LETTER: Obama projects wrong picture with financing

To the Telegram:

The Obama Administration has provided billions of dollars in financing to Brazil and Mexico so they could drill for oil and build a refinery in Columbia. Brazil has contracted with China for the oil, while Columbia and Mexico will largely keep their oil for their own energy. So, while these countries are indeed grateful, we will not benefit from their oil and our dependency on foreign oil does not change.

Yet, here at home, he has turned down the Keystone Pipeline and cut new drilling permits by half. In the areas where new permits were permitted (i.e., parts of the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska) the Interior Department plans to spend several years conducting geologic and environmental studies to determine if each area was “deemed suitable for development.” If not, no drilling could take place. With the exception of approving Royal Dutch Shell’s plan to drill four wells in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s north coast, the Obama administration has imposed regulatory hurdles which allowed very little actual drilling in the new areas. It should be noted that Mexico will be drilling in the Gulf of Mexico where we have significantly reduced drilling.

By financing these other countries, whose regulations are far less stringent than ours, it seems that this is not an environmental issue.

When our economy is in such dire need and unemployment is so high, why would our President finance drilling in foreign countries and not advance drilling or the Keystone Pipeline right here at home? Not only would it reduce our oil dependency but it would provide thousands of jobs and give a much needed boost to our economy. Something is very wrong with this picture.

Tom Berg,

Danbury

Tags: opinion, letters