The Ulsterman Report: Barack Obama’s War on American Energy

The now oft-repeated phrase “Elections have consequences” has certainly proven apt since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008.  As the Middle East sits upon the precipice of total chaos, and the United States continues mired in high unemployment and an ever looming deficit, we can now add a growing energy crisis to the list of Obama accomplishments.  Then again, regarding skyrocketing energy costs, perhaps President Obama can simply shrug and state, “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Warn us he did.  Unfortunately, the media in 2008, as was so often the case with Barack Obama, barely made mention of words that are now clearly bearing troubling fruit in 2011.

In January of 2008 during an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Barack Obama laid out his clear intention to destroy the traditional forms of America’s domestic energy producers – namely oil, coal, and natural gas.  So said then-candidate Obama, “When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas…you name it…”

And although Barack Obama and the far left Democrats’ goal of a Cap and Trade scheme has stalled for now, the Obama administration has successfully destroyed the Gulf offshore oil industry, closed off similar offshore drilling in other areas of the United States, continued the pushback against expanded Alaska oil drilling, has allocated little federal support dollars for either shale technology, or expansion of the nation’s considerable natural gas resources, and gave only passing interest in future nuclear energy capabilities.  What Obama has done is negotiated for further oil imports from such nations as Venezuela, given up potential oil to Cuba, and literally bowed to the need for increased oil from Saudi Arabia.

This week Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union explained just how far the Obama administration is going to ensure our nation’s domestic energy production is crippled into but a shadow of its once considerable strength and future potential.  According to Sepp, “…A Tax Foundation review of recent research determined that relative to other nations, the United States offers few energy subsidies, despite being a major oil-producing nation. By ensuring U.S.-based oil and natural gas multinationals are not taxed again at home on income already taxed abroad, current “dual capacity” provisions give our firms a fighting chance to compete on a global playing field.

The elimination of these protections would also further handicap our already bleak employment rate. One 2010 study estimated the economic costs of repealing tax credits such as “dual capacity” and Section 199 (a provision available to all American manufacturers to encourage domestic employment) would total over 154,000 jobs lost in 2011 alone, not only in the energy sector but across the whole economy. 

Such a move would also result in more than $341 billion in lost U.S. economic output and in excess of $68 billion in lost wages nationwide.”

Now let that sink in – the Obama administration is attempting to implement energy-related tax policies that would cost billions in lost revenue, billions in lost wages, and 154,000 American jobs.

In the simplest of terms, President Obama is waging an all out war on America energy.  Check out the following video clip and see the human side of the Obama administrations ongoing energy policy madness: