Anything To Kill the Domestic Drilling Industry -- San Angelo Standard-Times

If you think the price of oil is high now and going in the wrong direction, just wait a few years.

One of the themes I stress on this site is the administration's goal to destroy the domestic oil industry. In fact, I have a full section devoted to that. See the sidebar at the right; you will need to scroll down a bit.

I am not alone. Today I wake up to a great op-ed in the San Angelo Standard-Times (Texas).

Consumers beware! If you think that the recent rise in energy costs hurts your pocketbook, just wait a few years after the Obama administration and some members of Congress get through putting the domestic oil and gas industry out of business.

Consumers will be more susceptible to shortages of energy and price volatility. The reality is if Washington makes it more costly and difficult to extract hydrocarbons from beneath U.S. soil, the more vulnerable Americans become to imported oil.

Washington's assault includes proposed changes to the tax law and more restrictions on oil and gas.

The president has proposed in his 2012 budget repeal of tax provisions to apply primarily to independent oil and gas producers, who drilled 96 percent of the wells in Texas in 2009 and produced 88 percent of the oil and natural gas. Some members of Congress have demagogued the issues by claiming Obama's proposal would end subsidies for Big Oil, but actually the tax provisions apply to small, independent producers that drill and produce in the U.S.

On the regulatory front, the Environmental Protection Agency in the last year issued new regulations of carbon dioxide emissions, taken over the air permitting procedure from the state of Texas, and falsely accused a natural gas company of water well pollution.

I think the breaking point was the EPA falsely accusing Range Resources, something I picked up on in my post title "Avoiding an Erin Brockovich Moment."