Obama’s First Oval Office Speech: We need cap and tax!

Good morn­ing, folks.   As I lis­tened to Obama’s speech (full text here) last night about the oil spill,  I became more wor­ried than I have ever been before.  Instead of reas­sur­ing the peo­ple of the Gulf Coast, where I call home, that the cap­ping of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon well and clean­ing up the oil spill were top pri­or­ity, Obama decided to push for green energy leg­is­la­tion.  He decided to play pol­i­tics as usual and give a pub­lic relations/political speech instead of a lead­er­ship speech.

As the pres­i­dent started his speech, emo­tion was nowhere to be found.  It started out sound­ing like a professor’s lec­ture — bor­ing and monot­o­nous.  Then, as he started speak­ing about the clean, renew­able energy he wants for this coun­try, he became more ani­mated.  This is what he really wants for the coun­try.  Charles Krautham­mer summed it up per­fectly when he said that Obama is not a “clean-up guy” — he’s a “dreamer”.

This state­ment by Obama will be the defin­ing state­ment of this cri­sis, and his pres­i­dency:   “And sadly, no mat­ter how effec­tive our response is, there will be more oil and more dam­age before this siege is done.”

In his speech, Obama said the fol­low­ing regard­ing green energy: 

For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addic­tion to fos­sil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this chal­lenge requires. Time and again, the path for­ward has been blocked — not only by oil indus­try lob­by­ists, but also by a lack of polit­i­cal courage and candor.

Well, Mr. Pres­i­dent, I have to say that your admin­is­tra­tion just doesn’t get it.  With this cri­sis, you have “failed to act with the sense of urgency that this chal­lenge requires.”  You have lacked “polit­i­cal courage and can­dor” when it comes to this dis­as­ter.  You are sim­ply unable to sep­a­rate the chaff from the wheat.  What hap­pened with the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon rig was the fault of BP and your admin­is­tra­tion and not the fault of any other oil com­pany.  What you fail to real­ize is that the off­shore oil indus­try is a sta­ple for this region, and the six-month mora­to­rium you have placed on deep­wa­ter drilling will crip­ple not only our local econ­omy, but the national econ­omy as well.

Accord­ing to the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions, off­shore oil pro­duc­tion from the Gulf rep­re­sents 30% of all U.S. crude pro­duc­tion, and deep­wa­ter drilling rep­re­sents 70% of that.  And, com­pa­nies are being dri­ven to drill deep­wa­ter wells because fed­eral reg­u­la­tions bar any more shallow-water and land drilling.  So this knee-jerk reac­tion to shut down all deep­wa­ter rigs in the Gulf to ensure safety may sound pru­dent on the sur­face, but in fact it will do more long-term eco­nomic harm than this spill itself.

Get with the pro­gram, Mr. Pres­i­dent.  Like I have said before, we don’t need a politi­cian for pres­i­dent — we need a leader.  And you, sir, are not that man.

Related Posts:

• Debate Wasn’t a Game Changer
• Oil Spill’s Emo­tional Toll Leads to Appar­ent Suicide
• Inau­gu­ra­tion Day
• Look to the hills
• Obama: Being an Amer­i­can is not about “blood or birth”