With gasoline prices at historic highs, and threatening to go even higher, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who recently revealed he does not even own an automobile, was reported as saying back in September of 2008 (prior to the Obama Administration and his appointment as Secretary of the Department of Energy), that American gasoline prices should be gradually raised over a fifteen year period to encourage energy efficiency. He was quoted in a Wall Street Journal interview back then as stating, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
If the fact that a man with this ideology serves in the Obama Administration as our Secretary of Energy fails to convince you, perhaps the following recently revealed information from a press release from National Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) will confirm the direction that President Obama intends to take us if he wins re-election in November.
President Obama has stated that there has been an increase in oil and natural gas production during his administration. The fact that this increase in production is occurring on private lands, not public lands, merely serves to affirm that the “Obama Administration’s restrictive policies cannot hinder production” on state and privately owned land.
Last year, President Obama released a new draft offshore drilling five-year lease plan which “CLOSES the majority of the OCS to new energy production through 2017.”
The most striking of the observations from the National Resources Committee is the declining revenue anticipated in President Obama’s budget. “According to the President’s own FY 13 budget proposal, in 2011, the federal government collected $1 billion in OCS rents and bonuses from lease sales. In 2012–the last year of the current five year plan, the budget anticipates collecting over $2 billion in rents and bonuses. In the first year of President Obama’s five year plan, rents and bonuses fall by 58 percent to only $852 million. By the last year of President Obama’s five year plan, the government is only collecting $569 million–a 72 percent drop from 2012 anticipated returns.”
The National Resource Committee press release also reveals that the “Obama Administration has BLOCKED energy production on federal lands. The total onshore acreage leased under the Obama Administration in 2009 and 2010 is the lowest in over two decades, stretching back to at least 1984. Under the Obama Administration, 2010 had the LOWEST number of onshore leases issued since 1984.”
This is what all of the Republican candidates for president should be talking about. The public must be made aware of what President Obama’s future plans are for our energy resources and consumption. Higher prices for petroleum products and natural gas hurt our elderly, handicapped and poor the most, as they result in increased costs for everything, especially food and electricity. Our energy policy must change.
Last week, when Ed Henry from Fox News asked President Obama if he wants high gas prices, Obama responded, “Ed, just from a political perspective, do you think the President of the United States going into re-election wants gas prices to go up higher? Is there anybody here who thinks that makes a lot of sense?” President Obama deftly evaded answering the question. However, his prior comments and those of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, together with the President’s FY 2013 budget, reveal the true forecast for America’s energy independence and proposed domestic production.
Does President Obama really believe that the future of America’s energy security will be ALGAE?
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