Obama Called For More Drilling, Will He Follow Through?

Obama’s first State of the Union speech is a memory now. We all sat through one hour and ten minutes of promise after promise and self-approbation on his performance so far.

Mixed in with the numerous mentions of himself, 86 standing ovations, 10 times blaming the Bush administration and the attacks on Wall Street and Bankers, he stated,

“But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.”

Sort of a curious rambling, if you ask me. After all, he vowed to bankrupt coal companies during the campaign, did he not?

And, that “comprehensive energy and climate bill?” Cap & Trade, punishing businesses and citizens who use energy to heat their home, drive to work or cook meals more than some government official deems you are permitted to?

Can we trust Obama and the Democrats to see the light on our energy needs and actually begin using our own sources?

The American Petroleum Institute released a statement from their CEO and President, Jack Gerard today saying,

“We are encouraged by the President's words that decisions need to be made about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.

These are important and necessary decisions for the American people and the American economy. Greater access to America's vast oil and natural gas resources would bring more domestic energy, thousands of American jobs, billions in government revenues and less reliance on imported energy.

We support the President on jobs and are ready to do our part putting more Americans back to work. But to create these jobs, we will need policies that allow investment and development--policies that are pro-job, pro-consumer and pro-energy.

We are ready to work with the administration to help make that happen.”

As mentioned by API’s Jane Van Ryan, there is skepticism as to whether or not the administration and Democratic Party are “ready to work” with the Petroleum companies and American citizens.

As Virginia’s Governor, Bob McDonnell showed last night in the Republican Rebuttal to the SOTU speech,

“ Here in Virginia, we have the opportunity to be the first state on the East Coast to explore for and produce oil and natural gas offshore.

But this Administration's policies are delaying offshore production, hindering nuclear energy expansion, and seeking to impose job-killing cap and trade energy taxes.”

Ms. Van Ryan brings out that even though Virginia's two Democratic senators, Jim Webb and Mark Warner also weighed in yesterday by sending a letter to Interior Sec. Ken Salazar calling on him to “promptly commence steps to ensure that the Virginia Lease Sale, for the development of oil and gas resources off the coast of Virginia, remains on track for 2011,” a recent Reuters news article mentioned just such a delay.

Such delays and blocking of capitalizing on our own energy resources has been previously mentioned at Americas Future? Blackouts, Gas Lines & Unemployment Lines? and Fueling “the Worlds EMT.”

America, we cannot continue to dilly dally around on this high unemployment, dependence upon foreign energy sources and bankrupt economy. We are rapidly headed towards becoming just another third world socialist state instead of the freest and most prosperous nation ever created in the history of the earth.

Since our nation was founded, each generation leaves the country better off for the next generation, until now.

We are leaving the next generation and more in the future the highest debt and lowest number of jobs ever. We are leaving them with a staggering battle over fueling their energy needs and dependence upon highly questionable “green” energy sources that are being shown to be more unreliable and detrimental to the environment than traditional fuels.

We have politicians who stand up and ‘tickle our ears’ then turn around and do the opposite, plunging the nation deeper in debt and refusing to employ the obvious to help correct the country.

We must hold Barack Obama’s feet to the fire on his call last evening and his fellow Democrats too.

It is long past time that we utilize our own resources to get this country back on its feet.