Much to the chagrin of the left’s environmental base, Ken Salazar voiced Obama’s support for increased natural resource production in Alaska:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar came to Anchorage on Monday and said the Obama administration supports more oil drilling in Alaska, potentially including offshore Arctic development.

Salazar joined Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed for a meeting with Alaska business people and said the president’s feeling toward Arctic offshore drilling is “Let’s take a look at what’s up there and see what it is we can develop.”

It came with the standard try-to-please-everyone-speak that Presidents must use, showing concern for the unique challenges faced by drilling in the Artic Ocean. But the bottom line is Obama understands that this is something politically he must move forward with, as this is the low-hanging fruit in terms of sparking economic growth before the 2012 election. The support has come at a time when experts are increasingly discussing a potential “double-dip” recession and a continued stall in employment growth. Resource production is one area where the private sector really has “shovel ready” jobs, as it has added jobs throughout 2010-2011. Examples of specific projects in Alaska are here and here.

Increasing Alaskan drilling will also serve to prevent a shut-down of the Trans Alaskan Pipeline, which has been suffering from decreased production and could potentially shut down within the decade if production continues to decline. This would have severe negative effects on Alaskan GDP and employment, as Senator Lisa Murkowski notes:

Having stressed the horrifying effects that would potentially proceed if TAPS shut down, the senator suggested that Alaska’s greatest challenge today is to prevent the decommissioning of TAPS.

“TAPS is not just a pipeline, it’s our lifeline,” Lisa firmly remarked. “…Alaska’s oil production has declined by 36 percent since 2003, even as production in many parts of the Lower 48 has increased.”

The senator’s concerns not only stretched from this issue’s great impact on the state’s economic stability but also to the possible likelihood of North Dakota toppling Alaska from being the Nation’s second largest oil producing state next to Texas.

Sen. Murkowski believes that this is mainly caused by blockage of potential oil developers to gain access on Alaska’s federal lands while North Dakota welcome them with open arms. The result is gridlock for Alaska – boom for North Dakota, as what the senator said.

It seems likely that increased production in future years will prevent or delay a TAPS shut down. It also seems likely that Obama will not stand in the way of the KeystoneXL Pipeline delivering oil from Canada’s oil sands, despite strong opposition from wealthy actors.

Let’s acknowledge the irony here. From a copy of Obama’s prepared remarks today at Georgetown University discussing his administration’s energy plan:

But here’s the thing – we’ve been down this road before.  Remember, it was just three years ago that gas prices topped $4 a gallon.  Working folks haven’t forgotten that.  It hit a lot of people pretty hard.  But it was also the height of political season, so you had a lot of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians waving three-point-plans for two-dollar gas – when none of it would really do anything to solve the problem.  Imagine that in Washington.

The truth is, of course, was that all these gimmicks didn’t make a bit of difference.  When gas prices finally fell, it was mostly because the global recession led to less demand for oil.  Now that the economy is recovering, demand is back up.  Add the turmoil in the Middle East, and it’s not surprising oil prices are higher.  And every time the price of a barrel of oil on the world market rises by $10, a gallon of gas goes up by about 25 cents.

President Obama is decrying gimmicks and slogans (as he should be), noting their inability to achieve anything, with his newest slogan “Win the Future” in the background.

“WTF” indeed.

The most astonishing event this week was President Barack Obama endorsement of more oil production—in Brazil.  In a speech to a CEO Business Summit in Brasilia, the President said:

By some estimates, the oil you recently discovered off the shores of Brazil could amount to twice the reserves we have in the United States.  We want to work with you.  We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.  At a time when we’ve been reminded how easily instability in other parts of the world can affect the price of oil, the United States could not be happier with the potential for a new, stable source of energy.

This is the same President who has spent the last two years doing everything he can to reduce oil production in the United States.  Cancelled and delayed exploration leases on federal lands in the Rocky Mountains; the re-institution of the executive moratorium on offshore exploration in the Atlantic, the Pacific, most Alaskan waters, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico; the deepwater permitting moratorium and the de facto moratorium in the western Gulf.  The result is that domestic oil production is about to start a steep decline.  An article on Red State by Steve Maley summarizes the future effects of the Obama Administration’s war against oil.

Maley quotes an authoritative summary (PDF) provided in a recent publication by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration:

Off shore oil production in [the 2011 forecast] is lower than in [the 2010 forecast] throughout most of the projection period [through 2035] because of expected delays in near-term projects, in part as a result of drilling moratoria and in part due to the change in lease sales expected in the Pacific and Atlantic outer continental shelf (OCS), as well as increased uncertainty about future investment in off shore production. [page 8]

I’m all for more oil production in Brazil, but what’s good for Brazil would also be good for the United States.  Were the federal government to open some of America’s vast untapped offshore and Alaskan oil resources, it would lower our trade deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, provide billions of dollars in royalties to the federal treasury, create hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs not subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and contribute significantly to our long-term prosperity.  Given the economy’s current dismal long-term prospects, continuing to lock up our resources is detestable.

President Obama’s remarks in Brazil show that he understands this.  He clearly thinks prosperity is good for Brazil.  But it is something that he is working mightily to deny to Americans.  He and his administration have adopted policies that they know will reduce oil and coal production, raise energy prices, and make Americans poorer.  As the President said when gas prices reached $4 a gallon in the summer of 2008 when he was running for President, the problem wasn’t the price, but that prices had risen too suddenly. In fact, the Administration is full of senior officials who are on record supporting much higher gasoline and electricity prices, starting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Victor Davis Hanson takes a stab at explaining the background assumptions that have led to the left’s insane war against energy:

The administration’s energy visions are formulated by academics and government bureaucrats who live mostly in cities with short commutes and have worked largely for public agencies. These utopians have no idea that without reasonably priced fuel and power, the self-employed farmer cannot produce food. The private plant operator cannot create plastics. And the trucker cannot bring goods to the consumer — all the basics like lettuce, iPads, and Levis that a highly educated, urbanized elite both enjoys and yet has no idea of how a distant someone else made their unbridled consumption possible.

I think that’s part of the explanation, but only scratches the surface.  At its core, the modern environmental movement (and the Obama Administration has been staffed with professional environmentalists) hates access to energy because it gives people power over nature.