Already this year Democrats have scrapped oil and gas leases in Utah, permanently banned drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and nixed offshore drilling.
In fact, for decades Democrats have blocked efforts to responsibly develop this nation’s energy resources, transforming vast areas of opportunity into “The No Zone.”
But, not Brazil…
Fareed Zakaria interviewed Brazilian President Ignacio Lula da Silva yesterday day on CNN. During the interview President Lula said that Brazil would extract its first barrel of oil from offshore reserves this May. Lula was very excited to announce that Brazil will now become a great oil producing nation.
For some reason this did not get much play…
From the CNN transcript:
ZAKARIA: You know there are many people who say, actually, it is because of high oil prices, high natural gas prices, high agriculture prices. Brazil has ridden what people call the commodity boom. When there was an offshore discovery of oil, you said God is Brazilian.
Now, with oil at $40 a barrel, is God still Brazilian? Will you be able to manage all the things you’re describing with commodity prices going down rather than up?
LULA (voice of interpreter): Brazil does not want to become an exporter of crude oil. No. We want to be a country that exports oil byproducts — more gasoline, high-quality oil — and to strengthen the petrochemical industry.
And, of course, I am very happy about the fact that we’ve managed to find oil. Now, next May 1st we will extract the first barrel of oil from 6,000 meters in deep waters, which is an extraordinary technological conquest for Petrobras and for Brazil.
It’s this, a (ph) sign (ph) that the economy should be intimately linked to the productive sector. A country has to grow. A bank has to grow. And a person has to grow while producing something concrete, not speculating with something.
And so, that’s why I am convinced that Brazil will continue to be a major agricultural commodity producer in the world, and, with God’s help, a great producer of oil.
But we are going to work so that the prices are as fair as possible, because, after all, we need to lift millions of people in India, millions of people from Africa, millions of people from Latin America out of poverty.
They want to have breakfast in the morning. They want to have lunch. They want to have dinner, study, have access to culture. They want barely anything.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back with President Lula of Brazil.
Then there are Democrats who continue to block the development of this nation’s domestic energy reserves.
Some world leaders get it.
Some don’t.
Related… American Media: Cheap Gas From Coal Is ‘Bad News’
