Obama’s Energy Policy

The President exhibited incredible callousness and total disconnect from the plight of the American people whom he has sworn to serve and protect. He recently advised a young man who was lamenting the high price of gasoline, to trade in his gas-guzzler SUV for a better mileage car made by GM or Ford. What if the man had a large family and needed an SUV or a van to transport them? What if he could not afford to buy a new car?

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Never mind that gas has doubled in price since Obama became President, in part due to his disastrous economic policies that favor foreign interests while hurting national interests, particularly the seven year moratorium he imposed on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The compliant media is suddenly mum about the rapid escalating oil prices. The same media came unhinged when gas prices hit $4 per gallon under President Bush and criticized him ad nauseam. The President appears detached from reality, as if it is someone else’s job to make sure the American people’s economic interests are preserved and protected and he is just an outside witness and observer in perennial campaign mode.

Obama seems to be the number one cheerleader for world energy interests

Obama seems to be the number one cheerleader for world energy interests, the United Nations’ green agenda and especially third world dictatorships; he presents himself as the global president. America is a pebble in his shoe, which he dismisses with a flick of his foot. Every day he chops off another branch while the tree of liberty is bleeding heavily. Energy generated by oil, natural gas, and coal has been the lifeblood of this economy for generations. One of the first wells that produced oil, which was marketed, was drilled near Marietta, Ohio, in 1814. The inventions of the combustion engine in 1895 and Henry Ford’s first motorcar in 1896 were the beginning of America’s love affair with gasoline, cars, the wide-open roads, and constant mobility. World War I (1914-1918) was the first conflict where control of the oil supply was important for tanks, ships, and airplanes. Oil was discovered in Bahrain in 1932 and Saudi Arabia granted oil concessions to Standard of California in 1933. In 1938, oil was discovered in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. This is when the supply of the Middle East oil started. During World War II (1939-1945), the control of the oil supply from the Middle East and Baku, Russia, played a large role in the events of the war and the ultimate victory of the allies. The allies bombed heavily the refineries in Ploiesti, Romania, that supplied gasoline to the German army. Even Japan was weakened in the latter part of the war by having its oil supply cut off. In 1960, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in Baghdad by Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran. Current members are Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. As our economy grew, we became more and more dependent on our cars, on transportation of goods, parts, and food via eighteen-wheelers, airplanes, and large trucks. To deny the fact that the fate of our economy does not rest on fossil fuels is to be delusional. Wind and solar energy cannot provide the energy necessary to run our economy at a reasonable price. Nuclear energy provides much needed supply but the recent disaster in Japan has made regulators even wearier of new reactors.

The very liberals who have pushed so hard for wind energy are now driving to stop their use in many areas

The very liberals who have pushed so hard for wind energy are now driving to stop their use in many areas because of the unbearable noise level, bird kills, and unsightly appearance. Areas in California have passed laws to turn windmills off when the wind surpasses 23 mph. The problem is that windmills operate most efficiently when winds are 30 mph and higher. Turning them off at 23 mph winds is a losing proposition, causing townships to lose millions of dollars annually that they have invested in the mills infrastructure. After higher oil prices in the seventies, we have switched from large gas-guzzlers to smaller, more energy efficient cars and trucks. We even converted engines to natural gas for a while in the early 1980s. As soon as the embargo was lifted and the oil was plentiful, we started driving big SUVs, larger trucks, and vans. Americans prefer to drive SUVs because they are safer vehicles now than they were when they were first brought to the market and are safer than cars. Nobody wants to buy the Chevy Volt; GM has only sold 468 so far. To drive Americans to buy the Volt, the government wants to impose an additional 50 cents per gallon gas tax. Because OPEC is a monopoly and colludes overtly through production quotas, the price of oil can be driven up and down by simply having a meeting and deciding the direction prices should go, and adjusting production accordingly. The oil futures speculators can also influence prices based on world unrest, civil strife, lack of confidence in the market, and government insecurity in general. To make matters worse, we can only refine so much oil at one time since no additional refineries have been built in years. The worst variable that affects the price of oil is the value of the dollar itself because the price of oil is quoted in dollars. When the dollar is weak, the price per barrel escalates. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez tried to change the quoting of oil prices from dollar to euro unsuccessfully. President Obama has stated that his goal was to drive coal plants into bankruptcy and energy costs under his presidency would necessarily skyrocket. I am not sure his supporters understand that their green Priuses and Volts would still need electricity generated by coal plants. We do not have enough nuclear power or hydro generated electricity. Finally, the delicate balance of supply and demand is very important as it can drive up the price of oil immediately if there is a real or perceived diminished supply. Ban the domestic drilling for oil for seven years as Obama did and you have a formula for very high prices at the pump. Ironically, the President gave Petrobras of Brazil $2 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, practically in our own back yard. He assured them that the U.S. would be their “best customer.” It turns out that China is their main customer. Could it be because Soros has again a controlling interest in Petrobras? Why can we not drill for our own oil? Many other countries are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico such as China, Russia, Venezuela, U.K., to name just a few. Is this the schizophrenic advice a president should give his own citizens, get used to high gas prices or switch to an electric or hybrid car? Should he not implement a viable energy policy that benefits the economy and does not impoverish its citizens who have to decide whether they are going to buy expensive gas to go to work or buy expensive food trucked in by Diesel “guzzling” eighteen-wheelers?