The New York Times reported on August 16 that American imports of Saudi Arabian oil increased dramatically in the past year. This is a concern due to rising tensions with Iran, Saudi Arabia's bellicose neighbor and the potential source of a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, the key export point for Persian Gulf petroleum. Irwin Stelzer notes at The Weekly Standard that the story fails to note the key point: Why is America forced to make up this petroleum shortfall?
Nowhere in this long, detailed story is there any mention of the facts that the Obama administration ordered the Gulf of Mexico drilling moratorium, and refused to allow the construction of the Keystone Pipeline to bring oil from Canada’s oil sands, the type that could replace Saudi oil, to our refineries. Not a sentence, not a word. One would not know that this is an election year, one in which energy policy is one of the issues being vigorously debated—unless one glanced at the page one story to the immediate right of the oil story, and noticed a long piece on Mitt Romney’s taxes.