An Intent to Create Political Peak Oil?

When a government is run by ideologues more concerned with satisfying an extreme special interest constituency than in seeing that the country functions well and prospers, a number of problems can crop up. The current US government's bumper crop of fools appears intent on creating "political peak oil" -- energy starvation brought about by counter-productive government policies.

Not wanting to allow a crisis to go to waste, the Obama Pelosi regime is determined to create an all-out catastrophe.

Three weeks ago, William K. Reilly, the newly named co-chairman of the presidential commission appointed to investigate the BP oil spill, said he thought the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was necessary – and maybe even too short.

He said in an interview with The Times that the commission was unlikely to recommend that the ban be lifted before the panel completes its work in January. He said that government and industry must first adopt profound changes in how they operate before he would be willing to advocate lifting the moratorium. “Those things would have to happen faster than past history would suggest is possible,” he said.

But on Tuesday, after two days of touring the gulf region and a day and a half of hearing testimony from a variety of aggrieved local officials, business interests and oil executives, Mr. Reilly changed his tune. The moratorium is spreading economic pain across the region, he said, and for many is worse than the effects of the spill itself.

He said he was prepared to press President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to move as quickly as possible to adopt new safety and environmental protections and lift the moratorium well before it is scheduled to end in late November. “It’s not clear to me why it should take so long,” Mr. Reilly told reporters during a break in testimony on Tuesday.

“The commission has not researched this issue, and we will give full attention to countervailing arguments,” he said. “But I come from this whole experience with a much clearer sense of the degree of economic dislocation and the hardship caused by the moratorium than I had three or four days ago.”

The other co-chairman of the commission, Bob Graham, a former Democratic senator and governor from Florida, said that he, too, believed that the moratorium was a burden on the economic life of the Gulf Coast. He said the federal government has had nearly three months to inspect the rigs in the gulf and wondered why it was taking so long to determine whether they can safely restart operations. _NYT

But it bothered me the most when Interior Secretary Salazar reported that a panel of experts selected by the National Academy of Engineering had “peer reviewed” the report, agreeing on the six-month moratorium on exploratory drilling in the Gulf. It turns out that the seven experts never saw the final recommendation and in fact, opposed it. Salazar actually modified their report after they signed it to include two paragraphs calling for the moratorium! Salazar finally had to admit to the fraud, but this looks like one more instance where the Obama crew is neither honest nor competent.

By the way, Carol Browner, EPA, even said, “no one's been deceived or misrepresented.” What? I say impeach the whole bunch of clowns. _Source