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View Full Version : Forbes: Putting The Truth-o-Meter On Obama's State Of The Union Energy Claims



spursncowboys
02-13-2013, 08:43 PM
Claim 1. “We produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years.”The vast majority of increased oil and gas production has come from drilling on private lands, over which — thankfully — the Obama administration has no control. Where the administration does have control, federal lands and offshore, it has denied, delayed or slow-walked countless drilling requests.


Claim 2. “That’s why my administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits.”
Almost immediately upon taking office, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar began withdrawing tracts (http://www.speaker.gov/general/obama%E2%80%99s-energy-freeze-blocking-american-energy-production-would-lower-gas-prices-create-jobs) of public land that had already been approved for oil and gas leasing. Most of these tracts had undergone a thorough, seven-year-long environmental review.


Claim 3. “Last year, wind energy added nearly half of all new power capacity in America.”
If you take one penny and double it, you have a 100 percent increase — but you still don’t have very much. And that’s where we are with renewable energy.
According to the government’s Energy Information Administration (http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pecss_diagram.cfm) (EIA), oil, natural gas and coal were responsible for 82 percent of U.S. energy consumption in 2011. Nuclear power accounted for 8.3 percent. Biofuels made up 1 percent and all other renewable sources represented 8 percent


Claim 4. “Solar energy gets cheaper by the year — so let’s drive costs down even further.”
That’s code for handing out billions more of taxpayer dollars. Solar energy only gets “cheaper” because the administration has poured money into it. As the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903285704576559103573673300.html) points out, “for every tax dollar that goes to coal, oil and natural gas, wind gets $88 and solar $1,212.” And let’s not forget Solyndra, one of Obama’s model solar companies that got $535 million dollars before it went belly up.

admiralsnackbar
02-13-2013, 08:59 PM
Claim 2 pertains to oil companies that had obtained permits to drill on public land but were not doing so. Nonproductive permits were rescinded to encourage domestic production to provide cheaper gas to power the weak economy.

The rest of the points' "facticity" depend on one's school of economics. Obviously Forbes represents the Sweetwater kids.

spursncowboys
02-13-2013, 09:08 PM
Claim 2. “That’s why my administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits.”Almost immediately upon taking office, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar began withdrawing tracts (http://www.speaker.gov/general/obama%E2%80%99s-energy-freeze-blocking-american-energy-production-would-lower-gas-prices-create-jobs) of public land that had already been approved for oil and gas leasing. Most of these tracts had undergone a thorough, seven-year-long environmental review.
After the Deep Horizon oil spill, Salazar put a six-month delay on an offshore drilling program. Frustrated with the administration’s stonewalling, the IER released a statement (http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/11/24/actions-speak-louder-than-words/) in December 2009 that included the following stats:
“To date, the Obama Administration has offered 2,888,354 onshore acres for lease, of which 1,028,299 have actually been leased. The Administration also rescinded or deferred 77,055 acres that were issued for lease in Utah (http://www.forbes.com/places/ut/) in 2008. Accounting for this subtraction,fewer onshore acres were leased in 2009 than any other year on record.” (Emphasis in original)
In March 2010 the Obama administration announced that it would delay an offshore drilling plan and only make available a fraction of the offshore land that had been previously agreed upon. But a federal judge struck down the moratorium. So Salazar issued another, newly worded moratorium — in essence, defying a federal judge. The administration eventually lifted the moratorium in October of 2010, but drilling applicants then began to notice that permits were being slow-walked through the approval process. By December, the offshore ban was largely reinstated, so that in February 2011 a federal judge found the Department of Interior in contempt of court for its foot-dragging.

spursncowboys
02-13-2013, 09:08 PM
What other parts are subjective?

ElNono
02-13-2013, 09:49 PM
Don't really see how Claim 3 isn't true, even if means jackshit in the grand scheme of things...