While pushing his own Big-Oil-approved energy plan, Mitt Romney held an energy event in Colorado in which he deliberately mislead Americans about the President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy plan to make the nation more energy independent.
No stranger to distortion, Romney once again lobbed inaccurate and misleading attacks that completely ignored the truth about the President’s energy record. Take a look at the facts that belie Romney’s rhetoric:
Gas prices:
The President is nearly doubling fuel efficiency standards which will help reduce oil dependence by 12 billion barrels and save consumers more than $8,000 in gas money per vehicle by 2025.
Dependence on foreign oil is at a 16-year low.
The number of working oil rigs in the U.S. has quadrupled to a 25-year high under the President.
Energy jobs
Under President Obama, the oil and gas industry added jobs, employing tens of thousands more people in the oil and gas extraction sector in April 2012 than it did in January 2009.
The Recovery Act investments in the clean energy sector created or saved 224,500 jobs as of the end of 2010.
Employment in the coal mining industry increased nearly 4 percent since President Obama took office, and reached a 15-year high in 2011 and in Appalachia, employment hit its highest level since 1997.
Coal
The administration has set a goal of developing cost-effective clean coal technologies for power plants in ten years, with an objective of bringing five to 10 projects online by 2016.
The President made one of the country’s most significant investments in clean coal research and development.
President Obama established a task force on carbon capture and storage (CCS) that delivered a series of recommendations on overcoming barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years.
Here are a few basic facts about Romney’s position on energy:
Romney would maintain billions in taxpayer subsidies to his Big Oil allies, despite the fact that the oil industry is pulling in record profits.
Romney would repeal Wall Street reform that cracks down on oil speculators who manipulate the energy futures market and will cap the oil supplies that traders can control.
Romney attacked the fuel efficiency standards which will help save drivers thousands at the pump by 2025.
Romney pledged to cut off President Obama’s clean energy investments in technologies ranging from clean coal to wind and solar.