working for Them

Ace writes:

Saudi Arabia is refusing to cut production -- which they would ordinarily do, to prop up oil's price -- because they want to send oil prices low enough to punish American frackers, and maybe drive them from the market. (Fracked oil and gas is more expensive than easily-pumped fuel, and can only be sold at a loss at low prices.)

So all of these goods flow from expanded American energy production -- the Russian bear hobbled, the American economy growing, Middle Eastern tyrants with less money to spend on religious terrorism.

So of course Obama, the Shit-Fingered Midas, is stepping in to put a stop to all this.

Ace quotes from an Amy Harder story in the Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration is planning to release in the coming months a series of regulations on the oil and natural gas industry, a response to the nation's energy boom that also is aimed at burnishing President Barack Obama's environmental legacy in his final two years.

The coming rules--at least nine in total--would include the first-ever federal standards addressing methane emissions, stricter controls on hydraulic fracturing, drilling requirements in the Arctic, new rules governing oil shipped by trains and tougher standards on offshore drilling technology.

The repercussions for the industry could be higher operating costs and fewer incentives to drill on public lands. Mr. Obama and his environmental backers say new regulations are needed to address the impacts of the surge in oil and gas drilling and production.

Back to Ace:

Get this: Obama has blocked the Keystone XL pipleline for years, and this has resulted in more oil being transported by rail.

Obama's coming "solution"? Regulate the shit out of rail transport of oil and drive the price up.

And of course he's doing this without Congress.

So the frackers causing all these wonderful secondary effects are going to be hit by a double misfortune: The low prices they've caused will drive many of them out of business, and meanwhile a walking catastrophe named Barack Obama is going to ramp up regulatory costs on them as well.

250,000 energy workers may lose jobs because of the improved energy outlook they themselves created. And that's before Catastrophe Obama deliberately punishes them further.

It's almost as if he's working for Them, huh?