fact vs fiction -
As of October 2011
There is now more oil and gas drilling occurring under the Obama administration than under the administrations of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and the second half of the Reagan administration.
“The number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States this week reached a record high in at least 24 years as producers scrambled to tap resources in unconventional oil fields in North Dakota, Texas and other states, data from an oil services firm showed on Friday.
“U.S. oil rigs rose to 1,080, the highest number on Baker Hughes’ data, which goes back to 1987. The oil-directed rig count this week is 55.4 percent higher than a year ago, when 695 rigs were operating.”
Obama: Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration. … Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right – eight years. Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.
Factcheck.org - All that is true — as far as it goes.
According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management,
37 million offshore acres were offered in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas exploration and production. The current 2011 average for U.S. petroleum production (through October 2011) is 7,782 thousand barrels per day, actually
the highest in more than a decade — since the average of
8,011 thousand barrels per day in 1998, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration. And EIA estimates that the current 11-month average for U.S. dependence on foreign oil for 2011 is 45.4 percent. That’s
the lowest since 44.5 percent in 1995.
But, as
we’ve reported, economists say the chief reason for the declining oil imports is reduced consumption, brought on by the recent economic recession.
And — what the president also didn’t mention — the annual average price of a gallon of gasoline was
$3.521 in 2011 — the highest in history. It’s small comfort to motorists that prices spiked even higher for a brief period under George W. Bush.
