Rising Gas Prices Linked to Obama Drilling Ban in Just 1% of Evening News Stories

Since BP spill, anti-oil policy has been cited in only 3 network gasoline price reports.
By Julia A. Seymour The Business & Media Institute

Main Findings:

- Gas prices have risen almost $1-a-gallon since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, yet President Obama's drilling moratorium and other anti-oil policies have barely been mentioned by the networks in that time span.

- Only 1 percent (3 out of 280) of oil price stories since the spill has made any connection between the administration's anti-oil actions and the jump in gasoline prices.
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Out of 280 oil price stories since the disastrous pill, just 1 percent (3 out of 280) mentioned any connection between Obama's anti-oil efforts, such as the drilling moratorium, and rapidly rising gas prices.

Instead of asking whether Obama's anti-oil policies could be increasing the cost of gas, the networks blamed other factors such as Mideast turmoil or the "money game" played by speculators. Certainly, the turmoil in Libya, Egypt and surrounding nations has increased worries about oil production and can influence the price. But the networks also should have looked for explanations much closer to home.
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Obama and Federal Regulations Strangling Oil Development?

Even though gas prices had bounced up and down and were on the decline in May 2010 after the oil spill, prices have shot up in the past year. Gasoline cost $2.73 per gallon when Obama instituted his sixth-month moratorium on deepwater and shallow drilling on May 30, 2010. Prices are now more than a dollar-a-gallon higher. Pump prices have more than doubled since Obama took office in January 2009.

"After two federal courts said the moratorium was illegal, the Obama administration instead moved to a de facto moratorium, by issuing no permits, while speeding up the permitting process for wind farms," The Heritage Foundation wrote back in December 2010.
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