I am dumbfounded that Obama thinks that he can get away with this. He spends three years making oil prices spike and then he turns around and says that we are producing more oil than ever. What he fails to say is that it takes about six years for an oil well to start producing from the time the lease is signed until the last length of pipeline is put in. All of today's production was signed into being during the Bush administration. From US News and World Report:
Obama Administration Exaggerates Success in Oil and Gas Leases
This week, the Department of Interior lauded the administration's efforts to increase oil and gas leases on federal lands. Somehow they failed to mention that last year they set records for hardly issuing any leases at all. The omission wasn't lost on careful observers.
The Obama administration now claims that leasing on public lands has increased 20 percent in the year 2011, and Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes heralded the news by saying, "We intend to continue to build on that success [from 2011] this year."
Of course, the facts paint a much different picture than the administration's propaganda. In 2010, the Obama administration issued a historically low number of leases. While a 20 percent increase from a lower-than-average number is a good thing in any event, the idea that the Obama administration expects praise for hamstringing American energy less last year should receive a lukewarm response.
Some other numbers are telling:
However, a closer examination of the issue shows that lease sales in offshore areas�which currently produce one-third of U.S. oil production and hold enormous resource potential - have in fact plummeted more than $9.4 billion since the Obama administration took office. To put this in perspective, the American taxpayer collected 258 times less revenue from offshore lease sales than they did during the last year of the Bush administration:2008: $9,480,806,620
2009: $1,181,075,491
2010: $979,569,294
2011: $36,751,111
The above link points to a report from the US Office of Natural Resources Revenue; a division of the US Government that is new to me and promises to provide some hours of fun digging as they track revenues from alt.energy as well as commercial oil. How much money are we getting from that windmill over there...
