Oil War: The ad battle between ‘Big Oil’ and DNC, Part 2
The Democratic National Committee quickly rallied to the president’s defense after the American Energy Alliance aired its attack ad. The group released a video of its own that references the commercial and tells viewers to remember “what they bought” as an image of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney appears.
DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) teamed up with Democratic Party communications director Brad Woodhouse to push some rhetoric of their own in a news conference.
We’ve already examined the DNC claims that deal with a rise in oil production and with so-called oil subsidies, but we’ll do it again. We also looked into the issue of whether “Big Oil” or the American Energy Alliance somehow bought Romney.
The Facts
U.S. domestic oil production has indeed reached an eight-year high, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. In addition, the U.S. drilling-rig count is “higher than any year since the early 1980s,” as The Washington Post noted in an article earlier this month.
Oil war: the ad battle between ‘Big Oil’ and DNC, Part 1
The pro-oil American Energy Alliance and the Democratic National Committee exchanged barbs this week over the president’s energy policies, providing a preview of the hard-hitting rhetorical campaigns and rapid-response reactions that will take place as the general election nears.
AEA claimed that it will spend $3.6 million airing the 30-second advertisement in eight states “in the largest effort of its kind in AEA’s history.”
We’ll examine these ads in the order they were released, looking at the American Energy Alliance commercial first and moving to the DNC video in a later column.
The American Energy Alliance ad mostly recycled and consolidated a number of claims we’ve already fact-checked, but it’s easy to see why this group dragged them back out. The price of gas is at the forefront of voters’ minds, and it’s likely to stay that way until November, with economists predicting that prices will remain high through the summer.
Let’s review the facts one more time, knowing it probably won’t be our last.
The Facts
The first claim in this ad suggests that the president opposed oil drilling in Alaska. A Washington Post article from April 2010 reported that Obama actually approved what was perhaps “the biggest expansion of offshore energy exploration in half a century” when he opened the door to drilling in areas that included waters off Alaska’s coast.
Obama and new pipelines that ‘circle the Earth’
“Under my administration … we've added enough oil and gas pipeline to circle the Earth and then some.”
— President Obama, remarks on oil and gas subsidies, March 29, 2012
A number of readers have asked about this claim by the president, wondering if it was correct.
Well, yes, but it’s kind of meaningless — and it’s missing some important context.
Obama clearly made this claim in order to rebut suggestions that the administration is opposed to building pipelines, principally the Keystone XL pipeline. We have explored some of the erroneous claims made about that pipeline project before.
But is the president straining too hard with this claim? Let’s explore.
The Facts
The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 24,091.55 miles, so we will use that as our guidepost.
Romney and ‘outsourcing’: Biden’s out-of-context fact
(Kevin E. Schmidt/AP)
“Despite the fact that millions of taxpayer dollars were flowing to companies outsourcing state services like overseas call centers, he vetoed a bill passed by the Massachusetts legislature that would have stopped the state from outsourcing contracts overseas, state contracts…No, I really mean it. I mean, that’s one, when I was told about it, I said, ‘I’m not going to say that until you fact check that for me again.’ I mean, think about it. It’s one thing for the local company to outsource a call service, but for the state government to outsource a call service that’s set up to answer questions for people in the state about a problem they have with the government, to outsource that, denying folks in Massachusetts the jobs that are attended to that.”
— Vice President Biden, remarks in Davenport, Iowa, March 28, 2011
Since the vice president brought it up, let’s delve into some ancient Massachusetts history again.
We were dubious about this charge when the pro-Obama Super PAC claimed, in a slashing web ad, that American jobs were “relocated” when Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts. But it’s another matter when the vice president levels the charge – and says it’s been fact checked.
We always caution readers to be wary of claims made about particular votes — or in this case, a veto. What is the context for that person’s action?
The Facts
Several months before the bill had landed on Romney’s desk in 2004, the governor proposed a $29-million plan to curb outsourcing of jobs out of the state, according to a March 23 article on the front page of The Boston Globe. But the plan landed with a thud and did not get very far in the Democratic-controlled legislature.
Mitt Romney and Russia: ‘Geopolitical foe’ at the U.N.?
