President Obama’s energy-policy tango has just two easy steps: flip and flop.
FLIP: In March, Obama ended a freeze on drilling for oil in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic Coast.
FLOP: In April, after the BP spill, he ordered a new moratorium on deepwater drilling in the whole Gulf.
The flip thrilled businesses. The flop chilled them — and killed thousands of jobs in the process.
FLIP: In October, Obama ended his Gulf freeze.
FLOP: On Wednesday he substantially reimposed it — with a vengeance.
His newest order: For the next seven years there will be no leases for drilling on the East Coast or in the Eastern Gulf, where billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas lie waiting.
This new command essentially reflops the March flip.
Confused? Us, too — but no more so than the White House’s energy policy.
On the surface, it seems O & Co. can’t make up their minds: pro-drilling one day, guardians of the wilderness the next.
But don’t be fooled — the White House has been squeezing the oil industry every step of the way.
To wit: When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the end of the post-spill freeze in October, he said the Gulf was “open for business.”
What a gas. Since then, the feds have issued just one new deepwater-drilling permit, extending their de facto ban.
Meanwhile, the administration is forcing tough new safety measures on the oil industry. Some are clearly needed — as the BP well explosion made plain.
But the safety push appears to be a quiet way of regulating an unfavored industry.
Like it or not, the US economy still runs on oil — and the risks involved in extracting it are unavoidable.
Safer alternatives — like Atlantic Coast wind farms the feds eagerly pushed last month — simply can’t create the jobs or energy needed to restore the Gulf and the country to robust economic life.
Offshore gas and oil is there for the taking. The US can’t afford to delay.