Obama cancels all offshore drilling leases on Atlantic coast

While we're all obsessed with the process of picking a new president, the one we have is still governing - and not well. We've always known Obama was hostile to the domestic energy industry (lest you think Hillary's promise to put coal miners out of business represents any sort of policy shift), and Obama really paid that hostility off yesterday. Reversing its previous plan, the White House abruptly cancelled all offshore drilling leases for the entire Atlantic coast - stunning governors and business leaders throughout the region who had expected the opportunity to drill and enjoy the economic benefits that would come from doing so.

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And why did they think they would be able to do this? Because Obama had developed a plan for that very thing. But he's now pulled the plug, because as usual he sides with environmental activists over the vitality of the U.S. economy:

The Obama administration is expected to withdraw its plan to permit oil and gas drilling off the southeast Atlantic coast, yielding to an outpouring of opposition from coastal communities from Virginia to Georgia but dashing the hopes and expectations of many of those states’ top leaders. The announcement by the Interior Department, which is seen as surprising, could come as soon as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the decision who was not authorized to speak on the record because the plan had not been publicly disclosed. The decision represents a reversal of President Obama’s previous offshore drilling plans, and comes as he is trying to build an ambitious environmental legacy. It could also inject the issue into the 2016 presidential campaigns, as Republican candidates vow to expand drilling. In January 2015, Mr. Obama drew the wrath of environmentalists and high praise from the oil industry and Southeastern governors after the Interior Department put forth a proposal that would have opened much of the southeastern Atlantic coast to offshore drilling for the first time. The proposal came after governors, state legislators and senators from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia all expressed support for the drilling. Lawmakers in the state capitals saw new drilling as creating jobs and bolstering state revenue.

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I'm not sure which is worse - this or Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline after seven years of teasing the question. In that case, you sort of figured he was going to reject it eventually but he waited as long as he possibly could until the political price was lowest. In this case, every signal the administration had given was that it would approve the leases. That means companies had spent time and money acquiring resources, hiring people and researching the best locations to drill - only to have Obama completely undercut them with a single move. This is simply a devastating development for these companies and for the states that were expecting to be able to reap the benefit of those energy resources. And by the way, while you're focused on things that happen at political rallies and why you find them so appalling, this is what happens when an actual president lies to actual people about a real policy. He may not have used a swear word or jawboned with hecklers, but while he was showing his pitch-perfect presidential temperament, Obama lied and welched on a commitment to thousands of Americans, not to mention an entire country's worth of people who would like to be less dependent on foreign energy sources. The real policy decisions of a president are more important than the noise of a campaign, which you should consider before you let someone like Hillary become president because Donald Trump bothers you. The dishonesty Obama showed here is appalling, but it's probably amateur hour compared to what we would get with the Clintons back on charge. And oh yes, real people get hurt and real people pay the price when presidents make such horrendous decisions. We elected this guy because he seemed cool and it felt cool to vote for him. The result was decisions like this. If we choose the next president in reaction to a negative emotional frenzy directed at her opponent, we can expect more such problems - and we will have earned them.

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