Recently, according to The Wall Street Journal, White House National Security Adviser James Jones "met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan." What loan, you ask? The loan of billions of dollars to Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned oil company.
The financing of offshore drilling in Brazil is important in light of the discovery in the Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin. Near Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is hoping for a big payday from this field. Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas, The WSJ article points out, and the U.S. Export-Import Bank has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter in the amount of $2 billion.
Remember when Obama came around to the idea that offshore drilling should be increased in our country? After increased pressure from the electorate and high prices at the gas pump last summer during the campaign, Obama agreed that more drilling activity is needed. Once in office, however, he reverted back to the old ways of the far left.
Sure, 'green' energy is good. However, all of that technology is far down the line into the future and methods like the wind technology used now is proving to be simply not feasible due to the high price of such ventures. Hopefully that will change. In the meantime, we need oil.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has won an appeal of the block put on the Bush administration's five year plan to open the outer continental shelf for oil exploration by environmentalists in federal court. Salazar said the sale of leases in the Gulf would occur August 19.
So, while Obama smears "Big Oil" as the bad guys and does all he can to take away tax incentives for the development and drilling of oil and gas, he is all for helping out Brazil. Odd, isn't it? He was all giddy over the Cap and Trade legislation out of the House before the summer recess. Called "cap and tax" by its opposition, even former Democratic Senator Tim Wirth - a former adviser on climate change for President Clinton - says "The Republicans are right -- it's a cap and tax bill." That from a report in Bloomberg. "That's what it is because they are raising revenue to do all sorts of things, especially to take care of the coal industry, and it makes no sense."
Aren't Americans worthy of the same oil revenue and production as Brazil?
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