Give Credit When It’s Due

It’s impossible to feel sorry for a man who sought and won the presidency of the United States of America, but when he does things that are so clearly right, he deserves more credit than he’s getting.

We’re talking about President Barack Obama’s twin policies expanding offshore drilling for oil and dramatically increasing the average fuel efficiency of cars sold in the United States. In the first, the president reversed the position he took during the campaign in 2008 and has taken heat from both environmentalists and from congressional Republicans.

Environmentalists preferred the existing ban on offshore drilling and favor development of alternative energy sources. And congressional Republicans might have celebrated the fact the president had basically admitted he was mostly wrong and they were mostly right. Instead, they criticized him for not authorizing more off-shore drilling.

Energy policy is a sticky wicket and politically charged, but if there’s anything that Americans should be able to agree on, it is this: We need to be less dependent on other countries to produce the energy we need here at home. And the president has taken two major steps toward that goal by 1) opening up new domestic production and 2) reducing demand by increasing the efficiency of the vehicles marketed to Americans.

The first step may not be ideal, but it does not further our addiction to oil. It merely acknowledges that we can’t withdraw from our addiction overnight. In the meantime, every barrel of oil that we can produce domestically is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from some other country.

The second policy change is even more ambitious than Candidate Obama promised. The Obama of 2008 promised to increase fuel efficiency standards by 4 percent a year, but he increased that goal to 5 percent after he took office. The joint rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires automakers’ fleets to average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, moving up an earlier goal by four full years and beginning with 2012 models.

Yes, this is the kind of government meddling in private business that Americans love to hate. But think back to 2008, when gasoline prices were above $4 per gallon all summer. How many billions of dollars would have been available for other purchases if American vehicles had been more efficient? How many billions of dollars that went to foreign countries for oil could have been spent here at home? 

Political idealists on the left and right will always be disappointed, and policy can always be improved. But we do praise President Obama for pushing America toward energy independence, a strategic goal that is good for America’s security and economy, if not for the president politically.