Rush actually corrected that a few lines later (see the transcript.) But while I was listening, something else popped into my mind, which I’ve not heard discussed:
Obama: “You know, the Panama Canal is being widened so that these big supertankers can come in. Now, that’ll be finished in 2015. If we don’t deepen our ports all along the Gulf, places like Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia, or Jacksonville, Florida, if we don’t do that, those ships are going to go someplace else. And we’ll lose jobs. Businesses won’t locate here.”
Forget the locations gaffe — what’s this nonsense about those ships (supertankers) going somewhere else “And we’ll lose jobs. Businesses won’t locate here.”
If there is a demand for oil that domestic sources cannot fulfill (and WHY would that be, Mr. Obama?) foreign sources WILL fill it, barring an embargo or a war. They will simply send it here on the same ships they do now, and it may cost a bit more than sending it on the new bigger ships. In fact, the deeper ports make foreign oil more competetive with domestic oil. Now one can have a howling good argument about whether that is ultimately good or bad, but the basic argument being made by Obama about the need for deeper ports is just ludicrous.
There is a further contradiction with Obama’s own policies in that the goal of bringing in more oil efficiently doesn’t sound particularly “green” to me. Sure, the transport is greener, but the usage of the oil being transported is surely the bigger factor. (That’s IF you buy the anti-oil bunk in the 1st place.)
If the deeper ports are needed for U.S. export trade, or military needs, etc., that is something else. But that’s not what Obama is saying at all.
Personally, it seems to me we’d be better off taking the money (for the deep ports) and using it to develop domestic oil supplies further. Obama would never do that, though.
I’m happy he corrected himself but I still can’t believe he didn’t know this.