gsvol
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Or whatever his name is and given the number of lies he is telling, it isn't easy to pick a top five but this guy gives it an effort.
Newt Gingrich 2012 - President Obama’s Top Five Energy Whoppers
FWIW, I recently heard a tape of Axelrod speaking for the first time, what a wimpy sounding guy, he makes Dennis Kucinich ('penis blew spinach' as his highschool mates called him) sound like John Wayne.
Newt Gingrich 2012 - President Obama’s Top Five Energy Whoppers
With both President Obama and his chief strategist David Axelrod attacking Newts $2.50 gas plan this weekend, it is worthwhile to take a look at who is really trying to sell the American people snake oil.
President Obama has been traveling the country making demonstrably false excuses for his failures on energy policy. To borrow a line from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, I wont attribute motivations Ill just say that anybody who says these things doesnt know what hes talking about.
WERE DRILLING ALL OVER
FALSE:
Do not tell me that were not drilling. Were drilling all over this country. I guess there are a few spots where were not drilling. Were not drilling in the National Mall. Were not drilling at your house. I guess we could try to have, like, 200 oil rigs in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. (March 15, 2012, Prince Georges Community College.)
TRUE:
President Obama has blocked drilling in offshore areas totaling more than 10 times the size of Texas. He has stalled progress on an estimated one trillion barrels of oil in the American West, where the federal government owns the majority of the worlds oil shale. These off-limits supplies alone give the United States some of the largest oil reserves in the world. And no one proposes drilling in the Chesapeake Bay.
WERE USING 20%, WE HAVE 2%
FALSE:
America uses more than 20 percent of the worlds oil. If we drilled every square inch of this country so we went to your house and we went to the National Mall and we put up those rigs everywhere wed still have only 2 percent of the worlds known oil reserves. Lets say we miss something maybe its 3 percent instead of 2. Were using 20; we have 2. (March 15, 2012, Prince Georges Community College.)
TRUE:
The President derives his 2 percent from Americas proven reserves, about 20 billion barrels of oil. Proven reserves are the quantity of energy sources estimated with reasonable certainty, from the analysis of geologic and engineering data, to be recoverable from well-established or known reservoirs with the existing equipment and under the existing operating conditions.
The U.S. was said to have 30 billion barrels of proven reserves in 1980. Yet from 1980 to 2008, we produced about 75 billion barrels of oil.
No one thinks the proven reserves numbers come anywhere close to capturing our oil resourceseven the U.S. government. The Energy Department estimated in 2006 that there were about 400 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, including undiscovered resources and that does not even include oil shale. Thats 5 times the number President Obama is using. And oil shale is another 800 billion to 1 trillion barrels.
Total estimated resources exceed 1.4 trillion barrels of oil in the United States, and Goldman Sachs predicted last year that the U.S. has the potential to be the worlds largest oil-producing country by 2017. The number the President is using, about 20 billion barrels, is less than the current best estimate for the Bakken formation in North Dakota alone.
In addition, the Presidents claim that we use 20% of the worlds oil is false and evasive. We consume 20% of the worlds oil production, not 20% of the worlds oil reserves as the Presidents comparison suggests. The President is just cherry-picking numbers. The 2 and the 20 are not meaningfully related so the comparison makes no senseit certainly doesnt prove were consuming too much or that there is too little to go around.
OIL IS SOLD ON THE WORLD MARKET THEREFORE PRESIDENT OBAMAS POLICIES CANT INFLUENCE THE PRICE OF OIL
FALSE:
How much oil we produce here at home, because we only have 2 percent and we use 20, thats not going to set the price of gas worldwide, or here in the United States. Oil is bought and sold on the world market. (March 7, 2012, North Carolina)
HE EMPHASIZES THIS AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN:
We cant just allow ourselves to be held hostage to the ups and downs of the world oil market. (February 23, 2012, Miami, FL)
Were not going to, overnight, solve the problem of world oil markets. (February 23, 2012, Miami, FL)
Gas prices and the world oil markets right now are putting a lot of pressure on families right now. (March 15, 2012, Prince Georges Community College.)
