WASHINGTON — IER President Thomas Pyle released the following response to a speech given today by President Barack Obama at Knox College in Galesburg, IL. In a much-hyped speech on the American economy, President Obama laid out his plan to foster economic growth and a strong middle class. Pyle’s response follows:
“In today’s speech, President Obama once again assigns all blame for America’s economic strains on others while assuming all responsibility for economic successes that have occurred apart from administration policies. The president touts investments “in new American technologies” to increase domestic oil and gas production, but in reality, the White House is waging an all-out regulatory assault on affordable energy. Indeed, the U.S. is producing more natural gas than any country on Earth. And we are about to produce more of our own oil than we buy from abroad. These production increases, however, are occurring on state and private lands and are happening despite President Obama’s policies, not because of them.
Meanwhile, the administration presently engineers more onerous regulations to restrict “American technologies” like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Federal regulators have embargoed energy development on 95 percent of federal lands and waters, derailed numerous energy development projects and delayed others, most notably the Keystone XL pipeline. Add to that the President’s obsession with expensive boutique biofuels, increased ethanol mandates, fraud-laden renewable energy programs, costly and dangerous automobile regulations, and the rising gas prices that hurt America’s middle class most of all, and you have a perfect storm that promises to do more economic damage than any natural disaster ever could.
The President’s policies are not making energy more affordable. In fact, if the lesson of Obamacare has taught us anything it’s that this administration’s policies — however “affordable” the White House calls them — end up with bureaucratic delays, soaring costs, and greater strain on small businesses and working families. If this administration is truly concerned about the economy, it would stop promoting empty speeches and imposing costly regulations. Rather, they would promote policies that get government out of the way of American entrepreneurs who know how to create good-paying jobs and develop truly affordable solutions to our nation’s needs.”
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