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev speaks in Seoul about Romney’s comments
(YEKATERINA SHTUKINA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
“I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation that lines up with the world’s worst actors, of course the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran, and nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough, but when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them, when [Syrian President] Assad, for instance, is murdering his own people, we go to the United Nations and who is it that always stands up for the world’s worst actors? It is always Russia, typically with China alongside, and so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council, that has the heft of the Security Council, and is of course a massive security power — Russia is the geopolitical foe.”
— Mitt Romney, March 26, 2012
The former Massachusetts governor made these remarks during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in response to Obama’s open-mike flub with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. (Obama was overheard asking for “space” concerning a dispute over missile defense, saying he would have more “flexibility” for a deal if he wins re-election.)
We will leave to pundits to decide whether Romney’s reference to Russia as a “geopolitical foe” is a Cold War throwback. (Medvedev thinks so, saying the comments “smelled of Hollywood.”) But we were curious if Romney is correct to claim that Russia is “always” defending “bad actors” at the United Nations.
The Facts
Russia is one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, along with China, France, Britain and the United States. Ten other countries rotate, with two-year terms, but only the permanent members have the power to block a Security Council resolution with a single “no” vote.
Who has the better regulatory record — Obama or Bush?
(Michael S. Williamson — Washington Post)
“Over the Obama administration’s first three years, the net benefits of regulations reviewed by OIRA and issued by executive agencies exceeded $91 billion — 25 times the corresponding number in the [George W.] Bush administration and more than eight times the corresponding number in the Clinton administration.”
“In the last 10 fiscal years, the highest costs were imposed in 2007. The last three years of the Bush administration saw higher regulatory costs than the first three years of the Obama administration. If you're looking for the year with the highest regulatory costs on record, you'll have to go all the way back to 1992, under President George H.W. Bush.”
— From an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune by White House regulatory chief Cass Sunstein, March 19, 2012
“In terms of just the facts, the Obama administration’s issued fewer final rules in the first three years than the [George W. Bush] administration did in the first three years.
— Sunstein during Politico breakfast, March 20, 2012
The president’s opponents have accused him of stunting the economic recovery with a barrage of harmful new regulations ranging from a supposed “permatorium” on offshore oil drilling to stricter rules aimed at reducing farm dust — neither of which has actually taken effect during Obama’s term.
Cass Sunstein, who heads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House budget office, argued against these critics in a Chicago Tribune opinion article titled “Why regulations are good — again.” He wrote that the number of new rules has decreased under President Obama and that estimated net monetary benefits of major rules has reached a staggering level in comparison with the first three years of the previous two administrations.
We don’t take issue with Sunstein defending the president’s regulatory policies. He has every right to do that, especially if he provides valid data to back up his claims — which he did in this case. But his op-ed, along with all the numbers he mentioned, suggest that the current administration has achieved far greater results than those of the past 20 years. He was especially hard on the Bushes in this regard.
We reviewed Sunstein’s claims to find out whether his figures tell the whole story. (Note: all figures are inflation-adjusted 2001 numbers and the years mentioned are fiscal years that end on Sept. 30.)
The Facts
Obama has issued several executive orders directing federal agencies to avoid redundant, conflicting and excessively burdensome regulations, presumably to avoid any chilling effect that such rules would have on an already mild economic recovery. The past three presidents have issued similar orders.
‘Obamacare:’ Twice as much as estimated?
“The health care law “is going to come with a price tag pretty hefty, of $1.76 trillion. That’s twice as much as originally thought.”
— Voiceover in new National Republican Senate Committee Web ad, March 22, 2012
With the Obama health care law now being argued before the Supreme Court, perhaps it is time for a refresher course on its costs.
A Web ad — titled “Obamacare Fact Check” — released last week by the NRSC is a case in point. Among its many charges of “promises broken” is the suggestion that the health care law already costs twice as much as originally estimated. Is that really the case, given that key provisions of the law have not even taken effect?
The Facts
First of all, a caveat: all of these budget numbers must be examined with the skepticism. The Congressional Budget Office does as good a job as possible, but its numbers are only estimates — and no one can truly predict the state of the economy and health care years from now, let alone the real impact of the law.
Obama’s Solyndra shuffle
(JASON REED/REUTERS)
“Obviously, we wish Solyndra hadn’t gone bankrupt. Part of the reason they did was because the Chinese were subsidizing their solar industry and flooding the market in ways that Solyndra couldn’t compete. But understand: This was not our program, per se. Congress — Democrats and Republicans — put together a loan guarantee program because they understood historically that when you get new industries, it’s easy to raise money for startups, but if you want to take them to scale, oftentimes there’s a lot of risk involved, and what the loan guarantee program was designed to do was to help startup companies get to scale.”
