President Barack Obama, under pressure to respond to rising gas prices, will outline Wednesday a series of initiatives to cut the nation's reliance on foreign oil, including new initiatives to expand oil production, increase the use of natural gas to power vehicles and increase production of ethanol.
President Barack Obama, under pressure to respond to rising gas prices,
will outline Wednesday a series of initiatives to cut the nation's reliance on
foreign oil, including new initiatives to expand oil production, increase the
use of natural gas to power vehicles and increase production of ethanol.
Obama's latest attempt to take the initiative on energy policy comes as
Republicans in Congress are stepping up criticism of the administration for not
allowing more oil and gas drilling in the
U.S.
On
Tuesday, House Republicans said they would introduce legislation requiring the
administration to sell more offshore leases and to issue drilling permits
within a set time frame.
The political heat over energy policy is rising in tandem with the price of
gasoline and diesel fuels at filling stations, in a ritual that has become
familiar in
Washington
since
the oil price shocks of the mid-1970s. "We've been having this
conversation for nearly four decades now," Obama said during a March 11
news conference. "Every few years, gas prices go up; politicians pull out
the same old political playbook, and then nothing changes."
The White House will cast the new effort, a combination of new ideas and
previously announced initiatives, as an effort to deal with the nation's
long-term energy challenge, not just the high gas prices of the moment.
Obama will put forward an overall goal of reducing oil imports by one third
over a decade, with half the reduction from decreasing consumption and half
from increasing domestic supply, according to two people briefed by the White
House.
(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall
Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)
Driving the debate now is consumer grumbling about gasoline prices that are up
nearly 15% on average since Feb. 7, according to the Energy Department. In some
parts of the country, including
Southern California
,
gasoline prices have hit $4 a gallon--the highest levels since the gas-price
increase of 2008. Worries over rising prices for gasoline, food and other goods
contributed to a sharp drop in consumer confidence in the economic outlook,
which had been rebounding since the depths of the recession in 2009, the
Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said in a report
last week.
The administration Tuesday sought to focus attention on oil companies,
releasing a report from the Interior Department that said more than two-thirds
of the offshore oil leases in the
Gulf of Mexico
and
more than half of onshore leases on federal land aren't in use. These leases
give companies the right to drill but are neither producing oil nor under
active exploration, the agency said.
"This report shows millions of acres that have already been leased to
industry for oil and gas productions sit idle," Interior Secretary Ken
Salazar said in a statement. Obama also raised the issue of unused leases in
his March news conference, and his 2012 budget plan included an extra fee on
oil companies that hold idle leases. That proposal would need congressional
approval.
The plan being announced Wednesday will include "new and better
incentives" to rapidly develop these areas, according to one person who
was briefed.
Oil-industry representatives say the administration's complaints about unused
leases ignore the reality of the oil-exploration business, in which companies
scour large areas in order to find the relatively few tracts with oil and gas
reserves worth developing.
Republicans also have complained that the administration has dragged its feet
in issuing permits for new domestic production since it formally lifted a
deepwater drilling embargo in the Gulf after the BP oil spill.
"These bills will directly reverse Obama administration actions that have
locked-up America's vast offshore oil and natural gas resources," Rep. Doc
Hastings (R., Wash.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said
in a statement accompanying the bills Republicans outlined on Tuesday.
As part of its effort to reduce oil demand, the administration plans to propose
that the nation break ground on four new biofuel refineries to produce ethanol
in the next two years, according to two people briefed on the plan. It's not
clear what incentives or financing the administration will propose for the
bio-fuel initiative. The administration is also expected to back new subsidies
for governments or companies to purchase vehicles that run on natural gas for
their fleets, they said.
The administration has previously said it would continue ratcheting up fuel
efficiency standards for cars and establish standards for heavy trucks.
Obama is expected to reiterate a proposal contained in his State of the Union
address that the U.S. adopt a clean energy standard that would require that 80%
of electricity be generated from clean energy sources by 2035. The administration
has defined "clean energy" as nuclear power, natural gas and clean
coal, as well as renewable sources such as wind and solar.
Διαβάστε ακόμα
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:58
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:54
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:32
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:27
Τρι, 17 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 20:01