Obama Claims U.S. "Free from the Grip of Foreign Oil" - No Thanks to Him

Obama administration did almost nothing to lower oil and gas prices

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Tonight President Barack Obama asserts that the U.S. is "as free from the grip of foreign oil as we've been in almost 30 years" and hails in his State of the Union speech the benefits of lower oil and natural gas prices:

We believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our planet.  And today, America is number one in oil and gas. … And thanks to lower gas prices and higher fuel standards, the typical family this year should save $750 at the pump.

All very well, but the president and his administration has done little to boost production and lower prices. For example, the Energy Information Administration reported this past summer that since 2010 that crude oil production on federal lands is down 16 percent and natural gas production is down 24 percent.

Meanwhile the fracking revolution taking place mostly on private and state lands has boosted domestic crude oil production from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to 9.1 million barrels per day. Similarly fracking has boosted monthly natural gas production from its low point of 1.3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in September 2005 to 2.2 tcf in September 2014.

Meanwhile, the EPA issued new "commonsense" regulations last week that aim to reduce emissions from new fracked wells by 45 percent below their 2012 levels. Interestingly, there are no cost estimates for the proposed regulations.

"If history is any guide, President Obama's State of the Union address will likely include a mix of rhetoric claiming credit for energy achievements with a list of policy proposals that in many instances we believe will actually undermine them," American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard told reporters last week.

Gerard got it right.

Comments

[Palin's Buttplug]

Why pick 2010? Why not a Bush year like 2003? Nice cherry picking Bailey.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

HAHAHAHA!! Smell the sweet, sweet desperation.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Look at the link asswipe. 2010 was the best year this century.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Oh, it hurts! It hurts!

You could actually read the link yourself.

Overall fossil fuel production from federal lands generally declined between FY 2003 and FY 2013, down 21% in FY 2013 compared with FY 2003 (Table 1).

And yet production on private lands is up. Horizontal drilling and fracing was not widespread in 2003, so there goes your entire argument.

Squirm, little maggot, squirm. 🙂

[Palin's Buttplug]

Oil dipshit. Look at oil production that hit a high in 2010.

Fuck coal. I hope coal dies next week.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Owwie, mommy!! Make the bad man stop being mean to me!!!

Oil production in 2003: 679 mbpy
Oil production in 2013: 606 mbpy

Nat Gas production 2003: 6799 bcf
Nat Gas production 2013: 3843 bcf

The only thing up is nat. gas plant liquids.

Stay down, bitch.

[Jordan]

Fucking owned. I can taste Shriek's delicious prog tears from here.

[Palin's Buttplug]

2010 Asshole!

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Oh look at the shrieking! It's wonderful.

See, here's your problem. 2013 has lower oil production than all but 3 of the years in the last 10. And one of those years is also in Barry's term (2012). Only 2006 and 2008 are lower than 2013 and again those years are before the drilling revolution that has taken off in the the last 5-6 years.

You can wail all you want about 2010, but the entire last decade demonstrates just what a failure Barry's (and your) energy policies are. And he has the balls to take credit for something that he's at best been indifferent to if not outright hostile. But you've always been reality challenged.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Shut the fuck up Donnie. 2010 was the best this century.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Temporarily reassign the half of your brain required to stop you from drooling and shitting yourself and follow along.

You asked about 2003. I compared 2003. 2013 is down relative to 2003. 2010 is irrelevant. 2013 is down relative to 2009, which you are so fond of reminding everyone is really owned by Bush. 2013 is down compared to 2011. 2013 is barely higher than 2012.

So if 2013 is scraping along the bottom of production for the last 10 years, and US total production is up, what does that tell you about Barry's contribution to the surge in domestic oil? It's OK, shit yourself while you think about it, it'll clean up.

[Sevo]

Palin's Buttplug|1.20.15 @ 10:27PM|#
"Shut the fuck up Donnie."

STFU, turd.

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

You are an idiot.

[Mike M.]

Weigel is a mentally ill, manic depressive, Obama ball-washing Journolist. He can't help acting this way.

[Ron Bailey]

PB: By "best year" you mean best year for production from federal lands - which Obama policies did not sustain. I am by no means defending Bush leasing policies, although I would suggest to you that the low oil prices at the beginning of the 00's depressed bidding and production on federal leases.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Nuh uh! Buttplug personally fracked every Obama well and they quintificated the gassified supply.

[MSimon]

Buttplug needs to be fracked. Pump in water and chemicals and then do a high pressure frack.

I'd like to see that on youtube. Probably go viral.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

So what's going on with Polywell? No more funding I see.

[MSimon]

Be patient Grasshopper. There is more going on than you know.

[SIV]

Drill, Baby Drill!

Now if we could only get those volatile food prices to drop too.

[Paul.]

Normally, lower food prices would follow lower gas prices, since, you know, mass-production of food and farming aren't yet being done by Hybrids and Nissan Leafs. Not sure how long that would take to show up under normal market conditions.

[Sevo]

"Obama administration did almost nothing to lower oil and gas prices"

In CA the proggies are celebrating the new gas tax which is 'hardly noticeable'.
Well, yeah, the mugging only got the thief $50, since that's all you had on you, and since your rich uncle died the next day and left you a mill, it's 'hardly noticeable', too.
I'm sure turd will spin this into some support for that lying bastard in the WH.

[Paul.]

Except my rich uncle DIDN'T leave me a mil, and the $50 will be sorely missed.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

And so the pattern plays itself out;

A Republican President gets the blame for anything going, even if it is demonstrably the fault of his (Democrat) predecessor. A Democrat President gets to stand around taking personal credit for anything good that happens, even if he fought it tooth and nail.

Another couple of cycles of this and the mainstream media is going to have less credibility than Howdy F*cking Doody (wooden head and all), and they are going to have the gall to be shocked and hurt.

[starman2112]

Oil prices are down now, so I'm not sure boosting production is something people are looking to do anyway.

[Warren's Strapon]

No, I can assure you they are not.

[geo]

The part of the story that no one wants to tell, certainly not Obama, is that we owe as much credit to the Russians for low oil prices as we do the US oil and gas producers. Those US producers deserve all the credit for low natural gas prices, and some credit for lower gasoline prices, but the Russians had a significant role in driving up the supply of oil in world markets. Russian production has grown steadily from a low of 6 mm bbls a day in 1998 to almost 11 mm bbls a day now. This is almost as much production growth as has been added by the US producers. Throw an extra 12 million barrels a day into the market and OPEC is simply screwed. The Saudis simply cannot absorb that much.

Since the Russians probably love being paid for oil in dollars instead of now worthless rubles, Obama's sanctions against Russia have probably indirectly screwed both OPEC and the US oil industry by forcing Russia to sell more oil. The sanctions are worded so that Russian oil companies can still sell for dollars, but simply cannot borrow dollars from a "US person." Sadly, I doubt Obama has figured this out.