In response to the Obama Administration’s decision to make it far more difficult for energy exploration on federal lands, Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla., sent a scathing letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former U.S. Senator from Colorado, earlier this week.
“I am deeply disturbed by this administration’s continued hypocrisy with regards to American energy policy,” Boren wrote. “Your policy changes not only violate federal law, a law which you and President Obama both voted for in the Senate, but they are also inconsistent with the administration’s stated goals for an American energy policy that provides more jobs and strengthens national security.”
Boren noted that federal energy lease revenues have plummeted this year, thanks to the administration’s anti-energy policy. He also blasted Salazar for his disparaging remarks about energy companies that provide many good-paying jobs in Oklahoma, whom Salazar said had been “kings of the world” under the Bush admkinistration.
Why do policy-makers within the administration deny the connection between your so-called American energy “kings of the world” and the millions of American jobs they provide? The companies affected by these reforms are not global corporate conglomerates. Rather, they are smaller, independent producers that drill 90 percent of the wells in the U.S. struggling to stay alive in this dwindling economy. To these companies, and the people behind them whose blood, sweat, and tears have helped to build this country, statements such as your “kings of the world” comment are a profound affront.
Boren’s full letter is available here on his website.
