President Obama's Very Dishonest Campaign Ad Regarding Energy

Guest post by David Middleton

19 January 2012

Obama clean energy ad airing in Va.

A new ad from President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign that touts his energy and ethics record began airing in Virginia this week even as Republican blasted him over a decision to reject a permit for a proposed oil pipeline from Canada.

The 30-second spot (see below) makes a case that Obama’s policies have promoted clean energy jobs and reduced the nation’s dependence on foreign oil while enduring unfounded attacks funded by wealthy energy industry officials.

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This campaign ad is nothing but a collection of falsehoods.

Falsehood #1: “Secretive oil billionaires attacking President Obama”… The Koch brothers (and the oil & gas industry in general) have been anything but secretive in their attacks on President Obama.

Falsehood #2: The ad implies that President Obama has created 2.7 million “clean energy industry” jobs.

The 2.7 million figure is purportedly cited from a Brookings report. The report said that there currently are 2.7 million jobs in America that “produce goods and services with an environmental benefit.”

The clean economy, which employs some 2.7 million workers, encompasses a signifi cant number of jobs in establishments spread across a diverse group of industries. (Page 4)

The report says that the “clean economy establishments added half a million jobs between 2003 and 2010.” So… Obama didn’t even “create” half a million “clean energy jobs.” He didn’t even create half a million clean economy jobs. The Brookings report refers to “clean economy” not “clean energy” jobs. The vast majority of the “clean economy” jobs are not in energy… And almost all of those jobs were created before Obama took office.

More than 82% of the “clean economy” jobs listed in the report have nothing to do with energy production…

Waste Management & Treatment … 386,116 … 14%

Public Mass Transit … 350,547 … 13%

Conservation … 314,983 … 12%

Energy Saving Building Materials … 161,896 … 6%

Regulation & Compliance … 141,890 … 5%

Professional Environmental Services … 141,046 … 5%

Organic Food & Farming … 129,956 … 5%

Recycling & Reuse … 129,252 … 5%

Green Consumer Products … 77,264 … 3%

Green Building Materials … 76,577 … 3%

HVAC … 73,600 … 3%

Sustainable Forestry Products … 61,054 … 2%

Recycled Content Products … 59,712 … 2%

Green Architecture … 56,190 … 2%

Air & Water Purification … 24,930 … 1%

Green Chemical Products … 22,622 … 1%

Total … 2,207,635 … 82%

Falsehood #3: The ad implies that President Obama somehow played a role in the increase in US domestic oil production over the last few years… That is beyond ridiculous! The plays and prospects from which the production growth was derived were worked up, leased, drilled and plumbed-up for production over the last decade or more. The effects of Obama’s disastrous anti-drilling policies won’t show up in production data for quite some time.

Obama’s anti-drilling policies began in 2009 and were ramped up in 2010. This is either the most amazingly arrogant lie to ever come out of this President’s mouth or an example of his incredible ignorance of the oil & gas industry and energy in general.

The increase in US oil production has come from two main sources:

1) Shale plays like the Bakken.

The Bakken shale play has mostly been developed on private property. Very little of the shale plays have been developed on Federal lands – And the Obama administration has actively sought to further restrict development on Federal lands. Apart from the EPA, regulation and obstruction of these sorts of plays are mostly in the hands of State gov’ts.

2) Deepwater Gulf of Mexico discoveries.

The deepwater discoveries that have been brought on line over the last three years were discovered long before Obama took office… Many were discovered while Clinton was still in office. Construction and installation of the production facilities began long before Obama took office. On top of that, much of the increase in production was the result of the ongoing recovery from hurricanes Rita (2005), Katrina (2005) and Ike (2008).

Over the last two years, the Obama administration has almost paralyzed operations in the Gulf of Mexico with an unlawful permitorium and has aggressively tried to hamper the shale plays with fraudulent EPA attacks on fracking and unlawful efforts to make BLM lands unavailable…

This is all anyone ever needs to know about President Obama’s views on energy…