Smoke & Mirrors Will Not Fuel America’s Economy

The economy remains in a shamble, gasoline prices are leaping higher and higher heaping more expenses on the already struggling middle class, many seeking employment and continuing the lack of any leadership we have had since he took office, Barack Obama is headed off to Rio de Janeiro to “help boost U.S. jobs.”

The Middle East remains a hotbed of unrest. Japan is experiencing a nuclear meltdown after suffering a devastating earthquake and tsunami and the world that has come accustomed to looking to the United States of America for leadership during times of crisis, sees her president vacationing, playing golf and attending parties.

Americans too look towards Washington D.C. for leadership while unemployment remains unrealistically high, paychecks dwindling in the private sector while Public Unions rally for more shrinking tax dollars and gasoline leaps closer to $4.00 a gallon and likely beyond.

Addressing taxpayers’ worries, Obama said he was thinking about releasing some oil from the Strategic Preserve as our imported oil exceeds $100 a barrel. But what about our own oil languishing in the ground all over America and off of our shores?

Our oil remains were it is, locked away while oil companies are prohibited from accessing and recovering our own massive resources. In answer to that, current Senate Leader, Harry Reid (D. NV) and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar like to point out that oil companies already have several leases they will not use for drilling. Harry Reid, in what is being labeled a “use it or lose it” policy claims,

“Oil and gas companies are currently sitting on approximately 60 million acres of oil and gas leases that are going unused,” Reid’s office said in a statement. “At the same time they are holding back on domestic production, these same oil companies are reaping record profits from high gas prices. And Republicans are protecting this shell game, at a high cost to consumers.”

Problem is that’s not exactly how it is. While it is true that oil companies have invested heavily in leases to explore for oil, they do not pertain to those areas where we know massive reserves of untapped sources lie dormant. They are for areas where it is unknown if oil even exists under those lands. Of course, Democrats want to pass a law forcing oil companies to return the leases, supposedly because they are not using them.

Erik Milito of the American Petroleum Institute states in his article, The ‘Use It or Lose It’ Deception,showing that it is already law,

“When it comes to crafting a sensible energy policy, once again politics carry the day. This notion of ‘use it or lose it’ is a stale, invalid argument and a political distraction to rising gasoline prices combined with the fact that we're not doing enough in the Gulf to use our own resources and put Americans back to work.”

Harry Reid wishes us to think that oil companies are greedy, a part of the Democrats policy of instilling class envy while ignoring

“Companies pay millions of dollars to acquire these leases (each lease costs at least $250,000 and some have gone for more than $100,000,000), further fees for renting the leases and the leases have a finite term. If a company does not produce oil or gas from a lease then they are required to return it to the government.”

Reminding us that this so called ‘policy’ of higher gasoline prices was pretty much expressed back in 2008 by then incoming administration officials, Investors Business Daily shows the claim of Steven Chu, current Secretary of Energy,

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

To achieve that, IBD states,

“restricting supply is one way to ‘boost’ gas prices, whether by designating oil-rich areas off Alaska as ‘critical’ habitat for an abundant and growing polar bear population or by imposing a de facto moratorium on offshore drilling because one well exploded,”

both of which we see still happening.

A December 12, 2008 Wall Street Journal article on the agenda to create skyrocketing gas prices tells us of Jay Hakes, from the Clinton era Energy Information Administration who said,

“There’s no way we can create a better future without the price of [fossil-fuel-based] energy going up. But it’s tough for a politician to get up and say ‘Your prices are going to have to go up’.”

True, but it sure is easy to demonize the companies that recover our energy sources and create hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs while doing it instead, isn’t it?

What escapes me is how, during such dire economic times as these, forcing the price of fuel to skyrocket and making it more expensive not just to drive, but to heat our homes, feed our children and even have a home “creates a better future.”

Looking back at the WSJ article, we see that Steven Chu believes that “[forcing] consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work” is his idea of a “better future,” although maybe not yours.

It sure isn’t mine.

Also accomplishing this “goal” of the Obama administration, Erik Milito tells us,

“The administration itself is preventing the industry from developing these leases because it is not issuing permits to drill or conduct seismic studies of these leases. They want the industry to develop the leases it already possesses, but they won’t grant the permits to do so.”

Simply put, Reid and company call upon the oil companies to ‘use it or lose it’ in the leases they hold now, but at the same time, deny those same oil companies from ‘using it’ which will soon force them to ‘lose it.’

API has made available a very interesting Fact Sheet outlining the use of federal leases for oil exploration that I encourage you to look over.

IBD also reminds us of words Barack Obama spoke while campaigning in the 2008 when he said,

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.”

How right they are as they add, “Neither is drilling for more domestic energy.”

From where I sit, this seems more and more like a deliberate effort to ensure that we in the struggling middle class are priced out of the ability to use our vehicles as we desire and even to mandate where we live and what we may drive, all at their whims.

That is neither Democracy nor freedom; it is manipulation towards socialism and a dictatorship.

I encourage all who may read this to begin pressuring elected officials to get busy with those permits and let the professionals recover our own resources. We have energy needs and in order to maintain the highest standard of living the world has seen, those needs must be met.

The only viable way to get off of our dependence upon foreign oil is to use our own.

If you want to remain free, stand up now and let your elected officials hear from you and keep hearing from you. Tell them to stop the smoke and mirrors and create an energy policy where our own resources are recovered.

You and your children’s future depends on it.