When you speak out of both sides of your mouth, at least one side of your mouth is lying. That’s what President Obama is doing with respect to “energy independence.” Robert Bryce at the Wall Street Journal calls him out on it too:
In May, Mr. Obama called the tax breaks for the oil and gas industry “unjustifiable loopholes” that do “little to incentivize production or reduce energy prices.”
That’s flat not true. The deduction for intangible drilling costs encourages energy companies to plow huge amounts of capital into more drilling. And that drilling has resulted in unprecedented increases in natural gas production and potential.
Obama and Congressional Democrats support cap-and-trade because they believe it will lead to energy independence in America. And at the same time, they want to eliminate drilling subsidies that have made the once-thought-impossible extraction of natural gas profitable in states like Texas and Pennsylvania. Cap-and-trade will change all that; prices will go up on oil, gas, natural gas, food, and well… just about everything. When the costs of domestic oil and natural gas increase, America will become even more reliant on foreign imports. It’s not fair for Obama to tell the American people that he supports energy independence when in reality, cap-and-trade will cripple the already struggling energy sector of our economy.