WyBlog

Obama and the econuts conspire to keep gasoline prices high and prevent domestic energy production

Gasoline prices hit a record high yesterday. Good thing that evil oil man Bush isn't in the White House or the media would be screaming bloody murder.

Except if an oil man was in the White House we'd be increasing domestic energy production to compensate. Instead we have Obama and the econuts conspiring to keep our petrodollars flowing to OPEC and the Saudi kleptocrats. They'll do anything to delay new drilling and pipeline projects.

Despite nearly four years of environmental study and two separate permit applications, TransCanada has been unable to lay a single foot of pipe for the Keystone XL project in the United States. The delay in this project has spanned the publication of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement, a Final Environmental Impact Statement, no fewer than five national comment periods and the input of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

You'd think we'd be at the end of the process, right? Oh Hell No! Obama is starting the entire permitting process over from Square One.

Now, as the State Department closes the latest of these public comment periods — this one asking Americans what the scope of its newest environmental review of the project should be — we are about to start this entire process all over again. The delays and forced route changes that TransCanada has been forced to endure have added more than a billion dollars to the cost of the project, suspended tens of thousands of high paying jobs, delayed relief at the pump for millions of American drivers and prevented the project from pumping more than $20 billion into the U.S. economy.

Meanwhile up in Alaska the econuts are suing Royal Dutch Shell and the U.S. government to cancel new drilling permits issued for the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

In a report released Monday, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is urging the government to hold off on approving Royal Dutch Shell's plans for Arctic drilling until more information can be gathered about the project's environmental effects on the region.

How many times can you "gather information" on the environment? There's gotta be mountains of paper filled with studies, charts, projections, photos, and alarmist predictions from every long-haired unshaven green groupie this side of Timbuktu.

Shell has been waging the struggle with its plans to explore offshore Alaska since 2004 and, despite more than seven years of "process" and more than $4 billion invested in the project, has not yet been able to drill a single exploration well.

Seven years! And the econuts still aren't sure they have enough information?

It isn't about "information." It's about delay. And imposing unnecessary costs at every turn. They're not pro-environment, they're anti-people.

And, they're anti-energy in all it's renewable forms too. The Sierra Club is fighting against wind energy projects nationwide. The Audubon Society wants to kill a 399 megawatt solar farm in California. In Oregon a coalition of green groups is ganging up on a geothermal project because, get this, there is piping and Gasp! "heavy equipment" on site.

I presume they were expecting Legos and Tonka Trucks.

There is one small bit of good news though. Someone finally found a suitable use for all those silly cylindrical solar cells turned out by Obama's cronies at Solyndra — Modern Art. Yes, really.

If Obama had lit the $535 million on fire it might've kept a few homeless guys warm for a day or 2. Instead the taxpayers got essentially nothing for their "investment."

And since I don't want to sound like a broken record I won't mention Obama's war on coal again.

In fact, aside from a pathetic attempt to foist underpowered and prone-to-spontaneous-combustion electric cars on the American public Barack Obama's energy policy can be summed up in four words — You Can't Have Any. Good thing that Global Warming thing is real, I don't want to freeze in the dark too.

UPDATE 22 Aug 2012 09:18:
Linked by Live At Five at The Other McCain. Thanks Wombat-socho!

Posted at 11:30 by Chris Wysocki   [/agw]   Comments | Perm Link |
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