WASHINGTON D.C. — Citing numerous examples of “embarrassing shortcomings” in data transparency at the Department of Interior, the Institute for Energy Research sent today a letter to Secretary Ken Salazar calling for the department to “totally revamp Interior’s data publication practices [and] publish complete, accurate, and useful data” for the American people.

“Recent problems with data about energy production on public lands is the direct result of failures at the Interior Department to provide accurate, complete, useful data on energy leases,” noted IER President Thomas Pyle in the letter to Salazar.

“Unless [the Interior Department] corrects these problems, it will continue to fall short of this Administration’s professed commitment to transparency.

IER lists the following examples of transparency failures at Interior:

• Failure to provide accessible and understandable data to the Energy Information Administration regarding energy production on public lands.
• A complex, unnavigable bureaucratic structure to compile and report data.
• Wildly inconsistent data formats among Interior Department agencies charged with providing data to the public.
• Unsearchable and impossibly opaque revenue tables presented in static text that is unable to be downloaded into spreadsheets and databases.
• A refusal to provide data for bulk download, preferring instead to protect Interior’s databases behind intentionally difficult query systems.
• An unwillingness to provide accurate data regarding leasing activity in the Gulf of Mexico, despite the intense economic hardship that the Administration’s moratorium, permitorium, and other regulatory hurdles have caused along the Gulf coast.
• A refusal to comply with President Obama’s Open Government Directive, which required all federal agencies to implement principles of transparency, collaboration, and participation.
• The inability to meet Interior’s own promise to “regularly update” its own Open Government Plan, which was last updated nineteen months ago.
• A refusal to include data on energy leases in Interior’s Open Government Plan, despite enthusiastic reports about population counts of horses and burros on federal lands and climate change.
• Unacceptable delays in implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, as charged by President Obama, though these global standards have already been implemented by Mongolia, Ghana, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic, and others.

The letter was cc’d to the following: Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Ranking Member Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Ranking Member Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-Maine), EIA Acting Administrator Howard Gruenspecht.

To access the full letter, click here.

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WASHINGTON D.C. — The Obama administration released today a draft of new Interior Department regulations regarding hydraulic fracturing that are designed to impose yet another layer of bureaucratic obstruction to full-scale development of America’s oil and natural gas resources. Additionally, the administration released a plan to close public lands in Western states to oil shale development, effectively limiting access to a region that contain more than 1.5 trillion barrels of recoverable oil.

IER President Thomas Pyle released the following statement in response to the administration’s actions:

“The new rules appear to run counter to President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, in which he pledged to “take every possible action” to increase production on public lands. The damaging effects that these new rules will have on job creation and robust domestic energy development cannot be overstated.

On the one hand, the administration wants to take credit for increased production on state and private lands and for offshore lease sales that were scheduled five years ago. On the other hand, the administration continues an ideologically-driven quest to stifle job creation in the energy sector and to raise the cost of energy through more regulation, more mandates, and more restrictions on affordable sources. At best, this administration is suffering from acute energy schizophrenia. At worst, the administration is using brute administrative force to hurt the oil and gas industries and reward its green energy cronies.

“It is hard to believe the administration’s rhetoric about greater energy independence when its every action continues to lead America further away from that goal. And with record job creation now happening in the traditional energy sector, this latest tranche of regulations demonstrates just how willing the President is to kill the goose that’s laying the golden egg.”

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For Immediate Release
January 24, 2012

“If the state of the union is actually stronger, it comes despite the policies of President Obama and not because of them.” — IER President Thomas Pyle

WASHINGTON D.C. — Tonight, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on the State of the Union. In his speech, President Obama called for greater domestic energy exploration, higher taxes on energy production, and more taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy. IER President Thomas Pyle released the following statement in response to the President’s speech:

“If the state of the union is actually stronger, it comes despite the policies of President Obama and not because of them. Tonight, the president claimed credit for ‘opening millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration,’ and he called for his administration to open ‘more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.’  He also claimed credit for the fact that oil imports are down, even though the drop owes more to the ongoing hardships experienced by millions of Americans who cannot find jobs or afford to drive in the Obama economy.

