He has increased production at home:
Across the country, the oil and gas industry is vastly increasing production, reversing two decades of decline. Using new technology and spurred by rising oil prices since the mid-2000s, the industry is extracting millions of barrels more a week, from the deepest waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the prairies of North Dakota. ...NYT
He's brought down the use of oil:
At the same time, Americans are pumping significantly less gasoline. While that is partly a result of the recession and higher gasoline prices, people are also driving fewer miles and replacing older cars with more fuel-efficient vehicles at a greater clip, federal data show. ...NYT
(Yep. Even in Texas we're switching to Toyotas, Hondas, and Hyundais.)
Bush, surprisingly, earns and receives some credit for the change:
Taken together, the increasing production and declining consumption have unexpectedly brought the United States markedly closer to a goal that has tantalized presidents since Richard Nixon: independence from foreign energy sources, a milestone that could reconfigure American foreign policy, the economy and more. In 2011, the country imported just 45 percent of the liquid fuels it used, down from a record high of 60 percent in 2005.
“There is no question that many national security policy makers will believe they have much more flexibility and will think about the world differently if the United States is importing a lot less oil,” said Michael A. Levi, an energy and environmental senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “For decades, consumption rose, production fell and imports increased, and now every one of those trends is going the other way.”
How the country made this turnabout is a story of industry-friendly policies started by President Bush and largely continued by President Obama — many over the objections of environmental advocates — as well as technological advances that have allowed the extraction of oil and gas once considered too difficult and too expensive to reach. ...NYT
Here's what Obama has been up to -- pulling off a coup during a time when Republicans have done what they could to stop him. They've been joined, ironically, by environmentalists:
Mr. Obama’s current policy has alarmed many environmental advocates who say he has failed to adequately address the environmental threats of expanded drilling and the use of fossil fuels. He also has not silenced critics, including Republicans and oil executives, who accuse him of preventing drilling on millions of acres off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and on federal land, delaying the Keystone decision and diverting scarce federal resources to pie-in-the-sky alternative energy programs. ...NYT
As someone who strongly backs the environmental community's wisdom and demands, I'm nonetheless damn glad to see us inch away from dependence on oil from the Middle East even if it means using the home-grown variety.
And I'm admiring of President Obama's resilience in dealing with the disloyal Republican opposition -- disloyal not only to their president but shocking in their willingness to put greed and ambition before America's long-term interests. In contrast, President Obama has been pragmatic, far-sighted, and even generous.
“Our dependence on foreign oil is down is because of policies put in place by our administration, but also our predecessor’s administration,” Mr. Obama said during a campaign appearance in March, a few weeks after opening 38 million more acres in the gulf for oil and gas exploration. “And whoever succeeds me is going to have to keep it up.” ...NYT
The environmental community may be frustrated, to say the least. But the trend now is towards a steady reduction in fossil fuels. That has to earn at least grudging respect from all of us. One interesting part of that trend is online shopping. Another is the aging of the generation -- the boomers, largely They loved its cars to death -- to the death of the landscape.
The trend of lower consumption, when combined with higher energy production, has profound implications, said Bill White, former deputy energy secretary in the Clinton administration and former mayor of Houston.
“Energy independence has always been a race between depletion and technologies to produce more and use energy more efficiently,” he said. “Depletion was winning for decades, and now technology is starting to overtake its lead.” ...NYT
More to be done? Make sure we keep a Democrat in the White House. And do our damndest to clean out the Houses on the Hill.