— President Obama, interview with American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” March 21, 2012
“We can see the positive impacts right here at Solyndra. Less than a year ago, we were standing on what was an empty lot. But through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. This new factory is the result of those loans… Before the Recovery Act, we could build just 5 percent of the world’s solar panels. In the next few years, we’re going to double our share to more than 10 percent.”
— Obama, remarks at Solyndra Inc., Fremont, Calif., May 26, 2010
Success has a thousand fathers. Failure is an orphan.
We were reminded of that aphorism when we saw Obama’s comments this week regarding the origin of the government loan program that funded now-bankrupt Solyndra. What was once touted as an administration achievement is now cast as a bipartisan effort that preceded Obama — in effect, the reverse of that aphorism.
Which is it? As it happens, there is a bit of a fact-checker dispute on this matter, with Politifact saying it mostly started under George W. Bush and Factcheck.org arguing that the administration is parsing its words because the loan to Solyndra was funded through Obama’s stimulus bill. So Obama’s statement gives us an opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
The Facts
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed into law by Bush, under section 1703 of Title XVII, included loan guarantee funding to promote innovative clean energy technologies. Solyndra had applied for a loan under 1703, but no loans were made by the time Bush left office.
Romney and the individual mandate, again
There’s been a considerable amount of discussion lately about whether Mitt Romney’s old campaign comments and op-eds provide proof that he actually supports a federal mandate, contrary to what he claims and what Fact Checker Glenn Kessler determined about the matter in a previous column. Still, critics such as Rick Santorum continue to pound home the notion that the former governor advocated a national insurance requirement.
Romney has stood firmly behind his Bay State mandate but swears that he doesn’t support such a policy at the federal level. He has said states should decide for themselves how to improve their health-care systems. Our previous column noted that he has shown consistency on this issue, despite a tendency to explain his stance in convoluted terms.
Let’s once again review key remarks that Romney opponents have highlighted to determine what the GOP delegate leader really said, as opposed to what people assume he meant.
The Facts
First, opposing the federal health-care law is perfectly compatible with expressing a love for insurance mandates and thinking they can work for states that want to adopt them, as Romney has done. It’s like saying “Cardinals are pretty, and I think every state should adopt that species as its state bird, but I would never force them to do that — I don’t have the right.”
Pinocchios: Obama gets a downgrade; Romney an upgrade
“America uses 20 percent of the world’s oil, and we’ve got 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. I wasn’t a math major, but if you’re using 20, you’ve only got 2, that means you got to bring in the rest from someplace else.”
— President Obama, remarks on energy, Boulder City, Nev., March 21, 2012
“The fact of the matter is we use 20 percent of the world’s oil. But even if we drilled every square inch of this country, we’d still only have 2 or 3 or 4 percent of the world’s known oil reserves.”
--Obama, remarks on energy, Maljamar, New Mexico, March 21
“We can’t just rely on drilling. Not when we use more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but still only have 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves.”
— Obama, weekly radio address, March 17
“There’s a problem with a strategy that only relies on drilling and that is, America uses more than 20 percent of the world’s oil. If we drilled every square inch of this country — so we went to your house and we went to the National Mall and we put up those rigs everywhere — we’d still have only 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. Let’s say we miss something — maybe it’s 3 percent instead of 2. We’re using 20; we have 2.
“Now, you don’t need to be getting an excellent education at Prince George’s Community College to know that we’ve got a math problem here. I help out Sasha occasionally with her math homework and I know that if you’ve got 2 and you’ve got 20, there’s a gap. There’s a gap, right?”
— Obama, remarks on energy, Prince George’s County, March 15
In response to reader comments and new information, we are revisiting two previous columns and making a rare change in our Pinocchio rating for two unrelated statements made by President Obama and Mitt Romney.
The feedback we get from readers, both positive and negative, is invaluable. We also try to be consistent in our use of the Pinocchio scale, and are always willing to reconsider rulings in the face of new evidence.
Help us keep an eye on the 2012 presidential candidates by sending us statements to fact check in one of the following ways:
Latest Tweet
Issues, Political Ads