“Job creators and American consumers should welcome the president’s latest energy promises with suspicion.  Indeed, we must not forget that in the past month this administration has imposed one of the most onerous regulations on the American economy through EPA standards it admits will not have a measurable effect on health from the targeted emissions. Similarly, the president single-handledly rejected the Keystone XL pipeline permit and killed the chance for thousands of American blue collar workers to find good-paying jobs. Tonight the president offered a golden tongue on affordable energy, but for the past three years he’s clenched a green fist.

“The president continues to repeat the discredited mantra that America only has 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. The Institute for Energy Research released last month the North American Energy Inventory, which uses government data to demonstrate that America is literally floating on energy. Under North American soil is twice as much oil as the combined proved reserves of every OPEC nation combined. As for natural gas, we have enough on this continent to provide America’s electricity needs for the next 575 years at current usage. The president just isn’t being honest with the American people about the vast energy supply that is literally under our feet. His own government reports show it.

“And in the same breath that he extolled the virtues of natural gas development and called for higher energy taxes on the companies that produce it, President Obama continues to press for more taxpayer subsidies for Solyndra-style green energy companies. He wants to increase taxes for Americans on the energy sources they use in order to give his friends and contributors in the green energy business another massive handout. Financing America’s energy future by taxing our current energy supply will not increase our energy security or strengthen our global position in the energy revolution. It will, however, make energy more expensive for struggling Americans and the businesses trying hard to keep pace with foreign competitors.”

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WASHINGTON DC — Last week President Obama announced his rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline permit, an act that IER President Tom Pyle called “unconscionable” given the economic consequences. Within the next 24 hours, President Obama’s decision will result in $5 billion eventually going overseas to purchase oil from unstable petroleum regimes, and the amount grows by $70 million per day.

“Since his original delay, President Obama has now ensured that American consumers to spend nearly $5 billion on overseas oil when we could be developing and utilizing our own vast resources in North America. With more than 1.7 trillion barrels of recoverable oil under our soil, we have enough oil to fuel our present needs for the next 250 years,” IER President Tom Pyle noted.

In its analysis, the Institute for Energy Research has scored the economic value of the President’s decision to kill Keystone XL. Consider the following:

• The Obama administration approved $6 billion last year in voluntary dues to the United Nations.
• The Obama administration continues to fund the International Clean Technology Fund, which will cost U.S. taxpayers upwards of $3.3 billion dollars to help China with their own energy research and development.
• The Obama administration has requested $1.4 billion to fund its global climate change agenda at the State Department, USAID, and the Treasury.
• The Obama administration funded the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy with $9.1 billion in 2010. These funds went to provide for various solar power projects, to deploy wind and other “green” technologies, and to facilitate research on the conversion of plants into fuel.
• The Obama administration sought and received $3 billion dollars for ‘Cash for Clunkers,’ a one-month program that cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $20,000 per car.
• The Department of Interior is projected to spend more than $2.3 billion over the next ten years to purchase additional federal lands, despite the fact the federal government already owns approximately 650 million acres. Most of this land is blocked from energy development due to federal regulations and governmental indifference.

Last month, IER released a Keystone XL Pipeline Tracker that provides real time estimates of the dollars that U.S. consumers are forced to send overseas because of the President’s decision:

WASHINGTON DC — The U.S. Energy Information Administration published today the 2012 Annual Energy Outlook, which provides updated projections for U.S. energy markets through 2035.  IER President Thomas Pyle released the following statement concerning the report:

 ”The announcement today from the Energy Information Administration that U.S. oil production will grow to more than 6.7 million barrels per day by 2020 is good news for American consumers and the unemployed. Over the last three years, innovative technology has nurtured an energy-based job boom in places like North Dakota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. No doubt, the President is going to trumpet this report in tomorrow’s State of the Union address.

