By: Jeffrey Klein
Examiner.com
Today President Barack Obama, along with his royally expensive Air Force One entourage, landed in Cushing, Oklahoma–the nation’s oil and gas pipeline capital–for another non-public mainstream media event, designed to stifle the public fury over skyrocketing gasoline prices.
The president once again exclaimed his standard slate of “Obama Lies;” specifically, the U.S. must always rely on foreign oil, because we only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves, but we use 20% of the world’s oil production–therefore, no amount of increase in domestic production can lower the price of gasoline.
Not so, say those in the know, along with several federal agencies–including the U.S. Department of Energy, run by the famously anti-oil Secretary, Steven Chu.
“It’s accurate but extremely misleading,” says Dan Kish of [the] Institute for Energy Research, which is supported by the industry. “What he is talking about is oil we already have found,” according to Jim Angle’s excellent FOXNews article yesterday.
Kish argues that it is at least very misleading, because Obama is referring to “proven” reserves of some 21 billion barrels.
However, analysts point out that so-called “proven reserves” were pegged at 20 billion barrels back in 1944. Interestingly enough, since then, the U.S. has extracted about 170 billion barrels–but we still only show 20 billion barrels of “proven reserves” on the books.
The Obama Administration is already famous for double-counting 500 billion Obamacare bucks.
One federal agency says there’s 10 times more — 219 billion barrels of “technically recoverable” energy [sic].
Author’s note: For purposes of accuracy and the elimination of political and environmental “fashion-speak” in this context, only oil volume is measured in barrels–not “Energy.” There is no such recognized thing as a “barrel of energy.” Further, in this context, [usable] “energy” is produced by some form of [combustion] “engine” via the consumption petroleum byproducts, refined from barrels of oil.
Another agency in the Energy Department says there’s 20 times that much–400 billion barrels; while some in the oil and gas industry claim there’s 60 times that amount–1.4 trillion barrels in untapped resources.
That’s energy the government knows we have but that has not yet been drilled for; and, industry experts argue it’s there for the taking.
“The trillion-plus barrels of oil in this country, more oil than in Saudi Arabia, is not counted by the president, and I think that’s misleading the American people,” John Hofmeister, the former CEO of Shell Oil, said.
With those kinds of resources, the U.S. could continue at its current consumption rate for 200 years without any imports, Kish of IER said. “And add Canada and Mexico? The numbers go off the chart.”
Another favorite Obama lie is … “As much as we’re doing to increase oil production–we’re not going to be able to just drill our way out of the problem of high gas prices.”
“Some of us believe that the president is trying to suggest that we don’t have adequate resource[s] here in the United States, which is just not true,” says Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, another industry group.
In fact, one industry analyst says [that] by tapping American oil along with Canadian resources and renewable energy, the U.S. could be self sufficient in just 12 years.
Nonetheless, the Obama lies continued, with the president taking credit for approving the “fast-tracking” of the Oklahoma-to-Texas [last] leg of the Keystone XL pipeline–even though he will not, and has not, had anything to do with it–whatsoever.
