Business leaders who advise President Obama recommended an “all-in” energy approach on Tuesday that would encourage more development of conventional and renewable energy on federal lands to create jobs and boost U.S. energy security.
Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness suggested leasing more federal lands and speeding up regulatory approvals for oil, gas and coal production there while ensuring that safety standards exist to protect health and the environment. In the broad report, which outlines other measures like tax reform and regulatory overhaul to create jobs, the council also recommended more leasing and quicker decisions about renewable-energy projects on federal lands.
“The council recognizes that providing access to more areas for drilling, mining and renewable energy development is controversial,” the advisers said in the report, “but, given the current economic situation, we believe it’s necessary to tap America’s assets in a safe and responsible manner.”
The council, chaired by Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric Co., also recommended policies that would:
- Boost fuel and energy efficiency;
- Speed up the approval process for pipelines, transmission lines and distribution systems;
- Encourage companies to deploy and research new energy technologies.
The advisers said the U.S. and the world will still need fossil fuels for years to come. They said developing more of America’s energy resources would help reduce foreign-energy reliance, pointing to the roughly $1 billion the U.S. spends daily on oil imports.
“Over the long term, we expect that innovation and technological advancements will greatly reduce America’s reliance on fossil fuels,” they said. “Until then, however, we need to be all in.”
The report comes in a time when Obama’s re-election hopes likely will hinge on the economy. It contains some red meat both for environmental groups that have supported him and for industry groups that argue his administration has made it harder to explore and drill both offshore and on federal lands.
“The Jobs Council has taken a page out of the oil-and-gas industry’s playbook,” Bill Bush, spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, the main industry lobbying group, said in an email. “Now, the administration needs to execute the play.”
Bush also repeated API’s recent calls for the Obama administration to approve the controversial Keystone XL tar-sands oil pipeline from Canada to Texas refineries. Environmentalists ardently oppose it over pollution and energy-security concerns.
Athan Manuel, director of lands protection at the Sierra Club, an environmental group, expressed disappointment with the report’s emphasis on drilling and coal mining. Manuel said he was pleased, however, that the report also mentioned efficiency and renewable energy.
“We think the council got it half-right,” Manuel said in a phone interview.
Instead of further boosting drilling to reduce foreign-oil reliance, the administration should use policies such as fuel-efficiency standards that “reduce our reliance on oil in general,” Manuel said. He praised the administration for already proposing standards that would double passenger-vehicle mileage by model year 2025.
He disputed oil-and-gas industry claims that the administration had stymied drilling, saying that U.S. rigs and oil production have increased since Obama took office and that some companies enjoyed record profits in 2011.
“The bottom line is, I don’t know what the oil industry is complaining about,” Manuel said.
Three years too late.
Obama’s scrambling to get back to the center for the elections.
All in? He crapped out as he continues to attack business and free enterprise. He’s sued more than half the states. He’s backing the unions against the American People. He hates oil, coal and natural gas. He’s caused gas to go sky high and says we “Need” it that way. Now he wants to create jobs? Hasn’t he wanted to earlier? Disingenuous. At the very least.
Might as well. Mr Gingrich seems to be working on a strategy that depends on 1.) the last Republican President and congress created a financial disaster that threw people out of work forcing them onto unemployment and food stamps and 2.) now Mr. Gingrich is planning on running on the fact that Mr. Obama decided to feed those out-of-work Americans and 3.) that makes Mr. Obama the “food stamp President”. Given a campaign of such monumental dishonesty, you might as well throw everything into the mix to improve your chances of re-election.
The Republican Party – working hard for the 1%.
Now, why would the great destroyer of energy jobs want to actually create them? We’ve seen how well he does at that with the destruction of the GoM drilling industry which supports millions of registered voters while shoveling tax dollars to his supporters at now bankrupt companies like Solyndra, and his dissing of US labor unions in favor of enviro-whackos over the Keystone pipeline.
Obama’s administration continues to attempt to ban fracking using junk science. A pipeline to carry oil from our closest ally was stopped due to pressure from Greens on a basis that amounted to outright lies. He stopped offshore drilling for months when not even his own people supported a blanket moratorium.
Over this, he put failed investment after failed investment into technologies that have been PROVEN time and time again to not work. Grid scale solar and wind power have failed to close a single fossil fuel power station. Ever. If the subsidies stopped, every last one would close within a year or triple their prices. The first person comissioned to build a 100 mile electric car battery was THOMAS EDISON, and we still aren’t there.
Now they want to work about energy?
All we can do now is look forward to voting Republican in November and hope for a majority.