January 6, 2010, - 3:43 pm
Good News: Obama, Salazar Make It Even Tougher to Drill for U.S. Oil
The price of a gallon of gas will ultimately inch up again toward $3.00 and perhaps $4.00. And, frankly, the prices now (I paid $2.63 a gallon when I last filled up) are far too high. That’s not to mention–for the gazillionth time–that oil finances the Saudis, the Ahmadinejads, and the Hugo Chavezes of the world.
That Was Then . . .
Marie Antoinette: “Let Them Eat Cake”
This Is now . . .
Barack Obama & Ken Salazar: “Let Them Drive Cake”
So, what do Barack Obama and his minions do? They make it tougher to drill for oil in the U.S. on federal lands. Yup, exactly what we need in a horrible economy and a world of oil-financed America-hating nations.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to announce Wednesday that his agency will require oil and natural-gas companies to clear more regulatory hurdles before they are allowed to drill on federal lands.
Mr. Salazar’s action is likely to make it more difficult for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to fast-track the permitting of oil and gas projects on federal land. BLM field staffers would be required to seek additional approvals from their supervisors and to undertake more visits to areas where energy companies are seeking access, according to people familiar with the matter.
The BLM manages more than 260 million acres of federal land, and with it, a significant chunk of U.S. energy supplies. Domestic production from federal onshore oil and gas wells accounts for 11% of U.S. natural-gas supplies and 5% of the nation’s oil.
The Obama administration is already locked in a bitter fight with the oil and gas industry over proposals to raise billions of dollars in additional taxes from energy companies, and to cap the emissions of gases caused by burning fossil fuels, which have been linked to global warming. . . .
Business groups fear the administration’s action will discourage domestic energy development, by adding new red tape to the permitting process for oil and gas drilling. In a letter to Mr. Salazar last week, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America, a lobbying group that represents manufacturers, credited the 2005 law with reducing drilling-permit backlogs and boosting natural-gas production.
I don’t “fear” this will discourage domestic energy development. I know it will.
When gas goes up to $3.00 and $4.00 a gallon, again–and, like I said, it will–you can lay the blame squarely on Barack Hussein Obama. Salazar would not be doing this without his blessing. And after all, Obama is the ultimate boss. This is his work–his policy. Hey, like Bush and Clinton before him, he’s got a Gulf state-financed Presidential library to build. But at least Bush tried to fast-track drilling on federal lands, the same drilling Obama is now trying his best to slow down.
The fish rots from the head down. And right now, it’s pretty stinky all over.
In the last generation this would have been considered criminal malfeasance. Regardless of what these pantywaists do, the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, Russians, Venezuelans…. will all be drilling as fast as they can. Ironically in the case of the Chinese and Russians, they will be doing it in our own back yard.
States need to sieze these lands and give the Feds the bums rush.
JLin on January 6, 2010 at 3:52 pm