President Barack Obama stands in the way of boosting oil production, even as he tries to take credit for it, according to a
Wall Street Journal editorial.
“President Obama does a neat John D. Rockefeller imitation these days, taking credit for soaring domestic oil and gas production as if he planned it that way,” Journal editors write. “Not quite.”
A new Congressional Research Service report states, “All of the increase from FY2007 [fiscal year] to FY2012 took place on non-federal lands, and the federal share of total U.S. crude oil production fell by about 7 percentage points.”
Output totaled 6.2 million barrels a day in 2012, up 22 percent from 5.1 million in 2007, boosted by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling on private and state lands, according to the report.
“The sharp drop in production on federal lands is the direct result of Obama administration policies,” the editorial states. That includes a drilling moratorium imposed after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, a drilling permit limit, and Obama’s prevention of exploration and production on significant areas of the Outer Continental Shelf.
“The U.S. oil and gas boom has been a rare bright spot in the otherwise gloomy Obama economy,” Journal editors write. “Imagine how much more energy the U.S. could produce, and how many more high-paid jobs it could create, if the Obama Administration stopped being an obstacle.”
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