Obama Gets Outsmarted Again

When the Smartest President in History (TM) was inaugurated, many of us looked at his policies on energy. We knew it would be green jobs based even though green jobs have never really been defined. We knew he would possibly attack coal-fired power plants and natural gas, which he has done through the back door using the EPA. We suspected that he would give huge incentives for electric vehicles as well. But none of us ever saw the utter failure that his energy policies would become in just three years.

This week alone he has managed to alienate one of our dearest allies and neighbors by slamming the door on the XL Pipeline project that would have given us ethical, dependable oil for decades and now he was given the finger by the world's newest emerging economy; Brazil:

BUENOS AIRES — Off the coast of Rio de Janeiro — below a mile of water and two miles of shifting rock, sand and salt — is an ultradeep sea of oil that could turn Brazil into the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, behind Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The country’s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, expects to pump 4.9 million barrels a day from the country’s oil fields by 2020, with 40 percent of that coming from the seabed. One and a half million barrels will be bound for export markets.

The United States wants it, but China is getting it.

Less than a month after President Obama visited Brazil in March to make a pitch for oil, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was off to Beijing to sign oil contracts with two huge state-owned Chinese companies.

The deals are part of a growing oil relationship between the two countries that, thanks to a series of billion-dollar agreements, is giving China greater influence over Brazil’s oil frontier.

Let's go back to March, shall we? Obama essentially scuttled US drilling and instead pushed hard for Brazil's right to do so. He befuddled energy policy experts and put all of our eggs in one basket by cozying up to Brazil who then decided that Obama was not the man for them and ran off to make a deal with the Chinese. I guess having our next enemy edging into our hemisphere to loot natural resources is just A-okay with the Obama administration.

So let's summarize this. shall we? Obama sucks up to Brazil while simultaneously squashing our own oil exploration business. Brazil says no thanks and makes massive deals with the Chinese who will definitely consider this an embarrassment for the US. China edges in and essentially has cornered the market in a part of the world that we once threatened to go to war over if anyone tried to exert influence. Canada came calling and offered us a clean, safe supply of oil that would travel by pipeline to our refineries, thus reducing the amount of energy used to ship it by truck or boat. Obama grovels to his green constituency and quashes the pipeline deal. Canada is now talking to China about buying the oil that was almost given to us.

In other words, Obama has gone from making us the powerhouse in the world of oil refining and oil exploration into a second-tier player. I guess with Obama, losing out to the Chinese in every arena we challenge them is good for America.

More here.