Obama Pushing Forward On Agenda For Higher Gas Prices

Recently An Obama Nation.Net covered how Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has reminded us that higher gas prices at the pump was part of Barack Obama's promised agenda. See: Rising Gas Prices Part of Obama's Plan

An Editorial piece-"Obama turns a deaf ear to concerns about energy prices"-from The Examiner sums up how Obama continued to push his sky-high gas price agenda forward in Friday's press conference and totally flip-flopped from statements he made on the issue in 2005:

The 2005 Obama worried about the devastating economic impact that high energy prices have on people from all walks of life. But Friday's Obama has seemed determined to make the price of gas go up as much as possible since his first day on the job in January 2009. He dramatically slowed, then completely stopped the federal government's issuance of drilling permits on federal lands and in offshore waters. He also slowed down the government auctions of leases for energy exploration on other federal lands. And since the Deepwater Horizon disaster last year, only two permits have been issued -- both within the last month -- to enable drilling to resume in the Gulf of Mexico, which supplies a third of U.S. oil and natural gas needs. He has withdrawn previously issued permits for drilling in Alaska and put millions of acres of federal land in the lower 48 states off-limits to future oil exploration.

His efforts have worked, too, as U.S. production has decreased dramatically. In 2007, the Energy Information Administration projected that 700 million barrels of oil would be produced offshore in 2010, but only 600 million actually were. And the same government agency predicted that onshore production last year would be 133 million barrels, but it was only 114 million. And EIA projects total U.S. oil production will go down 250,000 barrels per day next year. These facts explain why gas prices are expected to reach $4 per gallon this summer. In fact, things have gotten so bad that even former President Clinton now agrees with former President George W. Bush that under Obama there are "ridiculous delays in permitting when our economy doesn't need it." When the two previous chief executives, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, agree, the current president ought to listen up.

See the full article from The Examiner by clicking on article title link above.
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