When prices spike on the world market, its like a tax, its like somebody is going into your pocket. (March 15, 2012, Prince Georges Community College.)
TRUE:
President Obama and his allies have repeatedly suggested his policies cant be blamed for high gasoline prices because oil is bought and sold on the world market over which he has no control. But prices on the world market are determined primarily by supply and demand, and the President is blocking development of substantial oil supplies offshore and in the American West, which together are several times the known reserves of Saudi Arabia. No one has claimed the President can set the price of oil, but his choice to close these areas affect the price significantly.
He could reverse his policies on these federal lands with the stroke of a pen. There is nothing special about the world market that would prevent that large increase in supply from putting downward pressure on price.
The Presidents own actions have betrayed the knowledge that even marginal production changes have a significant effect on oil prices. When his administration asked Saudi Arabia to increase its own oil production, its goal was to lower prices in the U.S., and when he tapped the Strategic Reserve during the Arab Spring in 2011, he did so for the same reason. His claims to be powerless in the world market are just a bad excuse for the results of his antiAmerican-energy policies.
TAXPAYER GIVEAWAYS TO OIL COMPANIES
FALSE:
Whats more, at a time when big oil companies are making more money than ever before, were still giving them $4 billion of your tax dollars in subsidies every year. (Presidents Weekly Address, March 17, 2012)
I dont think oil companies need more corporate welfare. Congress should end this taxpayer giveaway. (Presidents Weekly Address, March 3, 2012)
TRUE:
The oil industry is not subsidized. It is subject to generic tax deductions that apply to all U.S. manufacturers. What the President proposes is specifically targeting oil companies for tax increases, not ending subsides that are given specifically to the oil industry.
Under this view, the giveaway is that we are not taxing oil companies for the same things we do not tax anyone else. But not taxing an activity isnt a subsidy or a taxpayer giveawayunless you consider the income youre allowed to keep a subsidy, too.
In addition, the President wants to end rules that prevent American companies from being double-taxed on energy they produce outside the United States, which would only benefit foreign competitors at the expense of American businesses.
The industry that is highly subsidized and receives corporate welfare under the Obama administration is the green energy industrycompanies like Solyndra. The vast majority of energy sector tax preferences have been for renewables or energy efficiency companies. As the Congressional Budget Office recently reported, Between 2009 and 2012, DOE provided an estimated $4.0 billion in subsidies for about $25 billion in loans.
If the President is genuinely concerned about high gas prices, raising taxes on oil producers will cause gasoline prices to increase and will hurt consumerswhether he thinks thats fair or not.
SOLAR AND WIND ARE SOLUTIONS TO HIGH GAS PRICES
FALSE:
If were going to take control of our energy future and can start avoiding these annual gas price spikes that happen every year if were going to avoid being at the mercy of these world events, weve got to have a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy. Yes, oil and gas, but also wind and solar and nuclear and biofuels, and more. (February 23, 2012, Miami, FL)
TRUE:
If 100% of American electricity today were generated by solar and wind technologies such as the President is pushing, it would have virtually no effect on the price of gasoline. Wind and solar are methods of generating electricity which we use to power our buildings. Gasoline is the fuel for our cars. We barely use oil at all to generate electricity, meaning that converting everything to wind and solar would do nothing to decrease the consumption of oil. The only circumstance under which the technologies President Obama mentions would be an answer to high gasoline prices is if wind and solar were economically competitive sources of electricity and we drove inexpensive electric cars with capacities comparable to conventional automobiles. But today that is a distant fantasy, not a solution.
FWIW, I recently heard a tape of Axelrod speaking for the first time, what a wimpy sounding guy, he makes Dennis Kucinich ('penis blew spinach' as his highschool mates called him) sound like John Wayne.
