We have all heard the lie, that President Obama is the worst domestic energy President ever. Unfortunately, the facts have a progressive biased and run counter to the Republican claims.
In an August 27th, 2011 article of the Wall Street Journal, you know the liberally biased newspaper? (sarcasm) It states that there are “1,069: The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. this week.”
“The figure reflects a huge surge in U.S. oil drilling, up nearly 60% in the past year and the highest total since at least 1987,”
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
“The U.S. pumped 3.9 million barrels a day from onshore fields in March, up 5.9% from a year earlier and the most in nearly a decade.”
“Rising production—along with other factors such as increased use of alternative fuels and reduced consumption due to more fuel-efficient cars—is helping to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. U.S. crude oil imports last week were down 11% from a year ago; on a percentage basis, the U.S. imported less of its oil last year than any year since 2003.”
Now there is a difference between oil rigs on private land and federally owned land. So let’s look at Obama’s record on oil rigs and leases according to the Bureau of Land Management,
Here is the bureau of land management stats on NEW LEASES for drilling on federal land. In 2011, 2,188 new leases were given out by Obama. In comparison, George Bush gave out only 2,022 in 2003. While the numbers do not mean much to me because leases increase and decrease due to the price of a barrel of oil. When prices increase, oil companies want to drill, when prices decrease, it is not as profitable and they do not want to drill.
In 2002 the average price of a barrel was $25 by 2006 oil was at $79 dollars, a record high at the time. You can see how it correlates to new leases in the link above, as prices increased so did the amount of leases.
The number of NEW wells in 2011 was 3,260, while under the Bush in 2003 only 2,957 new wells were drilled. As you can see the numbers DO NOT show a radical change in anything.
And finally to put the final nail in the coffin of the lies coming from the GOP is the number of permits given out.
Under the Obama administration, there have been 4,244 permits given out for onshore drilling on federal land in 2011. In contrast, President Bush, the oil man, gave out ONLY 3,802 permits in 2003. It then SPIKED to over 5,000 due to oil prices.Aamazingly, new permits in Obama’s first 3 years were all over 4,000.
This shows how lies regarding President Obama’s record is being falsely promoted by the party whose leader said, our only goal is to defeat Obama. This means even lying about Obama’s record and making him seem extreme. Unfortunately for them, the real record tells a different story.
Now this article probably will not sit well with my environmental activist friends, and that is OK. I am not championing his record, I am just setting the record straight.
I believe we need to keep drilling in the near future, obviously, but we need to use the tax credits and subsidies that are going to these oil companies and redirect them to green energy initiatives so that America can be energy independent, not independent by drilling more oil, but independent of oil entirely and move away from the Wall Street speculators.
