Obama Saying the Economy Would Never Be Good Again
(J. Scott Applewhite — AP)
Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise is toeing the Republican Political party line here, accusing the president of consciously trying to enhance gas prices to wean Americans off carbon fuels. Before this month, nosotros adamant that Indiana's Gov. Mitch Daniels deserved three Pinocchios for making similar claims.
Nosotros mentioned in our previous cavalcade that we hadn't found a single instance in which President Obama advocated higher gas prices. A reader later mentioned that he'd found an example, pointing out a June 2008 interview in which so-Sen. Obama discussed energy policy on CNBC. The trading and investment web log TownHallFinance.com used that same video to suggest we'd missed the mark with our assay of Daniels's remarks.
We reviewed the 2008 interview (which you can view below) and took withal another expect at the current country of U.Due south. oil production to determine whether anything should alter well-nigh our previous decision. If not, Scalise would deserve simply as many Pinocchios as Daniels.
The Facts
First, nosotros'll hash out the interview between and so-Sen. Obama and CNBC's John Harwood. Here's an substitution from that meeting:
Obama: I think that we have been tiresome to move in a ameliorate direction when it comes to energy usage, and the president frankly hasn't had an energy policy. As a consequence, we've been consuming energy as if it's space. We at present know that our need is desperately outstripping supply with China and India growing as rapidly every bit they are.
Harwood: And then, could these high prices help u.s.a.?
Obama: I retrieve that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a stupor to American pocketbooks is not a expert thing. But if nosotros take some steps to help people brand the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, merely besides past encouraging the marketplace to adapt to these new circumstances more than chop-chop, peculiarly U.Due south. automakers, then I recall, ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.
You'll notice Obama doesn't expressly land that he opposes high gas prices but says he doesn't think price hikes should happen suddenly or dramatically. This is what the president's critics cite as damning evidence of his true intentions.
But these comments deserve some context. (View the entire transcript here). Obama was discussing gas prices that had already hit about $4 per gallon. He proposed a holistic solution that would include investments in alternative fuels and higher auto-efficiency standards, complemented by immediate financial relief through temporary tax cuts.
Does that mean the president thinks higher gas prices make expert free energy policy? He didn't exactly answer directly during the CNBC interview, even though Harwood asked the question twice. But Obama made his position perfectly clear on March 6, when he faced a similar question during a White House press conference.
Here'due south what the president said:
"Look, here'south the bottom line with respect to gas prices. I want gas prices lower because they hurt families, because I meet folks every solar day who have to drive a long style to become to work. And and then filling upwardly this gas tank gets more and more painful, and information technology's a tax out of their pocketbooks, out of their paychecks. And a lot of folks are already operating on the margins right now.
And information technology'due south non good for the overall economic system because when gas prices get up, consumer spending frequently pulls dorsum.
And nosotros're in the midst right at present of a recovery that is starting to build upward steam, and we don't want to reverse it."
In both instances we've cited, Obama suggested he'southward balky to letting gas prices shock families' finances. In his White House remarks, he said indicate blank: "I want gas prices lower."
Has the president taken acceptable steps to make that happen?
It's hard to know nonetheless without a crystal ball. That's because presidents don't accept a ton of control over the cost of gas while during their first terms in part, as an article in Tuesday's Washington Mail service explains. Have drilling for case. The Department of the Interior works with v-year lease plans for extraction, and the last plan from President George W. Bush ended only this year.
That'southward not to disparage Bush over today's prices. According to Jay Hakes, a former Free energy Information Assistants official interviewed for the Washington Post article, Bush deserves credit for signing 2007 legislation that has kept the current state of affairs from being worse.
Hakes also said Obama "is on a good path to ease futurity markets" considering of his decision to open new areas for exploration and development -- peculiarly offshore along Alaska's Arctic coasts -- and to implement stricter fuel-efficiency standards.