“But the devil is in the details. More than 80 percent of the new production in 2020 is expected to come from onshore drilling on private and state lands, while federally-controlled offshore and Alaskan production lag far behind. Of course, energy production is increasing onshore because of new exploration on private and state lands that are beyond the reach of the environmental radicals who populate the federal bureaucracy. Indeed, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson continue to block federal lands — both onshore and offshore — from energy exploration, and they’re just getting started.

“As a result, oil production on federal lands is down 13 percent from 2010, and offshore lease sales have plummeted to historic lows. The losses due to the Obama administration’s death-grip on offshore drilling and its unwillingness to open federal lands or issue timely permits for exploration far outweigh any energy gains that the White House may tout this week.

“America’s energy future can be bright. North America is the most energy-rich place on earth and the envy of every OPEC nation. The double-speak that the Obama administration offers on domestic production — taking credit for increased production while doing everything in its power to stop production and regulate fracturing technologies out of existence — would be laughable if it didn’t mean that millions of good-paying American jobs were on the White House chopping block.”

WASHINGTON DC — The Institute for Energy Research reiterated today the need for openness and transparency in the Obama administration’s handling of the Keystone XL pipeline permit, which the President officially rejected yesterday after more than three years of administration review.

On November 18, 2011, IER filed an original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the State Department seeking documents to uncover the truth about potential outside political pressure on the permit review process.  In light of the administration’s actions this week — and the State Department’s failure to comply with FOIA statues — IER sent a second letter to the State Department today.

“The recommendation by the State Department and the President’s subsequent denial warrant the strictest scrutiny by the American people,” IER Director of Regulatory Affairs Dan Simmons noted in the letter.  ”These developments heighten the need to ensure that the Department’s actions over the course of its three-year evaluation of the Keystone XL pipeline permit were consistent, fair, and thorough.”

“IER is concerned that improper political influence has been exerted on the State Department . . . to delay the permit and ultimately reject it,” Simmons added.

Recently, the State Department granted a FOIA request from Friends of the Earth, a environmentalist organization that opposes the Keystone XL pipeline and supports the President’s denial of the permit.  IER’s letter notes the “apparent double standard” being employed by the Obama administration.

“The failure to comply with the law and respond in a timely and thorough manner to our FOIA request is especially troubling given the Department’s compliance with FOIA requests from other organizations that are more supportive of the President’s agenda . . . This apparent double standard is a clear violation of FOIA standards and provides evidence that the State Department’s actions on the Keystone XL pipeline have been politicized,” Simmons wrote.

To read IER’s full letter to the State Department, click here.
To read IER’s original FOIA request, click here.

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WASHINGTON DC — Upon news today that President Obama would formally reject the Keystone XL pipeline permit, IER President Thomas Pyle released the following statement:

“Tens of thousands of American jobs died today because of the president’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline permit. For more than two years, the administration has delayed, hoping to get past 2012 without having to reveal the president’s true anti-job, anti-energy agenda. Because of today’s announcement, Americans will continue to send $70 million overseas every day to purchase foreign oil that could be coming from right here in North America.

Today, the president has clearly said that the creation of tens of thousands of American jobs and a stronger relationship with our closest trade partner was not in the national interest. Out-of-work Americans are surely asking themselves what nation’s interest the president is considering? It certainly isn’t America’s — not our energy security and not our economy.

Moreover, it is an insult to the American people that he president has to hide behind Secretary Hillary Clinton to kill Keystone XL. Rather than coming out and saying what we already know — that he has chosen to side with environmental radicals and the EPA against job creators and hardworking, taxpaying men and women — he’s blaming his failure on the inability to finish a State Department review within the statutory timeframe. That timeframe, by the way, was approved by a Democrat-controlled Senate.

The president’s actions today are unconscionable. It is raw political hubris at its very worst. Every time the President has wanted something, he’s been more than willing to fast track it. He fast tracked Obamacare. He fast-tracked his trillion dollar stimulus. He fast tracked cap-and-trade. He’s fast tracked EPA regulations and Solyndra loans. But today, he claims he doesn’t have the time to do a thorough job.

