Flashback to 2009: Administration Policies Sought to Discourage ‘Overproduction’ of Oil

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Red State:

 

Flashback to 2009: Administration Policies Sought to Discourage ‘Overproduction’ of Oil

 

 

Now: 'Just make up some stuff. The rubes will buy it.'

Posted by Steve Maley (Diary)

Sunday, March 18th at 8:30AM EDT

In May 2009, four months into the Obama presidency, retail gasoline prices averaged $2.32 per gallon. Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) wrote Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to express concern about the impact that the Administration’s budgeted changes in tax policy would have on the oil and gas industry. Secretary Geithner clearly laid out the Administration position in his letter of response (pdf link).

That was then, this is now.

In just three years’ time, retail gasoline prices are up 68%. $4.00+ gasoline prices loom as a key reelection vulnerability for the President; in response, the Administration’s rhetoric has shifted to “energy friendly”, but its original energy-hostile policies have not changed a whit.

From Secretary Geithner’s May 2009 letter:

The Administration believes that oil and gas preferences distort markets by encouraging more investment in the oil and gas industry than would occur under a neutral system. To the extent the credit (sic) encourages overproduction of oil,