Dem leadership attacks oil industry harming jobs & domestic production

By James Lambert

As the Obama administration continues to obstruct domestic oil production, Americans are starting to feel the pinch of higher gasoline prices. A former executive of Shell Oil Company predicted last week $5 a gallon gas (in the U.S.) by 2012. Such increases are devastating to American families.

In the state of California, Democrats, (who have controlled the state legislature for years), continue to block oil exploration in the golden state. Oil experts tell us that some of the countries' largest reserves (estimated in excess of 18 billion barrels of oil) are located off-shore from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara. Yet, despite an official 12.4% unemployment (actual figures closer to 17%), state Democratic leadership keeps backing an extreme environmental lobby that controls the direction of state government policies.

There was a time in the 1960s when oil exploration was embraced by most bureaucrats in Sacramento. No longer! Democrats continually lobby against any form of exploration despite the urgent economic need. The single biggest contributor to this countries' trade imbalance of imports is energy. We send upwards of ¾ of a trillion dollars annually to countries like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Iraq, and Russia for their oil. Why? More of that total can be absorbed (by our own exploration of oil) if we develop our own resources instead.

The Obama administration keeps blocking oil exploration in the gulf coast and west coast of this country. During the past decade Senate Democrats have maligned exploration in Anwr, despite the fact that the majority of Alaskans want to develop this resource. Environmentalists have falsely painted the 2 square mile site that is proposed for exploration as a pristine forested area. Folks from Northern Alaska will tell you differently describing the site as a cold, flat, iced area with minimal vegetation.

It appears that the Obama Administration is using the BP oil spill as an excuse to justify their position against off-shore exploration. The ugly reality is that government bureaucrats allowed British Petroleum rights to a site that was dangerously deep (hundreds of miles out at sea). It is far easier and safer for oil companies to develop sites that are closer to shore. But this was not allowed ... in the case of the BP oil well off Louisiana.

There are already over 36,000 jobs lost by the oil shutdown and tens of thousands of other high paying jobs are potentially affected by on going Democrat efforts to block any kind of oil exploration in the country. Greater supply lowers prices. Limit the supply, and prices skyrocket.

In California, Democrats have recently doubled the state tax on each sold gallon of gas (from 16 cents to 34 cents a gallon). This is in addition to a federal tax of approximately 16 cents per gallon. Combined, the state and the federal government are making a higher 'net profit' on each gallon of gas sold than "big oil" producers are making. Yet the government continues to portray these corporations as cruel, unfair and greedy when it is the government that is insatiable.

© James Lambert