Here are some graphs from the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Graph 1:

Graph 2:

Quote:

“The numbers don’t lie—it’s clear that this Administration is taking U.S. energy policy in exactly in the wrong direction. Gas prices are closing in on $4 per gallon and thousands of people are out of work in the Gulf because of the de facto moratorium on drilling permits,” said Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings. “Unemployment is only going to get worse as this Administration’s policies continue to increase the cost of gasoline, which trickles down to every sector of our economy. We need to use our resources to produce American made energy, create good jobs, and insulate ourselves from uncontrollable energy prices spikes.”

That’s a government web site.

Fox News explains that this doesn’t just cause higher gas prices, but also increases unemployment.

Excerpt:

The Chamber of Commerce released a report Thursday that found 351 energy projects around the country were in regulatory limbo last year because of regulations, environmental protests, or lawsuits.

None of them include drilling for oil or gas and remarkably, almost half of the delayed projects involved renewable energy.

“There are hundreds of laws with thousands of provisions, all of which can stop a project,” said William Kovacs of the Chamber’s Environment, Technology & Regulatory Affairs Division.

Steve Pociask of TeleNomic Research, one of the authors of the study, found those delays are costing the economy dearly. The report says the stalled projects cost the economy $1.1 trillion in economic activity last year and would have provided 1.9 million jobs in each year of construction.

The report said that once constructed, the projects would have supplied some 791,000 jobs per year over 20 years and added $3.4 trillion to the GDP, and that’s without taking into account lower energy prices that could result from the completed projects.

[…]A partial list from the report shows the stalled or delayed proposals included 22 nuclear projects, 1 nuclear disposal site, 21 transmission projects, 38 gas and platform projects and 111 coal projects.

Here’s a story from the Louisiana Times-Picayune. It shows that Obama is lying to the public about these facts.

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama said Friday that oil production out of the Gulf of Mexico is at a record high and that a rush to new drilling is not a long-term solution for a nation that consumes more than a quarter of the world’s oil.

But Louisiana lawmakers lambasted the president’s remarks on rising energy prices, made at his second news conference of the year, suggesting that he failed to confront the fact that his administration’s slow-go on permitting threatens future supplies, and that renewed drilling is an essential response to the rise in gas prices.

“The gap continues to widen between what President Obama claims to be true about domestic energy production and what Louisianans know is true,” said Sen. David Vitter, R-La.

“This administration still doesn’t seem to understand that the best way to combat rising gasoline prices is to encourage new domestic development and production of oil,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. With gas prices rising amid increased international demand and chaos in oil-rich Libya, Obama sought to debunk the notion that his administration was impeding domestic energy production.

[…]”Someone should tell the President that April Fool’s Day is still weeks away,” said Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia. Like other members of the delegation, Landry complained that the president’s assertions about Gulf oil production failed to credit the aggressive permitting policies of past administrations that enabled oil to flow at record levels, or to acknowledge that his administration’s slow-down on permitting in the aftermath of the BP oil spill is leading to a drop in production that will become painfully obvious in the months and years to come.

[…]Landry said he agreed the president should “focus on responsible and affordable alternative energy sources like nuclear, natural gas and clean coal.” But he said tax subsidies for wind, solar and experiments like the electric car made no sense.

“We’ve got enough natural gas and coal for the next 200 years. Why do we require the American people to continue to pour tax dollars down the toilet?” asked Landry.

And what it shows is that we are bidding on foreign oil, which China, India and everyone else is also bidding on. Do you know what happens when lots of people want to buy the same thing? The price of that thing goes up. And that’s exactly what we are seeing. The only way to make gas prices go down is by increasing our own supply.