The Do-Nothing President
Washington,
Mar 14 -
President Obama is right; there are no “quick fixes” or “silver bullets” to reduce short term gasoline prices. But in an attempt to deflect blame for prices pushing and exceeding $4 a gallon, the President has been recycling that excuse for weeks.
When it comes to energy, it’s important to keep your eye on what the President does, not what he says. While he busily explains that he’s got nothing up his sleeve to solve the current gas price problem, the President doesn’t want you to notice that in his other hand he has no long term plan either. In fact, it appears he does not even believe a solution is necessary.
In his State of the Union address last month, the President made lofty statements about energy independence, referencing an all-of-the-above strategy, and taking credit for booming on-shore oil production numbers. He even made the incredible claim that he was going to “open more than 75 % of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” But like a common parlor trick that at first amazes, his claims must give way to reality. The official, publically released plan for offshore development reveals that he is willing to open only 13% of the available off-shore acres.
Further, the President touts America’s increased on-shore oil and gas production and historically low oil imports, paying no attention to data clearly showing the increases in production are from private and state lands not federal public lands. On public lands where the President has a say, oil and gas production is in serious decline. We know the United States has public land resources that rival anywhere else in the world, but the President is actively blocking attempts to safely develop our energy resources.
The President loves to point out that leases for oil and gas development on public lands have spiked under his watch, ignoring the fact that leases issued on public lands in the west are the lowest in nearly two-decades. Remember also that the lease is only half the battle; companies lucky enough to obtain a lease and navigate the regulatory scheme ultimately cannot recover the resource because the President refuses to issue drilling permits.
In recent years we in Wyoming have watched as capital has fled to private lands or other countries. A recent study commissioned by the Department of the Interior and then buried because they didn’t like the findings, included this alarming statement: “When compared with a peer group of North American jurisdictions, Wyoming’s competitive edge [in energy production] is on shaky ground.” That’s because this President’s actions do not match his words.
Sadly, this President excels at talking, not acting. Far beyond oil and gas, his policies have already resulted in the planned loss of over 22.6 gigawatts of power derived from coal -enough energy to power 17,000,000 homes. This cheap, abundant and reliable electricity cannot be replaced without a significant hit to American’s wallets. The President has also locked away a tremendous uranium supply in Arizona. He’s withdrawn millions of acres of oil-shale resources that, if recoverable, could power our country for centuries. And he has thwarted efforts to build a pipeline infrastructure that could bring our vast resources to market.
The President is fond of admonishing us that oil is a global commodity, and prices at the pump are reflective of the global price of oil. But the President forgets that he is the leader of the greatest country on earth and that we have the resources and the technology to be a major player in the global trade of oil for gasoline as well as other sources of energy.
To affect prices at the pump, we must take many steps that will, over time, put significant downward pressure on the global price of oil. We must allow for development of our home-grown resources, and we must allow for the infrastructure to bring it to market. We already have the resources and technology to do this; what we desperately need is a leader who is willing to act, and act decisively. Instead, and to our great peril, what we have now is a do-nothing President.
Cynthia Lummis is Wyoming’s representative in the U.S. House.
