If Obama is a Climate Leader, Why Is US Oil Industry Booming?

Despite President Barack Obama’s claims of climate leadership, the U.S. oil industry is booming under his watch.

Bloomberg Business journalist Jennifer Dlouhy reported on Tuesday that “U.S. oil production has surged 82 percent to near-record levels in the past seven years and natural gas is up by nearly one-quarter.”

The domestic fracking surge—a pillar of Obama’s “all of the above” energy policy—is key to this trend.

“Instead of shutting down the hydraulic fracturing process that has unlocked natural gas from dense rock formations,” Dlouhy noted, “Obama has promoted the fuel as a stepping stone to a greener, renewable future.”

Notably, Jack Gerard, CEO and president of the American Petroleum Institute, gloated Tuesday at the Sixth Annual State of American Energy event: “The United States begins this new year leading the world in energy production.”

However, the country’s largest fossil fuel industry organization is not satisfied.

“As the president’s last full year in office begins, we hope that he will take note of and help foster the U.S. model,” said Gerard. “We hope that he’ll note that the already heavy regulatory burden—almost 100 pending regulations and counting—upon the oil and natural gas industry could hinder, rather than advance what he hopes to be one of his administration’s defining legacies, environmental improvement.”

But Bill Snape, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, told Bloomberg he has a different take.