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.

From left-wing Politico.

Excerpt:

The Obama administration late Friday appealed a judge’s orders directing the Interior Department to act on several Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling permits.

The appeal is the latest salvo in the ongoing fight over the speed with which Interior is – or isn’t – letting oil drillers get back to work after last year’s BP oil spill.

Gulf state lawmakers and the oil industry have accused the department of enacting a “de facto” moratorium against new drilling, while Interior says it needs to ensure safety and environmental protections are in place.

Friday’s appeal challenges rulings by Judge Martin Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, who on Feb. 17 gave Interior 30 days to make a verdict on five pending deepwater drilling permits applications. He later added two additional permits to that order.

The Washington Times re-caps Obama’s record on energy policy.

Excerpt:

President Obama has intentionally hamstrung domestic energy production under the delusional theory that the U.S. economy can thrive on so-called green power. As Mideast turmoil threatens the oil supply, the price of domestic crude has jumped above $100 a barrel and gas at the pump now exceeds $3.46 a gallon. This shows just how dangerous the Obama administration’s economic and energy policies can be to our wallets.

There can be no doubt that the president took deliberate action to block access to the nation’s energy resources. A federal judge recently found the Interior Department in contempt for ignoring his order overturning the oil-drilling moratorium the administration imposed following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. On Feb. 22, Judge Martin Feldman upped the pressure by insisting that the department act on five pending permits within 30 days. Permits that would, under normal circumstances, be processed in two weeks have been ignored for four to nine months. “Not acting at all is not a lawful option,” Judge Feldman wrote. The department had no choice but to issue the first permit since the spill on Feb. 28.

Interior pinned the blame for delays on technical problems. Yet, as the department dithered, oil companies atrophied and employees lost work. According to a study released in January by the business alliance Greater New Orleans, Inc., the moratorium cost Louisiana about 25,000 jobs. Houston-based Seahawk Drilling, the most recent victim of the drilling ban, announced Feb. 18 that it had filed for bankruptcy and agreed to a buyout from a competitor. The jobs of the company’s 494 employees are in jeopardy, according to USA Today.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget proposal calls for imposing a $4 per acre fine on oil and gas companies for land on which they currently hold leases but are not drilling. This gimmick helps the O Force imply that the industry is holding off on drilling in the hope that shortages will drive up prices.

Gas prices are up near $5 in parts of the United States.

When you reduce the supply of a commodity without a decrease in demand, prices go up. This is economics 101. But Obama doesn’t know economics 101, and that’s why we have a 14 trillion dollar national debt, and a 1.65 trillion dollar budget deficit.

Make no mistake – this is a tax on business and individual consumption. We are losing jobs because of Obama’s refusal to allow companies to increase the supply and reduce the prices that Americans pay for energy.