Conservatives Lie About Obama Blocking Domestic Oil Production

Actually, I don't think increased oil production is a good thing, because it leads to increased greenhouse gases and other pollution, but I hate lying.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-domestic-oil

June 4, 2011
By Ray Medeiros

Oil and gas prices are slowing the economy down to a tragic halt. We have covered this before in previous articles, that the rise in oil and gas prices are due to lack of Wall Street oversight and regulations in the commodities market. Unfortunately that does not stop the right wing machine from lying to the public about domestic oil production. Here is a sample of the lies presented by right wing media. Big Government, a Andrew Breitbart website states,

The federal government has not approved a single new exploratory drilling plan in the Gulf of Mexico since lifting its deepwater drilling moratorium on Oct. 12. There are currently 103 plans awaiting review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

Michele Bachmann:

“One. That’s the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office.”

Here is the real story according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulations and Enforcement,

Shallow water: To date, 55 new shallow water well permits have been issued since the implementation of new safety and environmental standards on June 8, 2010. Permits have averaged 6 per month since October 2010, compared to an average of 8 per month in 2009. Just 6 of these permits are currently pending; with 9 having been returned to the operator for more information.

Deepwater permits requiring subsea containment: Since an applicant first successfully demonstrated containment capabilities in mid-February, we have approved 43 of these permits for 15 unique wells, with 24 permits pending, and 18 permits returned to the operator with requests for additional information, particularly information regarding containment.

Deepwater activities not requiring subsea containment: Since the implementation of new safety and environmental standards, 40 of these permits have been approved, with 1 currently pending. These activities include water injection wells and procedures using surface blowout preventers.

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