Shell forced to scrap plans to drill in Arctic, due to EPA

Obama is a master of the persuasive lie. For example, he talks about how awful the high gas prices are, and how hard they are on Americans struggling to make ends meet. He talks about ways to bring down the price of oil, and that one way to do that would be to increase production.

Problem is, his munchkins in the bureaucracy--including the EPA--refuse to issue the myriad of permits the government insists they must have before drilling. Case in point:

Shell Oil Company has announced it must scrap efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. The decision comes after a ruling by the EPA to withhold permits related to air quality.

Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars studying geology in the area and developing drilling plans for exploration wells in the area. Shell has already paid the federal government $2.2 billion to lease the area for drilling purposes. Shell geologists believe the area could hold as much as 27 billion barrels of oil--an enormous find.

The EPA claims drilling would be hazardous for people who live in the area. But the closest village to where Shell wanted to drill is 70 miles away from the proposed drilling site.

The EPA also ruled that Shell hadn't considered emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project.

The lead attorney for an environmental group trying to block drilling said that computer models showed "in communities like" the one 70 miles from the drillsite, drilling would increase air pollution levels "close to air quality standards.”

Got that? Not "would make air quality worse than permitted standards." Just "close to..."

The estimated 27 billion barrels of oil that the U. S. Geological Survey believes is in the U.S. portion of the Arctic Ocean would be more than twice as much as has been produce in Alaska's huge fields since they were discovered 30 years ago.

Production on the North Slope of Alaska is declining about 7 percent a year. The famed Trans-Alaska pipeline is carrying only one-third its capacity. If it gets much lower, pipeline officials say they'll have to shut it down.

So next time you're filling your tank and watching the total amount climb toward triple-digits, remember that you could have paid at least a buck a gallon LESS if 52% of the voters hadn't elected an anti-American, anti-capitalism, anti-free-market, anti-energy, anti-prosperity fraud from Kenya as president.

Yep, elections have consequences. If you're tickled with $4 a gallon gas, vote for him in 2012.