Obama Shifts to Speed Oil and Gas Drilling in U.S.
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: May 14, 2011
WASHINGTON — President Obama, facing voter anger over high gasoline prices and complaints from Republicans and business leaders that his policies are restricting the development of domestic energy resources, announced on Saturday that he was taking several steps to speed oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters.
You might say she's led him by the nose.
It was at least a partial concession to his critics, who say he has shackled domestic energy development at a time when consumers are paying near-record prices at the gas pump. The Republican-led House passed three bills in the last 10 days that would significantly expand and accelerate oil development in the United States, saying the administration was driving up gas prices and preventing job creation with anti-drilling policies.
Administration officials said the president’s announcement was designed in part to answer these arguments, signal flexibility and demonstrate Mr. Obama’s commitment to reducing oil imports by boosting domestic production. But in fact the policies announced Saturday would not have an immediate effect on supply or prices, nor would they quickly open any new areas to drilling.
We must hammer this point across to the American people: that Barack Obama doesn't want gas prices to come down, but he does want to get re-elected. That's all that matters to him right now. Let's drive the point home, and quickly, that his 'concessions' are weak sauce and consist of 'just enough' response to unacceptable energy costs to get him re-upped. Then, after he's sworn in again, we'll be looking at his reversing of these inadequate policies and four years of nightmarish tax increases and energy costs that we won't be able to force him to address, because he'll be out of there in 2016 anyway.
Now is the ONLY time and chance we have to hammer this guy on his far-left policies. Let's get busy.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, the president said the administration would begin to hold annual auctions for oil and gas leases in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, a 23-million-acre tract on the North Slope. The move comes after years of demands for the auctions by industry executives and Alaska’s two senators, Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Mark Begich, a Democrat.
The administration will also accelerate a review of the environmental impact of possible drilling off the southern and central Atlantic coast and will consider making some areas available for exploration. The move marks a change from current policy, which puts the entire Atlantic seaboard off limits to drilling until at least 2018.
The president also said he would extend leases already granted for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean off Alaska that had been frozen after last year’s BP spill. The extension will allow companies time to meet new safety and environmental standards without having to worry about their leases expiring.
The government will also provide incentives for oil companies to more quickly exploit leases they already hold. Tens of millions of acres onshore and offshore are under lease but have not been developed.
The moves come after the House passed a series of bills that would force the administration to move much further and faster to open public lands and waters to oil and gas development. The administration had formally opposed the bills as written, but officials said Friday that the White House might accept some provisions in the bills, like extending the frozen leases in the gulf and in Alaska.
Sarah Palin, are you listening? Here's your opening. Slip a dirk into these woebegone LeftLibProggs, quickly.
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