Obama has announced that he plans to expand offshore oil drilling. By a lot. However, when you take everything into account, this is completely meaningless. In fact, the Democrats could have announced something like this in the Gang of 10 debacle without losing anything.
Oh, this is a great bit of propaganda. It makes Obama look sensible and changes the subject after the Obamacare disaster to be. However, as a practical measure, it’s completely worthless for two big reasons:
- You don’t need an outright ban if the government is run by a horde of leftist loons who make drilling costs prohibitive with overblown regulations, and…
- Vocal environmentalists and their lawsuits will hamstring any attempt to take advantage of this for years, a widely-known fact which will finish the job of preventing anyone from even trying to build rigs anywhere.
In short, it’s all empty words, a specialty of our current President. This announcement only amounts to Obama’s plan to expand oil drilling rhetoric. I’ll believe more when I see it, and no sooner.