Obama Proposes Trading Batteries for Brazilian Oil Instead of Drilling Our Own

The economy remains in a shamble, gas prices continue to rise, millions remain out of work and competing for scarce jobs and Obama flies off to Rio de Janeiro to somehow “help boost U.S. jobs” while starting a third war in the Middle East. Why should I be surprised to read of him also offering a cockamamie idea of trading batteries for Brazil’s oil, while also advocating t hat we need to end our reliance on foreign oil?

Nothing the man has done yet as president has made any sense, but this one even boggles my imagination. Speaking at a CEO Business Summit in Brasilia, Brazil March 19, 2011, on the day he launched the Libyan War, Obama said,

“In the United States, we’ve jumpstarted a clean energy industry and we’ll soon have the capacity to produce 40 percent of the world’s advanced batteries. If we can start sharing these new technologies, and leverage private investment from businesses like the ones in this room, we can grow our economies and clean our environment by making, using, trading, selling clean energy products all over the world.”

Seconds before that he said,

“By some estimates, the oil you recently discovered off the shores of Brazil could amount to twice the reserves we have in the United States. We want to work with you. We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers. At a time when we’ve been reminded how easily instability in other parts of the world can affect the price of oil, the United States could not be happier with the potential for a new, stable source of energy.”

So, he wishes to sell Brazil batteries that we are still working towards and in exchange, we’ll buy the oil that he advocates we stop using, from Brazil. Make sense? No, not to me either because he also says, “Now, even as we focus on oil in the near term, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the only long-term solution to the world’s dependence on fossil fuels is clean energy technology,” all 3 individual comments in the space of a minute!

What he left out was back in 2009, the Export-Import Bank of the United States under the leadership of Obama appointee Fred P. Hochberg issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to loan up to $2 billion to finance exports to the Brazilian oil company Petrobras for “exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro.”

Some sources say neither Obama or Hochberg had anything to do with the decision to underwrite offshore drilling in Brazil, while maintaining a moratorium on any new off shore or on land drilling for America’s oil companies, but I’ll leave that up to you, the reader to form your own opinion.

I don’t buy it, though.

Jack Gerard, President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, citing the Obama administrations energy policy as an inadequate and illogical energy policy issued a response saying,

“It is beyond comprehension the administration would encourage trade for Brazilian oil while obstructing U.S. oil and natural gas development, eliminating related jobs here at home, and decreasing oil and natural gas revenues to the U.S. Treasury when the government is trillions of dollars in debt. The message from the White House to America’s oil and natural gas workers: we’re going to outsource your job.”

“The administration is missing the obvious: what makes sense for Brazil also makes sense for the United States. Like every other nation, we should be developing our own oil and natural gas resources. It’s good for energy security, good for the economy, good for jobs, and it will help bring down our deficit.”

“The administration says it supports more oil and natural gas development here in the United States, then at every turn discourages it. And today, the White House is making a deal with Brazil for the oil it is not allowing companies to produce here. There’s nothing wrong with buying Brazilian oil, but there’s a big problem when we’re forced to because we’re held back from producing our own.”

On March 10, 2011, Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works spoke on Obama’s cap-and-trade agenda and its effect on rising gas prices. Citing a Congressional Research Services Report, he stated in part, “CRS found that America’s combined recoverable natural gas, oil, and coal endowment is the largest on Earth. It’s far larger than that of Saudi Arabia, China, and Canada combined.”

We have the largest known reserves of energy sources in the world. Yet, this administration flies off to Brazil to entice them to sell us more oil, telling us we need to stop using oil, issuing moratoriums on new drilling, seeking a “Permanent Moratorium” on off shore drilling off of the Pacific Coast, severely limiting off shore drilling off of the Atlantic & Gulf Coast, all the while blaming the oil companies for the rising gas prices we see at the pump.

Even more absurd, Obama’s Energy Secretary, Steven Chu appearing on Fox News Sunday March 20, 2011 and noted for his 2008 statement, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” stated, “The recent spike in gasoline prices following that huge spike in 2007, 2008 is a reminder to Americans that the price of gasoline over the long haul should be expected to go up just because of supply and demand issues.”

Ignoring the obvious, drilling and recovering our own to overcome “supply and demand issues,” Chu goes on to state he “[is] working on developing methods to take the pain out of high gas prices.”

Somehow, I don’t think trading batteries we have yet to create for oil Brazil has yet to recover will take any pain out of anything as we refuse to allow the recovery of our own massive reserves.