Timothy Birdnow

Recently we had an interesting discussion here at The Aviary about Obama's role in hydraulic fracturing - Fracking. I'll reproduce the discussion of my blogpost below:

This from Bill H.:

Obama said we couldn't drill our way out of the problem, then opened up massive areas to drilling and presided over the fracking boom. Completely consistent with his habit of saying one thing and doing precisely the opposite.

The thing with stacking the deck against landlords is all part and parcel of the liberal anti-business crusade. Raise costs for business, raise taxes for business, make business pay for giveaways to taxpayers. This is all "free lunch" for voters because businesses never pass these additional costs on to those who buy their products.

Oh wait, they do pass those costs on the buyers of their products, but those buyers are not voters who are getting all of the "free lunch" stuff.

Oh wait, those buyers are voters who are paying higher prices caused by all the "free lunch" stuff that liberals are paying for by raising costs on those evil businesses.

All of which proves what anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature has known all along, which is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Liberals still believe that a free lunch is free.

Dana Mathewson replies:

Bill, if memory serves me (it often doesn't, but I think I'm right here), Obama kept closing prime oil and gas drilling areas. It was Trump who opened them back up. Obama would have been happy to starve the country of oil.

Only under Trump did we become an exporter of gas and oil.

Bill responds:

I can't say I'm entirely certain on this. I know he did close some BLM areas and a couple of offshore areas. I seem to recall that he opened some other offshore areas, and I'm almost certain that the fracking boom precedes Trump by quite a bit.

The problem is that during the Obama administration all of the "good" things Obama did were highly touted, while a number of really bad things were mentioned little if at all by the media.

Also from Bill:

Found this, the accuracy of which I cannot verify, but it certainly would indicate significant increase in production under Obama if true. "In total energy consumption, the US was between 86% and 91% self-sufficient in 2016. In May 2011, the country became a net exporter of refined petroleum products."

Bill adds:

Fracking went from less than half a million barrels per day in 2007 to 4.5 million barrels per day in 2015. Certainly much larger today, although many earlier wells are already tapping out, but clearly Obama was very much part of the fracking boom.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25372

Tim's 2c:

Guys, I believe Obama kept government lands restricted; the fracking boom happened on private property, where the BHO couldn't stop it. Naturally, he took credit for it.

Also, about that energy exporting business, no doubt a lot of it is because Obama killed the coal industry in America. St. Louis was home to the largest coal company on Earth (Peabody) and the second largest on Earth Arch coal). Both went into bankruptcy during the BHO's tenure. Remember, Obama said he was going to kill coal before he ever took office.

Also, Obama said when asked about high gas prices he was glad about them but wished they would have risen more slowly.

In fact, Obama was hugely lucky that fracking came in when it did; it kept the economy from sliding back into recession.

From Dana:

I believe you're right, Tim. If Obama was "part of the fracking boom," it was because he couldn't help it; it was going on in spite of him. I honestly don't remember any actions of his helping the economy.

Tim adds:

Paul Driessen - whose field of expertiese is energy at CFACT - told me that fracking was unstoppable early on in the Obama administration, and he was right, it seems. I feared it could be killed by low cost oil, something Obama would be glad to have if it meant a long term strategic victory. But prices bottomed out and it survived.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:34 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 703 words, total size 5 kb.