By CALVIN WOODWARD
By CALVIN WOODWARD
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Rick Santorum says oil drillers in the Gulf of Mexico are being slammed by “worse and worse and worse” delays in getting federal approval even as gas prices go through the roof. Actually, the wait for permits is getting better and better. Newt Gingrich boasts that small donors are powering his Republican presidential campaign. In reality, one deep-pocketed financial angel and other big money people have been doing loads of heavy lifting, too.
A look at recent claims from the campaign trail and how they compare with the facts:
OBAMA CAMPAIGN on the automakers’ recovery: “With business booming, they repaid their loans.”
THE FACTS: The General Motors and Chrysler aid has not been paid back in full, and it is unlikely to be, contrary to the film’s narrator, actor Tom Hanks.
More than $1 billion of the $12.5 billion Chrysler bailout is not expected to come back to the government. The government has recouped more than $22 billion of its nearly $50 billion GM bailout after agreeing to take stock in return for most of its investment. But the government’s remaining stock would have to rise massively in value for taxpayers to get all their money back. If the stock were sold at some recent values, taxpayers would still be out more than $10 billion.
SANTORUM, speaking this week in Lafayette, La., a city heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry: The Obama administration “almost put this town under with the moratoriums, the delays in permitting that are getting worse and worse and worse and as a result, the ability for the men and women who go out and drill these wells and service these wells, to go out and earn an income, and more importantly for them to get that oil and gas into the shore so we can use it here in this country.”
THE FACTS: Permit approval rates are actually getting faster for exploration wells, the type that was being drilled at the time of the BP well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
In 2009, before the Macondo well blowout, it took the government 46 days to approve a drilling permit for a new deep-water well. After the accident, the administration imposed a five-month moratorium on new deep-water drilling while it worked on new safety regulations to minimize the risk of another spill. The BP disaster released an estimated 200 million gallons of oil into the water, killing wildlife, soiling sensitive tidal estuaries and beaches, and closing vast areas of the Gulf to commercial fishing.
Once the moratorium was lifted, processing times for deep-water exploratory drilling permits were longer than before the spill — an average of 97 days.
But contrary to Santorum’s claim, the government’s performance is improving. Permit approvals are now happening on average in 62 days, more than a month faster. That’s 16 days longer than before the spill, but regulatory protections are tougher now.
Santorum also implies that the entire drilling industry was shut because of the moratorium. Yet, the temporary ban only covered wells drilled to explore or produce oil and gas in deep water. Wells already in production were not covered by the moratorium.
ROMNEY on whether Obama is responsible for high gasoline prices, speaking Thursday on Fox News: “Absolutely. He has not pursued policies that convince the world that America is going to become energy secure and energy independent. He held off drilling in the Gulf. He’s held off drilling out of ANWR. He said no to the Keystone pipeline from Canada.”
THE FACTS: Despite the former Gulf moratorium, Obama’s opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and his decision to delay not kill the Keystone XL project, the U.S. produced more oil in 2010 than it has since 2003, and all forms of energy production have increased. Offshore production alone surged in the first two years of the Obama administration after being on a downward trend since 2003.