Global and home-grown adversaries
are determined to sink America’s petroleum companies in bankruptcies. Saudis
are flooding their world markets with cut-rate competition; the U.N. and
environmental lobbies are drowning them in a rising ocean tide of alarmist
climate crisis blame; and the EPA is regulating their profitability underwater.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration
is soaking taxpayers to feed pet green energy sharks.
Yet despite his reported global
warming crisis, President Obama met a cool reception when the royal family
didn’t make a big deal of his Air Force One arrival in Saudi Arabia last April.
It was nothing like the media fanfare that occurred when King Salaman bin
Abdulaziz and other senior leaders greeted heads of neighboring states in
advance of a six-member Gulf Cooperation Council meeting.
That snub reportedly had much to do
with anger on the part of Riyadh officials over the president’s recent comment
that the Saudis and Iranians should “share the neighborhood,” reflecting an
administration “pivot” toward the Islamic Republic leading up to last summer’s
nuclear summit.
Gulf security expert Mustafa Alani
observes that the decision not to send a high-level welcoming delegation to
greet Obama was intended as a signal of little faith in his leadership. Alani
told the Associated Press, “Here you have deep distrust that the president
won’t deliver anything.”
At most, official pictures showed
Obama shaking hands with the king’s son and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salmon, the architect of policies aimed at strangling U.S. oil and gas
competition through below cost economic suffocation. On that score, you might
imagine that there was much they might agree upon.
After all, neither are big American
petroleum industry enthusiasts. Don’t expect any cheering from either of them
over the fact that much to the dismay of the Saudis, OPEC, Russia, and Iran . .
. along with big environmental activist Obama administration donors . . . the
U.S. has launched an energy revolution as the world’s leading oil and natural
gas producer. In fact that’s exactly why all of
the above are bankrolling anti-fracking propaganda premised upon ginned-up
water pollution and overheated climate fright.
As Nathan Vardi reported in a 2015
Forbes article, Saudi Arabia is making a massive $750 billion bet backed by
foreign currency reserves that it can endure lower prices longer than other
major oil-producing countries both within and outside OPEC, even including
American shale.
Yes, but in addition to pumping out
under-priced oil, that bet is also extracting a painful deficit. A 2015 budget
report issued by the kingdom revealed a $38.6 billion shortfall.
Until recently, Saudi Arabia held
the distinction of world’s largest oil producer because shallower deposits
there make it much cheaper to extract. Fracking changed that economic equation,
and American reserves are at least as plentiful. At least that was the case
until the Saudi oil kingdom began to sell at a loss to drive other suppliers out
of the global market.
So far that strategy has been
working. If the Saudis can keep oil at or below $50 a barrel, we’re going to
continue to see a lot of U.S. casualties.
And they’re getting lots of help in
this from the White House. Like, for example, through a proposed federal “fee”
in the Obama administration’s 2017 budget which will add $10 to the price of
every barrel of domestic oil to further subsidize otherwise price-prohibitive,
anemic and unreliable wind and solar energy; and to finance pork barrel
high-speed rail systems to nowhere.
As Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a
member of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee observes. “This is not
the time to add costs to American energy production — or to shut it down
altogether. Doing so will only help our adversaries and make us and our allies
more dependent on them.”
The new tax which will add about 24
cents per gallon to the price of gasoline will be bad for consumers, for
businesses, and for local, state, and national economies . . . all not
particularly cheerful news following a May Labor Department report showing the
weakest national job growth since 2010. Perhaps not coincidentally, most of
the previous job gains over the past seven years occurred in oil-rich states.
Texas alone added more than 1.25 million.
Meanwhile, the Saudis are hurting
too. In response to shrunken oil revenues, Deputy Crown Prince bin Salman has
announced plans for the kingdom to increase the percentage of government debt
to gross domestic product to 30 percent from 7.7 percent now, plus also
introduce new value-added taxes and income taxes for expatriate residents. The influential deputy crown prince
reportedly plans to visit Washington, D.C. this week.
While it’s unclear whether he will
meet once again meet with President Obama, they would obviously have many
common problems and interests to discuss. And besides, what could possibly go
wrong?
About the
Author: Larry Bell: CFACT Advisor Larry Bell heads the
graduate program in space architecture at the University of Houston. He founded
and directs the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture. He is
also the author of "Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the
Global Warming Hoax."
AMERICA'S ENERGY ENEMIES
The shale energy revolution has brought America closer to
energy independence than we have been in generations. Foreign competitors and domestic Greens don't like this one
bit.
Larry Bell reports at CFACT.org (http://www.cfact.org/?p=27606)
that Saudi Arabia has made a massive $750 billion bet that by selling oil at a
loss, it can outplay and outlast its American competitors.
President Obama is piling on with a proposal to add $10 to
the price of every domestically produced American barrel of oil to further
subsidize wind, solar and rail projects.
Meanwhile, the "Saudis, OPEC, Russia, and Iran . . .
along with big environmental activist Obama administration donors … are all
bankrolling anti-fracking propaganda premised upon ginned-up water pollution
and overheated climate fright."
We used to talk wistfully about energy independence as
though it was an unattainable dream, yet free-market energy innovators stepped
up and did it.
The American government should be fostering and protecting
this energy miracle. Instead it is
joining forces with foreign governments to undermine it.
Let’s hope, for the sake of consumers, America’s oil and gas
producers can somehow drill past the roadblocks being erected by this newly
formed anti-U.S. energy cartel. For nature and people too,
Craig Rucker, Executive Director, cfact.org
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