To the editor,
Every time I fill my car with gas I am in disbelief at the rise in gas prices since Obama has taken office. In 2009, when Obama took the office of the President of the United States, the price of gas was $1.87. What has happened since then to double the price of gas?
President Obama has crippled domestic oil exploration with his policies. He has critically shut down the existing oil drilling infrastructure in the U.S. At least 103 drilling permits are awaiting review by his administration. The Obama administration has placed a seven-year ban on drilling in the Atlantic Coast, Pacific Coast and Eastern Gulf of Mexico as part of the government’s 2012-2017 Outer Continental Shelf Program.
The Gulf accounts for more than 25 percent of domestic oil production. Due to the crippling policies Obama has imposed, many of the thirty-plus deep-water drilling rigs in the Gulf have moved to other markets. Again, this administration has decreased our domestic oil supply further driving the price of oil up for middle class Americans. If Obama really wants to help middle class Americans he would be working hard to reduce the price of oil but his energy policies have only driven up the price of oil which drives the economic engine of our great nation.
The Keystone XL Pipeline could bring Gulf Coast refineries up to 830,000 barrels of Canadian oil every day by next year if only the president would give the green-light to this project. Instead he has stonewalled this vital domestic project. This jeopardizes our national security by forcing reliance upon foreign oil from unfriendly Middle East nations in turmoil. The Keystone XL Pipeline would have brought more than 100,000 jobs and a significant easing of gas prices all across this great country. We deserve better.
The Obama EPA has added costly new regulations to refineries in the name of global warming, while the Obama Interior Department issued new rules that make it much harder to develop natural resources on government land.
There are other reasons for the high price of gas that are not fully in the control of our government but there is much this administration can do but has not done to lower the price of gas and to make us as a nation less dependent on foreign oil.
This November we have an opportunity to make a positive change in our energy policies that will reduce the price of gas at the pump, open up new areas for development of oil and put our nation on the path to being the great economic engine it was prior to Obama.
Julie Hindman
International Falls, MN
