I just submitted a comment as follows. Whether it will be published is an open question!

'The observation that President Obama 'doesn't know squat about energy production' is a really easy thing to say, but the problem is that very few people know very much about energy production and the money flows associated with the industry. This is no accident. The industry goes out of its way to make sure that the accessible information is well managed and adds up to chaos and confusion rather than clarification. As a former corporate CFO and a professionally trained accountant, I am appalled at the way the rules and regulation serve to make it very difficult for the interested public and the political community to understand what is going on.'

Cole: 'The president doesn't know squat about energy production'

Oklahoma is one of the nation's top energy states, so it's no surprise that its senators and representatives are opposed to President Obama's energy and environmental policies. What is surprising, however, is the intensity of their reactions to Obama's proposal to do away with $4 billion worth of energy industry tax breaks.

The proposal was contained in a letter from the president to Congress, but Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Sooner state's senior senator, noted that the Democratic Senate has voted 61-35 against the idea just a few months ago. 'He now wants Congress to do exactly the opposite,' Inhofe told the Daily Oklahoman. 'His letter is merely a distraction from what every American knows can help restrain rising prices: increase supply, that is, increase American energy production.'

Similarly, Rep. Tom Cole, minced no words, saying Obama 'doesn't know squat about energy production.' As a result, Cole added in an interview with the Oklahoman, 'we get great politics out of the White House. We just don't get great policy' because the president doesn't understand the differences in operations and priorities between an Exxon Mobil and a small independent producer.

Similarly, Rep. Dan Boren, Cole's Democratic colleague on the Oklahoma delegation, told the Tulsa World that the president should either lead in the right direction on energy issues or get out of the way so somebody else can do it: 'Americans are tired of empty rhetoric on both sides and want a real plan. If the president doesn't want to stand up and be a leader, then his silence would be appreciated from people who are trying to find solutions.'

Rep. John Sullivan, a Republican, also told the Tulsa World, that 'targeting the oil and gas industry with tax increases would not only raise gas prices even higher, but it would place hundreds of thousands of Oklahoma jobs in jeopardy of being eliminated or shipped overseas.'

Sullivan pointed out that the oil and gas industry employs more than 300,000 people in Oklahoma and 9.2 million nationwide, who pay almost $100 million per day in taxes to the federal government.

HT: Matt Dempsey of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee minority press office, who may well be the hardest working communications guy in the Senate.

UPDATE: Kish sees energy chickens coming home to roost

Institute for Energy Research vice president Dan Kish isn't from Oklahoma, but he know energy issues as well as anybody in the nation's capital. He's not impressed with Obama's call on OPEC to remember that higher energy prices hurt the U.S. economy (a reminder that no doubt elicited a flood of crocodile tears from its recipients).

Here's Kish:

'The president now says his administration is pushing major oil producers to increase oil output in an effort to lower prices. What he really needs is to have someone tell the government of the world’s third largest oil producer to boost output. In case he is unaware, that oil producer is the United States.

'He could do that at his next cabinet meeting by telling EPA to stop holding up Shell’s drilling in Alaska and by telling Secretary Salazar to stop closing access to our nation’s energy supplies, which the Congressional Research Service says are larger than any country on earth.

'The president is beginning to look like the Ugly American in his attempts to point the finger of blame anywhere but his record, which includes seeking higher taxes on energy and stopping energy production wherever possible. It requires a suspension of disbelief to accept his protests about higher energy prices when that is his policy. His chickens are coming home to roost.'

For more from Kish and IER, go here.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/04/cole-president-doesnt-know-squat-about-energy-production#ixzz1KkXtwWbm