Obama Takes Credit For Oil And Gas Boom He Tries To Block

Last week President Obama went to Ohio to tout his energy policies. Of course he never mentions the fiscal and environmental disasters caused by his green energy policies, but he does take credit for the oil and gas boom he really hates. He continued his boast in his weekly address:

Shortly after I took office, we invested in new American technologies to reverse our dependence on foreign oil and double our wind and solar power.  And today, we generate more renewable energy than ever – with tens of thousands of good, American jobs to show for it.  We produce more natural gas than anyone – and nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it.  And just this week, we learned that for the first time in nearly two decades, the United States of America now produces more of our own oil here at home than we buy from other countries.

That’s a big deal.  That’s a tremendous step towards American energy independence.

Yeah, that is a big deal, but it happened despite his policies, not because of them. His administration has done everything possible to thwart the oil and gas boom.

Indeed, it has done more to curb oil output than increase it.

While domestic oil production is growing, it is increasing only on private and state lands. The American Petroleum Institute notes that “in areas controlled by the federal government, production has actually fallen on President Obama’s watch.”

We’ve made the same point in the past, but we feel that we have to make it again, because this administration continues to mislead on the subject.

Going back just to September, we reported that the Western Energy Alliance was pointing out that the federal government “continues to erect obstacles to domestic oil and gas production” and that the Congressional Research Service had found that “all the increases in production since 2007 have taken place on non-federal lands.”

In March, we uncovered federal data that showed that oil production on federal land fell from nearly 1.7 million barrels a day to 1.6 million from fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2012. At the same time, the share of overall production on federal lands contracted from 33% to 26%.

A month earlier, we quoted Bruce Vincent, president of Houston-based Swift Energy, who said the Obama administration had “done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting.” The White House, he added, “threatened this industry at every turn.”

Read the whole thing, he also had the gall to brag about this sluggish economy that’s resulted in more Americans than ever reliant on food stamps, and millions dropping out of the labor market in despair.