Bill Clinton: Drilling delays 'ridiculous'

By: Darren Goode
March 11, 2011 04:55 PM EST

Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that delays in offshore oil and gas drilling permits are “ridiculous” at a time when the economy is still rebuilding, according to attendees at the IHS CERAWeek conference.
Clinton spoke on a panel with former President George W. Bush that was closed to the media. Video of their moderated talk with IHS CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin was also prohibited.
But according to multiple people in the room, Clinton, surprisingly, agreed with Bush on many oil and gas issues, including criticism of delays in permitting offshore since last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill.
“Bush said all the things you’d expect him to say” on oil and gas issues, said Jim Noe, senior vice president at Hercules Offshore and executive director of the pro-drilling Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition. But Clinton added, “You’d be surprised to know that I agree with all that,” according to Noe and others in the room.
Clinton said there are “ridiculous delays in permitting when our economy doesn’t need it,” according to Noe and others.
“That was the most surprising thing they said,” Noe said.
The two former presidents both generally agreed on the need to get offshore drilling workers back on the job.
Clinton and Bush also agreed on the need for more domestic shale gas production, with Clinton noting that it has been done safely for years in his home state of Arkansas.
Bush — who referred to oil and gas in the discussion as “hydrocarbons” — described the anti-hydrocarbon sentiment in Washington as “dangerous.” He said while there is a need to develop new energy technologies, “we have to be prosperous in order to afford those technologies and, in order to be prosperous, we need to drill,” according to Noe.
Clinton was more cautious about expanding nuclear energy production, noting that can take a long time and is expensive. He also praised Bush for expanding wind energy in Texas as governor.
Energy only came up among the last couple of questions from the audience, with the discussion dominated by talk of the geopolitics of the Middle East and anecdotes and memories.
Clinton also said he was supportive of enacting a no-fly zone in Libya at a time when the Obama administration and other experts in the region are urging caution, according to witnesses.
The panel with the two presidents closed out the weeklong IHS CERA, which included more than 2,200 Obama administration officials, industry executives, former diplomats and others. The Clinton-Bush event was the only one at the conference that was closed off to the media, at the request of the former presidents.
Friday, President Barack Obama pushed back against Republican critics who blame his administration's policies for high gas prices.
Obama said that domestic oil refiners aren't seeing a supply shortage — they're operating at near-full capacity. Instead, he said the recent price increases come from global market unease and economic recovery in fast-growing China, India and Brazil.


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