The Wall Street Journal today reported on a statement by the International Energy Agency’s governing board, calling on oil producing countries to increase their output to “help avoid the negative global economic consequences which a further sharp market tightening [i.e., higher oil prices] could cause.”

Here’s the full IEA statement:

The IEA Governing Board, at its regular quarterly meeting on 18-19 May, examined oil market developments and their impact on the global economy. Despite a near-10% correction since 5 May, oil prices remain at elevated levels driven by market fundamentals, geopolitical uncertainty and future expectations. The IEA Governing Board expressed serious concern that there are growing signs that the rise in oil prices since September is affecting the economic recovery by widening global imbalances, reducing household and business income, and placing upward pressure on inflation and interest rates. As global demand for oil increases seasonally from May to August, there is a clear, urgent need for additional supplies on a more competitive basis to be made available to refiners to prevent a further tightening of the market.
Additional increases in prices at this stage of the economic cycle risk derailing the global economic recovery and are neither in the interest of producing nor of consuming countries. Oil importing developing countries are most likely to be seriously affected by high oil prices, undermining their economic and social well-being. In these circumstances, enhancing consumer-producer dialogue is urgently important to reach both short- and long-term solutions. The Governing Board urges action from producers that will help avoid the negative global economic consequences which a further sharp market tightening could cause, and welcomes commitments to increase supply. We stand ready to work with producers as well as non-member consumers; in this constructive spirit, we are prepared to consider using all tools that are at the disposal of IEA member countries.

This blog has made a theme of President Barack Obama’s war on domestic energy production. See here, here, here, and here. Here’s to hoping that the President heeds the IEA’s request.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the President’s energy speech yesterday. I get the goal: Reduce oil imports 30 percent in a decade. But what I don’t get, at all, is the plan to achieve that goal. The President’s “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future” doesn’t make any sense.

Consider, for example, his “Blueprint” for oil. It’s all over the place.

In the beginning of the speech, the President mocked the idea of “drill, baby, drill.” He said,

“We’ve been down this road before. Remember, it was just three years ago that gas prices topped $4 a gallon…It hit a lot of people pretty hard. But it was at the height of the political season, so you had a lot of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians waving three point plans for two dollar gas—you remember ‘drill, baby, drill?’—when none of it would really do anything to solve the problem. Imagine that in Washington.”

So, the President believes that “drill, baby, drill” would not “do anything to solve the problem.” Yet only moments later, he seemed to change his mind. He told the audience,

“Meeting this new goal of cutting our oil dependence depends largely on two things: finding and producing more oil at home, and reducing our dependence on oil with cleaner alternative fuels and greater efficiency.”

So, the President believes that “meeting this new goal…depends largely on…finding more oil at home.” But “finding more oil” necessarily requires more drilling. How is this different from “drill, baby, drill,” which the President only moments before had denigrated?

As if this wasn’t confusing enough, the President then tacked again. His strategy for “finding more oil at home” (a.k.a. “drill, baby, drill”) is actually a sleight of hand meant to obfuscate the bureaucratic foot-dragging that has resulted in a de facto moratorium on new domestic oil and gas production. The President said,

“In fact, we are pushing the oil industry to take advantage of the opportunities they already have. Right now, the industry holds tens of millions of acres of leases where it’s not producing a drop—sitting on supplies of American energy just waiting to be tapped. That’s why part of our plan is to provide new and better incentives that promote rapid, responsible development of these resources.”

In this passage, the President was citing a highly politicized report that the Department of the Interior had issued a day earlier, claiming that more than 50 percent of oil and gas leases were “idle.” Setting aside the absurdity of the notion that energy companies are intentionally forgoing profits by sitting on valuable reserves, the Department of Interior report omits mention that many of these leases are idled because the Interior Department won’t approve exploration plans. That is, they are idled due to the Interior Department’s delaying tactics. These sorts of machinations, writ large, have reduced oil production in the Gulf of Mexico 300,000 barrels a day.

To recap the madcap: First, the President mocked “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Then, he recommended “finding and producing more oil at home,” which is synonymous with “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Finally, he pitched a plan that is in fact political cover for his Administration’s de facto moratorium on domestic energy production.

At the outset of his energy speech, President  Obama said that he intends to “get serious about a long-term policy for secure, affordable energy.” He proceeded to describe a wacky oil “Blueprint” that is far from serious.