Obama Deserves No Credit for the Oil and Gas Boom

From Warren Meyer in Forbes (ht/Morganovich): 

"The one person who deserves no credit for this [oil and gas] boom is Barack Obama.  In fact, this Administration has bent over backwards to make oil and gas production and exploration as difficult as possible. According to the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the Obama Administration has been issuing BLM oil and gas leases at the lowest pace of any president in the last 30 years  – in fact at half the rate of the Clinton White House and 80% slower than in the Reagan era, dragging their feet to please the environmental lobby (see top chart above).

By comparing oil and gas production on Federal vs. state and private lands, we can get a true read on this Administration’s energy policy. Since Obama took office, according to the Institute for Energy Research, oil production has fallen precipitously on Federal onshore and offshore leases, while it has increased by an even larger amount on state and private lands largely outside of this Administration’s reach. The only reason total oil [and gas] production has increased since Obama took office is because private companies on state and private lands have increased production enough to offset the large drop that has occurred in Obama-controlled producing regions. Obama’s taking credit for the current oil and gas boom ranks up there in the pantheon of great political whoppers right next to Al Gore’s invention of the Internet."

MP: The bottom chart above shows that the share of total natural gas production taking place on federally administered land fell to 20% in 2010, the lowest share in at least 35 years.