President Charlotte Randolph in her "point of view" article in the Times Picayune of 3/13/15 follows a typical pattern of public officials who are incapable of telling the truth when it comes to the oil and gas industry and President Obama. Randolph's statement that "President Obama does not comprehend just how vital domestic oil and gas development is to heating his constituents home and etc." comes right out of the conservative's play book.
The author talks about how some areas are set aside to exclude drilling and that is holding back production. She then goes on to say "we import 40% of our oil, a baffling number considering that we have plentiful resources to produce all the petroleum we need." I'm sure Randolph is familiar with oil baron Boone Pickens since she knows so much about the oil and gas industry. He's the fellow who in 2008 was on TV every week reminding the people that the U.S. is importing 70% of its oil. Well by Randolph's number our situation has improved 30% and it happened on President Obama's watch.
When it comes to areas that exclude drilling the author has it all wrong. The federal and state governments are still offering huge areas for lease to the industry. Randolph was silent on the fact that the industry leases, owns or rents thousands of acres of land where they have not even drilled one well. In fact the industry participated in a lease sale in Louisiana concerning federal lands in the past few weeks.
There is a sad point in the article where Randolph said the President gave little consideration as to how the moratorium after the BP blow out would hurt Gulf Coast economies. The President was concerned about the 11 rig workers who were killed and their family and the fact that BP and the industry had no answers. The President made the right decision while Randolph was concerned with the economy, never mind about BP's negligence.
As pointed out in "PolitiDose" the oil industry will never make the U.S. independent of foreign oil (even though they have the capability to do so) as explained. The industry has always had its best years under Democratic administrations and they are having their best years under President Obama's administration.
Charlotte Randol[ph, President of Lafourche Parish became another public servant who has volunteered to be a mouth piece for the oil and gas industry. It was noticeable Randolph said nothing about the industry's destruction of Louisiana's environment that is subject of a lawsuit by the Levee Board and Jefferson Parish.
And that really says it all.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
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