Administration's Opening of Western Gulf Oil Fields Called 'Charade'
Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, talks about the opening of Western Gulf oil fields.
The Obama Administration is opening up 20 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast for oil and gas exploration, but one non partisan energy expect calls the move ‘a charade,’ 1200 WOAI news reports.
“We are moving forward expeditiously to create jobs by implementing the President’s offshore oil and gas strategy for the next five years--a smart plan that focuses on the areas that contain the overwhelming majority of our energy resources,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. “With comprehensive safety standards in place, this sale will help us to continue to responsibly grow America’s energy economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
Salazar said domestic oil production is now at its highest level in eight years, and imports are now accounting for less than half of total U.S. oil consumption for the first time in 17 years.
But Bruce Bullock, who heads the McGuire Energy Institute at SMU, says that achievement is despite the Obama Administration, not because of it.
“The wording of ‘the all of the above’ energy strategy is political and even borders on a charade,” Bullock said.
He said the Obama Administration has cancelled more sales than it has approved over the last five years.
Bullock says the amount of oil available in the 20 million acres is not a huge amount....
“Any little bit helps,” he said. “When you’re talking about 200 million barrels of oil, that is essentially one nice size oil field. It’s not a lot.”