“eliminate unwarranted tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, and to use those dollars to invest in clean energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
Barack Obama
4/25/11 letter to Congress
“Uh, we are in uh, a lot of conversations with major oil producers like Saudi Arabia, uh, to let them know that, uh, it's not gonna be good for them if our economy, uh, is hobbled because of high oil prices. They're better off bringing those oil prices down, working with us, uh, to try to increase supply, uh, so that the economy continues to grow over the long term. They'll be better off and certainly we'll be better off.”
Barack Obama
4/27/11 interview with WKYC
In two day's time, President Obama has directly contradicted himself in his energy policy, or lack thereof. So what is it? Do we need to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, or beg the Saudis and OPEC to pump more oil for us?
Lets set the wayback machine to the waning days of George W. Bush's presidency. In early-mid 2008, gas was as well approaching $4.00 a gallon national average. You couldn't turn on the news without hearing about it. And the bulk of the coverage was how it was all W.'s fault. Even Nancy Pelosi was quoted to say in 2008:
"The price of oil is at the doorstep... Four dollars, plus a gallon for oil is attributed to two oilmen in the white house"
To be perfectly fair, W. also hit up the Saudis. But he also went further. What is not so highly publicized is that he and his Interior Department wrote a lot of domestic oil leases. The effect of that was to alter the course of the “evil” oil speculators on Wall Street. When Bush left office, gas prices were at about $1.80 national average....
This is how it works: Oil speculators buy oil contracts based on what they feel oil will be worth 3, 6, 9, 12, etc. months into the future. When the cost of oil is expected to rise or decline due to changes in perceived demand and/or supply, the value of those contracts change. The speculation market adjusted itself to the perceived potential increase in supply that was coming down the pike due to increase in domestic oil leases written by the Bush administration.
So what happened? Why are prices back up? Well, the nature of oil leases is not such that oil comes out of the ground the next day. These things take time, sometimes years before a drop of oil is placed in a barrel or pipeline on it's way to market. “Time” is what happened... BP dumped a ton of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The Obama administration shut down not only Gulf oil, but lots of other domestic oil sources and rescinded leases. Don't get me wrong, a short duration shutdown while the cause is investigated is quite warranted. Unfortunately, that has turned into an almost permanent shutdown. Obama and his people have been slapped down by a Federal judge regarding this, but they still refuse to comply with a court order. Meanwhile, those idle oil rigs have left the area to drill elsewhere and for other countries. Don't even get me started on the Petrobras/loan guarantee/Soros thing....
When we talk about the “evil” oil speculators, what happened to them in the last days of Bush's administration? They lost money. “So what?” you say? Guess who else lost money when they did? You and your grandparents whose 401Ks and retirement accounts depend on that income. Where was the media on that?
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