On Not Drilling and Pain at the Pump

How any person could actually think that Obama feels your pain at the pump is unfathomable to me.  This President has put an unnecessary blanket moratorium on offshore drilling and now his EPA (yes, every person on the EPA is a Democrat and was appointed by Obama) has decided to withhold critical air permits which halts Shell's drilling efforts.   Shell was getting ready to drill in the Arctic Ocean off of the northern coast of Alaska during the summer but now Shell has to scrap their efforts to drill there because of Obama's EPA.  Plus, this has cost Shell a pretty penny.  Oh... that's right, Obama wants to stick it to the oil companies while claiming he has nothing to do with rising oil prices.  That is bull hockey!!  He has a lot to do with our rising gas prices.  There were a number of things Obama could have done to stop the pain at the pump, like lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling and allowing onshore drilling in the United States.  Instead Obama wants to give taxpayers' money to foreign entities such as Brazil, Venezuela, and the Middle East for oil -  to countries that don't particularly like the United States to say the least - rather than create jobs here in the United States,  while at least making an effort to lower the gas prices. 

From Fox News: "Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”

"The closest village to where Shell proposed to drill is Kaktovik, Alaska. It is one of the most remote places in the United States. According to the latest census, the population is 245 and nearly all of the residents are Alaska natives. The village, which is 1 square mile, sits right along the shores of the Beaufort Sea, 70 miles away from the proposed off-shore drill site.

"The EPA’s appeals board ruled that Shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project. Environmental groups were thrilled by the ruling."



Then we have a three-inch lizard in Texas threatening to completely halt existing oil drilling for at least two years in some parts of Texas if the enviromental whackos get their way. If the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard is listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service then oil drilling will be forced to cease in some parts of Texas.  Alright, I have had it with the welfare of animals taking precedent over the welfare of humans. I'm not a sue happy person but whenever this type of thing happens and these enviro nutjobs endanger our livelihood then I think their needs to be a class action lawsuit brought against them.  We need to stop lying down like dogs and taking this crap from these people anymore.

This is ludicrous!!  The enviro-weenies at the EPA have gone wild!! The Pittsburgh region was just rated an F  on pollution.  Should I stop living here due to that?  This is all fear mongering by the Left.  The Left consistently accuses the Right of fear mongering but the Left need to look no further than in their own mirrors to see who is actually doing the fear mongering in this country.  


In Lee Habeeb's article he informs us that according to AAA gas prices have risen 37% since October but for some reason we haven't heard a peep from AARP or anti-poverty groups.  Obama hasn't even declared a moratorium on gasoline taxes.  Lee says that Obama chooses the Marie Antoinette approach.  '“Let them eat cake!” Stop driving those SUV’s, and start buying smaller cars. Stop drilling, and start plugging in those electric cars.' Then, Lee points out "Some companies are shifting investments out of the Gulf. BP recently said it would move a brand-new rig that was meant to work in the Gulf to Libya. Nice work, President Obama. We are bombing Gaddafi by night, and shipping jobs there by day." '  This scenario is bizarre. 


Larry Kudlow speaks to the Left's hate oil campaign.  Larry Kudlow points out:  "When oil prices blew sky high in 2008, ExxonMobil paid $36.5 billion in income taxes, $34.5 billion in sales taxes, and $45 billion in other taxes, for a total of $116.2 billion in taxes paid and collected in 2008." Either Exxon or the whole oil industry pays more in taxes then the bottom 50 percent of the whole income-tax system.  And Obama wants to stick it to the oil companies even more?  Obama wants to remove tax-subsidies for the oil companies and somehow thinks that doing wouldn't hurt Americans. 


Here is a USA National Gas Price Heat Map: 

You can see that the average price for gasoline across the country is at $3.52 per gallon or above.  The high gas prices are greatly hurting our economy.  We need to start drilling both offshore and onshore.  In addition we need to stop this nonsense coming from the enviro-whackos in their efforts to curtail human flourishing.  

Huge Job Losses Because of Obama's Cap & Ban

From The Foundry : The front page of USA Today claims: “President Obama’s attempt to use the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to help propel comprehensive energy legislation has failed.” Don’t believe it for a second. On Monday the Obama administration reissued a ban on offshore oil drilling in the gulf after federal courts twice invalidated the first ban, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.” The new ban is, if anything, more restrictive than the first, thus guaranteeing even more job losses for the already devastated Gulf region. Meanwhile, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is set to introduce a bill that will cap greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Taken together, the President’s Cap and Ban approach to energy policy will accomplish exactly what he set out to do from the very first day he was sworn into office: decrease the amount of carbon the U.S. economy emits by drastically increasing the cost of energy.


The mechanism Sen. Reid will use to cap carbon emissions is Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) renewable electricity standard (RES) legislation (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), which caps carbon from power plants by forcing them to produce a growing percentage of the electricity they produce from government-approved renewable energy sources every year. This is essentially cap and trade but without the trade. If these new renewable energy sources were actually cost effective, there would be no need to mandate them. Cost-minimizing firms would adopt the technology on their own to stay competitive. But renewable energy is not cost-effective. It is significantly more expensive than traditional fuels, hence the need for the government mandates which will raise everyone’s energy costs. The ultimate victim of these higher energy prices will be you the consumer and the American economy.

Taking the full cost of wind and other renewables into account, the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has found that an RES would: 1) raise electricity prices by 36 percent for households and 60 percent for industry; 2) cut national income (GDP) by $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035; 3) cut national income by $2,400 per year for a family of four; 4) reduce employment by more than 1,000,000 jobs; and 5) add more than $10,000 to a family of four’s share of the national debt by 2035.

And that is just the “cap” half of President Obama’s Cap and Ban approach. The first Obama oil drilling ban already caused some oil rigs to leave U.S. waters entirely. The threat of a second moratorium effectively created a de facto oil drilling ban and, even if they lose in court, the Obama Interior Department can further the de facto moratorium “through tough new safety regulations and by extending the time it takes to review drilling applications.” Studies show that more than 200,000 jobs are tied to the offshore drilling industry and 35,000 workers are directly involved each day when the rigs are in use. The American Petroleum Institute forecasts that if the drilling ban continues, more than 120,000 jobs could be lost in the Gulf Coast and key resources abandoned or moved elsewhere.

Worse, CNN reports that shallow water drillers say the Obama administration has not issued any permits since April 20, effectively creating a stealth ban on all offshore drilling. Heritage analyst David Kreutzer has crunched the numbers and found that a full Obama administration ban on all offshore drilling would be absolutely devastating to the U.S. economy. Between now and 2035, an offshore drilling ban would: 1) reduce GDP by $5.5 trillion; 2) reduce job growth by more than 1 million jobs by 2015 and more than 1.5 million jobs by 2030; and 3) increase the total expenditures for imported oil by nearly $737 billion.

After listening to locals testify about the economic catastrophe President Obama’s energy policies are already creating in the Gulf, former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham said he was disturbed by a “disconnect between Washington and the Gulf region about the sense of urgency needed.” There certainly is a disconnect between Washington and the rest of America. At a time of 9.5% unemployment, now is not the time to be inflicting costly Cap and Ban energy policies on the U.S. economy.