging economic stagnation for decades, you’d think these people would want some of that money to stay here, but alas......
Having been Chairman of both the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and the Interstate Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, as well as the Governor of a huge energy producing state, you knew this latest Obama scam was going to draw the ire of Mama Grizzly.
It didn’t take long for it to leak out that Sarah intends to give Obama a major dressing down in an upcoming keynote address at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans.
From Reuters:
Sarah Palin, who made "drill baby drill" a 2008 campaign slogan, isn’t too pleased with President Obama’s new energy plan as laid out today.
Palin, the former governor of Alaska and Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008, said on her Twitter page that she agreed with House Republican leader John Boehner that Obama’s plan is aimed at getting his "job-killing, energy-depleting, burdensome" cap and trade legislation through Congress.
A source who is close to Palin said Palin believes Obama is trying to use his drilling plan as a sweetener to get some Republicans to support cap and trade as part of comprehensive energy legislation, and that meanwhile, the review process for getting new drilling operations approved would be lengthy.
"It’s not so much drill baby drill, but stall baby stall," the source said.
Palin, whose home state would see some coastal areas off limits to energy exploration out of concern for the environment, plans to address Obama’s energy plan directly in a speech April 9 at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans.
"She will specifically respond to the president’s proposal," the source said.
You know this is going to be something if she is announcing this, for a speech that is a week away. You can only poke a Mama Grizzly so much before you get ripped to shreds. Look for this keynote address to be carried live to the nation on the cable networks.
Of course, Sarah isn’t waiting for her New Orleans address to let Obama have it. She calls him out quite well in the pages of National Review Online:
Stall, Baby, Stall
Many Americans fear that President Obama’s new energy proposal is once again "all talk and no real action," this time in an effort to shore up fading support for the Democrats’ job-killing cap-and-trade (a.k.a. cap-and-tax) proposals. Behind the rhetoric lie new drilling bans and leasing delays; soon to follow are burdensome new environmental regulations. Instead of "drill, baby, drill," the more you look into this the more you realize it’s "stall, baby, stall."
Today the president said he’ll "consider potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic." As the former governor of one of America’s largest energy-producing states, a state oil and gas commissioner, and chair of the nation’s Interstate Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, I’ve seen plenty of such studies. What we need is action — action that results in the job growth and revenue that a robust drilling policy could provide. And let’s not forget that while Interior Department bureaucrats continue to hold up actual offshore drilling from taking place, Russia is moving full steam ahead on Arctic drilling, and China, Russia, and Venezuela are buying leases off the coast of Cuba.
As an Alaskan, I’m especially disheartened by the new ban on drilling in parts of the 49th state and the cancellation of lease sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. These areas contain rich oil and gas reserves whose development is key to our country’s energy security. As I told Secretary Salazar last April, "Arctic exploration and development is a slow, demanding process. Delays or major restrictions in accessing these resources for environmentally responsible development are not in the national interest or the interests of the State of Alaska."
I’ve got to call it like I see it: The administration’s sudden interest in offshore drilling is little more than political posturing designed to gain support for job-killing energy legislation soon to come down the pike. I’m confident that GOP senators will not take the bait.
Next week I’m headed to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, where I look forward to discussing what "Drill, baby, drill" really means.
Again, what Obama is doing is a scam designed to do two things, fool the uniformed and the clueless, and change the subject. The nation is already incredibly angered over the unconstitutional "health care" bill that was shoved down it’s collective throat, and Obama is hoping we can’t multi-task.....be angered over the "health care" bill....and livid over his idiotic energy policy at the same time. Man is he in for a rude awakening!
As expected, there has been a lot written about the latest attempt to scam the public by Obama. The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell hits Obama hard and sums it up well:
Don’t Fall For Obama’s Energy Shell Game
Can the Obama administration’s desperate attempts to cover their true far left nature with centrist rhetoric and promises become any more transparent? Yesterday, the President announced "an expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration" in selected areas off the coasts of the United States. The President claims this announcement was made "in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs," but nobody believes him. Just take a quick look at today’s newspaper reporting:* The Los Angeles Times: "President Obama … unveiled a controversial offshore drilling plan Wednesday that was driven largely by the politics of his agenda on energy and climate change — not by hopes of changing the nation’s energy supply."