It’s time for this president to stop worrying about his own job, and start worrying about millions of Americans who haven’t had a job since he took office.”

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WASHINGTON D.C. — The interior department announced Tuesday that oil and gas lease sales on public lands increased 20 percent in 2011, generating more than $250 million in profits for taxpayers.  The fact, however, is that oil production on federal lands, lease sales, and revenue have drastically declined during the Obama administration.

“The American people need only to check their electric bills or the price they are paying at the pump to see just how well the Obama administration’s energy policies are working. Today’s announcement by the interior department that lease sales are increasing is misleading and disingenuous. The president promised to make energy prices “skyrocket,” and so he has. The American people deserve the facts about this administration’s anti-energy agenda, not more propaganda from Ken Salazar,” said IER Senior Vice President Dan Kish.

The Institute for Energy Research released the following facts to set the record straight:

Obama Claim:  The administration is increasing lease sales on public lands. Total leases issued on public lands were up 20 percent in 2011.

FACT:  Lease sales on public lands have steadily decreased over the last 25 years.

Obama Claim:  The administration raised more than $250 million in lease sale revenues in 2011, up 20 percent over 2010.

FACT:  Oil production on federal lands is down 13 percent in 2011: 97,721,813 barrels in 2011 versus 112,124,812 barrels in 2010.

FACT:  Offshore lease sales have plummeted more than $9.4 billion since the Obama administration took over. This means that Americans collected 258 times less revenue from offshore lease sales than they did during the last year of the Bush administration.

• 2008:  $9,480,806,620
• 2009:  $1,181,075,491
• 2010:     $979,569,294
• 2011:       $36,751,111

Obama Claim:  The administration is increasing the amount of federal lands available for domestic energy production.

FACT:  The average annual leases issued during the Obama administration is down 35.5 percent from the George W. Bush administration, down 50.7 percent from the Clinton administration, down 69.5 percent from the George H.W. Bush administration, and down 78.9 percent from the Reagan administration.

Washington DC — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Monday that the Obama administration would impose a new 20-year, million-acre ban on uranium mining for federal lands in Arizona, despite the fact that these lands hold the highest-grade of known uranium deposits in the United States.  IER President Tom Pyle issued the following statement in response to the administration’s decision:

“At a time when the U.S. is producing less than one-tenth of the uranium we need for our annual nuclear demand, Secretary Salazar has chosen to close off another million acres of prime federal lands and impose an arbitrary 20-year ban on new mining claims.  This latest power-grab by federal regulators is another example of the Obama administration’s willingness to use ideologically-driven energy policies as a means to control the U.S. economy.  Already, American consumers are experiencing the effects of the president’s agenda to stop, stall, and slow-walk domestic energy production.  Reports in recent weeks that electricity rates, gasoline prices, and other energy costs are skyrocketing serve to underscore the need for more domestic production, not less.

“Today’s announcement further compounds a man-made energy crisis that has been planned and executed in Washington D.C.  To push back uranium exploration in Arizona until 2032 greatly hinders our ability to meet the challenges of our energy future with clean, safe nuclear technologies.  It also appears to fundamentally undercut the administration’s own goal of reducing carbon emissions.

“American consumers deserve a comprehensive energy plan that utilizes the full array of our domestic sources, including nuclear power.  ’No’ is not an energy policy.”

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“Apparently U.S. taxpayers have yet to discover life after Solyndra.  Today’s announcement that a USDA-backed biofuels plant has been sold for pennies on the dollar — at a loss of nearly $60 million to U.S. taxpayers — further underscores the point that the federal government should not be in the venture capital business.

The Bush administration secured the Range Fuels loan, and the Obama administration doubled down on the bad investment.  At this rate, Uncle Sam may be outpacing Bernie Madoff when it comes to fraudulent investment schemes and zeroed-out portfolios. The Department of Agriculture, like the Department of Energy, should be held accountable for this abusive waste of taxpayer money.”

To read IER President Tom Pyle’s earlier op-ed on the Range Fuels loan, click here.

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