Obma's Disingenuous Push For Natural Gas

It just amazes me that the national media and Americans, in general, are unable put two-and-two together when comes to anything that Obama says or does.

Last Thursday, Obama went to a Las Vegas United Parcel Service facility to give a speech touting the benefits of using natural gas. In that speech he said that our domestic natural gas resources could "power our cars and our homes and our factories in a cleaner and cheaper way..." In hitting home to the fact that we have massive amount of natural gas, he called the United States the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas". But, in so many ways, this new natural gas initiative by Obama is so disingenuous.

First off, our abundance of natural gas has only become a reality due to a new process of extraction called hydraulic fracturing (also known as "Fracking"). But, environmentalist have been against fracking for years; claiming that the process contaminates ground water and underground aquifers. So, it was no surprise that, shortly after taking office, the anti-fossil fuel and environmentalist-loving Obama directed his activist EPA to prove the environmentalists right. So, after three years of investigation, Obama's EPA released a draft report last month that supposedly proves that "fracking" does, in fact, contaminate ground water. At least in the case of the fracking activity being conducted in Pavilion, Wyoming. But, you gotta know, that if fracking is contaminating ground water in Wyoming, the Obama assumption will be that it contaminates ground water everywhere. And, just as in the case of the BP oil spill, expect Obama to eventually shutdown and slow fracking operation to a snail's pace. But for now, Obama is running for reelection and he wants to be seen as an "energy" president; and, so, he'll continue to push for the increased use of natural gas and our use of "clean fracking" to extract it.

Then, too, you've got to wonder why Obama picked this very time to announce his support for natural gas. Just, maybe, the timing had something to do with the fact that Obama just got through shutting down the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline and he was getting a lot of heat for doing it. After all, this new push for natural gas takes away some of that heat by making it look like he supports all types of energy to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Even though Obama knows that he will probably shutdown any fracking operations after he get's reelected.

To me, the United Parcel speech was just another Obama campaign speech filled with promises that will never be kept; like so many promises that Obama has made in the past. I also know that natural gas is no panacea to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Like the electric car, most Americans are not going to rush to buy natural gas-powered vehicles. Natural gas-powered vehicles are expensive to buy with a price tag that is at least $9,000 higher than a gasoline powered counterpart. They have half the range of a gasoline powered vehicle because gas requires consumes more volume than a liquid. And -- more importantly -- refueling stations are even more limited than electric plug-in stations. Once again, Obama's got it all wrong.