* The Washington Post: "President Obama’s decision … reflects a high-stakes calculation by the White House: Splitting the difference on the most contentious energy issues could help secure a bipartisan climate deal this year."
* Politico: "Obama’s decision is closely tied politically to the fate of the climate change bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Kerry (D-MA), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT)."
* The New York Times: "The proposal is also intended to … help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation."
* Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama’s pledge to expand offshore oil and natural-gas drilling may help Democrats deliver legislation that regulates carbon dioxide emissions before any fuel is produced."
In fact, if anything, the policies announced by President Obama yesterday will actually decrease and delay future U.S. oil production. The President actually canceled four lease sales off the Alaska coast that were planned to begin producing oil within the next two years, delayed a planned lease off Virginia until at least 2012, and placed some areas off limits for at least seven years. Go back and look at President Obama’s actual announcement again: he only promised new exploration off the Atlantic coast. There is absolutely no guarantee that any new drilling will ever occur. Secretary Ken Salazar’s Interior Department still has full discretion to never allow a single drop of oil to be harvested from these waters. And that doesn’t even begin to address the court challenges the enviro-left will employ to attack and delay the entire process.
So if developing new energy sources that can create private sector jobs for Americans and new revenues for financially strapped states and the federal government is not the Obama administration’s real goal, then what is? Well, President Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who was at yesterday’s announcement, has said, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." For reference purposes, when Secretary Chu said that, Europeans were paying $8 a gallon for gas at the pump.
Canceling current offshore oil leases and delaying future ones are not the only policy means the Obama administration is using to pursue the high energy price policy ends. The Obama administration has also declared war on energy production in the Mountain West, rescinding oil-shale development leases in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. His administration has completely failed to take on the real regulatory reforms necessary to allow a private sector nuclear industry to thrive. And just this week, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency began its regulation of carbon emissions through the Clean Air Act.
And let’s not forget the grand daddy of them all: a cap and trade energy tax bill. But don’t call it that. Secretary Salazar told CNBC yesterday, "I think the term ‘cap and trade’ is not in the lexicon anymore." Whatever you call it, placing an arbitrary penalty on carbon emissions would mean disaster for the American economy. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has found that cap and tax legislation would cost the average family of four almost $3,000 per year, cause 2.5 million net job losses by 2035, and produce a cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) loss of $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035.
So don’t be fooled by President Barack Obama’s energy rhetoric. High energy prices are not a side effect of climate legislation – they are the whole point. According to the latest Pew poll, 63% of Americans support allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters. Americans deserve an energy policy that reduces prices, creates private sector jobs, and reduces our national debt. Right now they have the opposite.
As you can see, Obama’s "energy" plan is more in line with his other recent attempts to obliterate the American economy in what seems to be Cloward-Piven’s strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis on steroids!
There is no logical reason for the American people to be denied access to our rich, God given, natural resources. None. America has the ability to drill for oil and clean natural gas in an environmentally safe manner. We also have the ability to develop nuclear energy and clean coal technology.
The fear mongers on the left always use scare tactics to halt offshore drilling, but they are simply the crazed rants of zealots. The fact is, offshore drilling includes safeguards to protect the environment. It hasn’t been that long ago that Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast. What isn’t often reported, because it doesn’t fit the Marxist-democrat party’s narrative, is the fact that despite destruction of biblical proportions, none of the many oil rigs out in the Gulf reported significant issues. If they can go handle Katrina, without disaster, they can handle anything.
We all want clean air, clean water, and frankly, clean energy. Natural gas, BTW, is very clean. The thing is, there is no way any of the current alternative energy sources are going to fulfill anything more than a fraction of the nation’s requirements for the foreseeable future. Even worse, most of these so-called alternatives cannot exist without massive government subsidies (tax dollars) flowing their way.
At a time of severe economic peril, and unprecedented national debt, it is ludicrous to chase these fantasies when cheap, reliable, and available sources of proven energy are at hand. I’m not saying we need to stop looking for alternatives, not in the least. What I am saying is we need to face reality, and deal with it.
We can continue to send trillions of dollars to other nations, some that use their money to fund terror or other efforts that are detrimental to the United States, or we can keep those trillions of dollars in America, create millions of real jobs, and get back on the road to economic security.
This really isn’t a tough decision to make: Drill baby, drill!
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