“Correlation does not imply causation” is certainly a rule President Obama learned while earning his law degree but something he has all but forgotten when it comes to his Administration’s dismal, job destroying energy policies. President Obama’s failed energy policies might correlate with America’s increase of oil and natural gas production but they aren’t the cause, as almost 100% of that increase has come on private and state lands, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

In contrast, a causation of President Obama’s failed energy policies is last year’s 14% drop in federal oil production and 11% drop in federal natural gas production, according to the Energy Information Administration. A causation of President Obama’s failed energy policies are gasoline prices that have more than doubled during his Administration.

Source: Congressional Research Service

President Obama’s anti-energy policies have directly led to far less energy development on federal lands and waters:

• In 2008 there were 2,416 new oil and natural gas leases issued on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land spanning 2.6 million acres. In 2010, under the Obama Administration, the number of new leases issued dropped to 1,308 and acres leased dropped to 1.3 million.

• The total onshore acreage leased under the Obama Administration in 2009 and 2010 are the lowest in over two decades, stretching back to at least 1984.

• President Obama effectively reinstated the offshore drilling moratoria lifted in 2008 and released a new offshore plan that keeps 85 percent of our offshore areas closed to new American energy production.

• According to the Congressional Research Service, President Obama’s offshore lease plan includes the lowest number of lease sales (15) ever offered in a five-year plan since the process began in 1980 – meaning President Obama rates worse than even Jimmy Carter.

• The Obama Administration has also delayed and cancelled several offshore lease sales – conducting only 11 out of the 21 originally scheduled sales in the previous 2007-2012 lease plan.

• The Obama Administration implemented a six month offshore drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico and made edits to a report to make it appear as though it was supported by a panel of engineering experts, when in fact it was not. The moratorium resulted in the lost production of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil and thousands of American jobs.

The cause of any increase in oil production during President Obama’s term is a direct result of his predecessors’ energy policies and he is now trying to take political advantage of their coincidental correlation with his failed Presidency.

In stark contrast to President Obama’s failed energy policies, House Republicans have passed over a dozen bipartisan onshore and offshore American energy production bills to create jobs, grow the economy and reduce our dependence on foreign energy. This includes opening new offshore areas to drilling, cutting red tape for renewable energy production on federal lands and water, blocking job-destroying regulations on American coal, allowing responsible energy development in a small portion of ANWR, and promoting clean, renewable hydropower. If President Obama was serious about making American more energy secure and putting some of America’s 23 million unemployed back to work, he would embraces these bipartisan solutions.

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