Opportunities forgone.

The American energy sector has been one of the more powerful engines moving right along in our otherwise largely stalled-out economy in the last few years, a fact that President Obama isn’t hesitant to note — even though the oil-and-gas industry’s growth has largely been due to burgeoning technological innovation and heightened exploration on state- [...]

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Yeah, nice try.

America’s domestic oil-and-gas production is going bananas, and it’s largely thanks to advances in technology and expanded drilling on private and state-owned lands. President Obama, however, is pretty fond of implying that the credit for the oil-and-gas industry going gangbusters belongs mostly to his policies. For much of 2012, he deliberately misused statistics that made [...]

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Decisions.

Huzzah! …Er, maybe? Hopefully? When I say “proponent,” I mean that in the sort of weak-tea, oh-so-careful, still-a-greenie-enthusiast, bureaucratic sense of the word, and I don’t want to speak too soon (Lisa Jackson was a kind of Fracking “Supporter” In Name Only), but… at least it isn’t one of those fossil fuel-loathing, hardcore eco-zealots currently [...]

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TBD.

During his first term, the Obama administration managed to rather successfully punt on , er, ‘defer for further review processes’ the full authorization of TransCanada Corp.’s proposal to build a 1,700-mile pipeline that would transfer Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. The Keystone XL pipeline has been an apt demonstration of some of Democratic [...]

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Inconvenient truths. For Obama, that is.

During the second presidential debate last night, Mitt Romney took President Obama and his administration to task for their restrictive and opportunity-killing domestic energy policies — but then Obama tried to double down on the deliberately misleading statistics he likes to use that Romney had just debunked. As Romney argued back, however, the results of [...]

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You will take what we give you, and you will like it.

In addendum to my weekend post about the Department of Interior focusing its bureaucratic efforts on fast-tracking their program for quickly approving permits for solar panels on public land — yippee ki-yay — I’ve just spotted this specific example of the ways in which the Obama administration is trying to take credit for the oil [...]

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"All of the above," isn't.

President Obama certainly knows how to talk a good game when it comes to energy policy; to the low-information layman, “all of the above” sounds like a superficially excellent plan. Work on green energy development, but keep the traditional fuel production comin’ — it’s the best of both worlds, right? Except that that’s not what [...]

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You don't say.

Whatever would we do without the august, dispassionate wisdom of the Environmental Protection Agency keeping a watchful paternalistic eye on the many activities of us ignoble profit-seekers? …Prosper, probably. As it is, the EPA never tires of finding new excuses for their expanded involvement in an ever-wider range of private-sector endeavors, nor of further limiting [...]

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"Everybody booms in the process." Preach it!

For the time being, President Obama has moved away from energy as the campaign theme du jour, especially as gas prices have calmed down. It therefore warms my heart that the House GOP is challenging Obama on his rhetorically cozy but completely fake “all of the above” energy narrative and continuing the push for more [...]

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"Nobody even remembers the environmental cost, you just know the benefit was kissed goodbye to."

Indubitably. As much as President Obama likes to claim that approving of pipelines and issuing drilling permits won’t do anything to lower gas prices in the near future (which isn’t true, by the way — the confirmed prospect of an expanded oil capacity tomorrow can incentivize speculators to release oil into the market supply today), [...]

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Plus, Ramirez on beaming sunshine at the White House.

I know, I know — the White House claims they don’t have any drilling moratorium in place.  They claim that they want to increase domestic oil production.  As Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) explains to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, their actions don’t match their rhetoric.  After Salazar insisted that the administration has been processing permits and [...]

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Still struggling.

News reports to the contrary, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico still hasn’t staged a full comeback from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and subsequent drilling moratorium, according to new research by Quest Offshore Resources, Inc. Quest’s new analysis shows the number of floating rigs in the Gulf is down 37 percent from its pre-moratorium [...]

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