Steve Forbes Blasts Obama's 'Anti-Energy Policies'

With gas prices spiraling ever higher, former GOP presidential candidate and Forbes Magazine Publisher Steve Forbes slammed the Obama administration’s reluctance to drill for oil on Wednesday, accusing the administration of having “anti-energy policies.” Forbes said Congress should rake administration officials “over the coals” on the oil-exploration issue. Republicans have been increasingly critical in recent weeks that the need to drill safely in pristine Gulf of Mexico waters must be balanced with America’s economic and energy needs — an issue that grows more salient with each hike in gasoline prices at the pump. “The Interior secretary is blocking these things, not allowing the permits to go forward,” Forbes said Wednesday morning on Fox News. “So even though the [drilling] moratorium since that terrible spill last summer has been removed, the fact of the matter is permits have been frozen. “So in effect the moratorium is continuing. That’s an administration decision. And when [Interior] Secretary [Ken] Salazar goes before Congress in testimony, I hope the Congress rakes him over the coals on it, and asks him, ‘What in the world do you think you’re doing?’” Also today, Forbes said in an Op-Ed piece for Politico that, "By freezing U.S. energy assets in the Gulf and keeping 97 percent of our offshore oil and gas off limits, our government, willing or not, is fueling an energy crisis that could bring this nation to its knees. Continued inaction in the Gulf threatens to force us to import an extra 88 million barrels of oil per year by 2016, at a cost of $8 billion."...more