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Finally, on Feb. 28, 2011, almost a month after he had been found in contempt, Obama granted the first oil lease in the Gulf of Mexico.
But while the Interior Department has since stepped up the pace of issuing leasing permits, Gulf oil production is still far below pre-Deepwater Horizon levels.
The month before the blowout, according to the Energy Information Administration, oil companies were pumping 1.6 million barrels of oil a day out of the Gulf.
Today they are pumping just 1.07 million barrels a day, a 33 percent drop in production.
All told, according to a 2012 American Petroleum Institute study, Obama’s Gulf oil drilling moratorium cost the United States more than $24 billion in lost energy investments and about 90,000 jobs.
Those losses make the $440,596.68 in legal fees the Eastern District forced Obama to pay the oil companies for defying its court order seem like a drop in the bucket.
Obama's hostility to energy production on federal sites is hard to ignore even though he has tried to take credit he does not deserve for increased production on private land. If he were not blocking increased exploration in the Gulf and if he would open offshore production in the Atlantic and Pacific coastal areas we could achieve energy independence sooner and crate thousands of new jobs.
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