News Release

Myths of Energy Independence

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STEVE CLEMONS
Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and is the publisher of the political blog The Washington Note.

ROBERT BRYCE
Bryce‘s latest book is Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence.” He is the managing editor of Energy Tribune and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He said today: “Today, during his speech announcing the decision to allow increased offshore drilling, President Obama used the most hackneyed phrase in modern American politics: he said the move was needed to assure ‘energy independence.’ The idea that the U.S., the world’s biggest producer, and biggest consumer of energy, should be independent of the world’s single biggest industry, the $5 trillion-per-year global energy sector, is ludicrous on its face. The fact that Obama used the phrase provides yet another indicator of the intellectual poverty of our energy debate.”

Background: While many politicians and pundits talk of a “dependence on Mideast oil” (for example, Rep. Henry Waxman: “We’re so dependent on importing oil from the Middle East”), in fact, the countries the U.S. gets the most oil from are Canada, Mexico and Nigeria. See U.S. Energy Information Administration’s web page.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167