It'southward hard to deny that the Obama administration has tried to command costs to some degree, even if it's with an eye toward the future. The White House on Mon released a report from various federal agencies that laid out steps taken to reach greater energy independence and affordability. Among the accomplishments: new fuel-efficiency standards, an increment of 120,000 barrels per day in domestic oil production last twelvemonth, and the approval of dozens of renewable energy projects.
The report as well notes that domestic oil production has risen each twelvemonth that Obama has been in the White Firm, that the United States is importing about 24 pct less oil each mean solar day compared to when the president offset took part, and that the nation has led the world in natural-gas production since that aforementioned time.
Republicans fence that the administration still hasn't washed enough, pointing out that it rejected the Keystone Xl pipeline projection -- at least for now -- and resisted new drilling on federal lands.
Obama had his reasons for that determination. Critics say he was pandering to environmentalists in grooming for the 2012 election. The president himself claims he could non corroborate the pipeline until the firm hoping to build it developed a road circumventing environmentally sensitive sandhills in Nebraska.
Obama lately has touted rising domestic oil and gas production as proof that his administration is taking steps to control energy prices. Critics argue that most of the increase has come from drilling on individual rather than federal lands. Nosotros question whether that really matters and so long equally production is up, particularly when many oil and gas companies are sitting on existing leases.
A March 2011 written report from the Section of the Interior showed that the oil and gas industry was non using half of its onshore federal leases at the time. Industry advocates say that isn't the instance any more than, since loftier prices have made drilling more lucrative. They argue that the government should open up new lands to prepare for future spikes.
Scalise spokesman Stephen Bell says the Obama assistants has hampered oil and gas production in means across drilling policies, for example by "attempting to restrict hydraulic fracturing."
The president rejected a moratorium on so-called "fracking" in 2010, suggesting he's relatively lax toward the manufacture to date. And although his administration has considered new regulations, many Republicans have called for the aforementioned, especially when the hydraulic fracturing operations would take place in their home states.
Bell also claims the Obama administration has restricted off-shore oil exploration, but that's a dubious claim. The DOI has proposed opening more than 75 percentage of "undiscovered technically recoverable" off-shore oil and gas resources for lease.
The American Petroleum Institute claims that the 75-per centum figure is misleading because it excludes areas where the industry wants to exercise more than exploration. A fact sheet from the industry advocate states: "If the administration would let leasing in these areas, exploratory work would proceed, and we would have a ameliorate sense of what's out there (probably more than the administration assumes)."
That merits rings somewhat hollow because that oil companies haven't ever swooped up leases when they're available. In December, the DOI made available 21 million off-shore acres in the Gulf of United mexican states (thought to have the richest reserves of any U.Due south. coast), but the industry grabbed only 1 one thousand thousand acres.
DOI spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said the claims of off-shore drilling restrictions are misleading. "The assistants continues to offer more acres for lease than manufacture chooses to buy," she said.
The Pinocchio Test
Some of Obama's comments from 2008 suggest that he thinks there's a silver lining to higher prices, but they also point that he doesn't want energy prices to affect the pocketbooks of working families. Critics say the president'due south policies have caused the contempo price hike, but experts advise he has less control over the current price of oil than people by and large call up. With that in listen, he probably deserves less arraign for existing pain at the pump, too as less credit for the increased production he likes to brag about.
As for Obama'south regulatory policies, they bear witness that the president is willing to cite environmental and public-rubber concerns when it comes to free energy, whether information technology'south in terms of product and emissions. He has also proposed killing tax breaks for oil companies. One could contend, every bit some Republicans have, that some of these policies put upward pressure on prices, but that's different than consciously trying to raise prices -- as though Obama is secretly grin near the cost hikes.
Our earlier ruling stands. Scalise earns three Pinocchios for suggesting that the president "got his wish" with $iv-per-gallon gasoline.
Three Pinocchios
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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-claim-that-wont-die-did-obama-want-higher-gas-prices/2012/03/13/gIQAf0EW9R_blog.html
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