No, I am not talking about George W. Bush. I just finished the chapter on politics for my book, and I created a number of graphics to show the behavior of oil prices, production, imports, and consumption through the last eight presidential administrations. Here is one of the more counter-intuitive graphics that you will ever come across:
Is There More to this Graphic than Meets the Eye?
During the eight years of the Bush Administration, annual domestic oil production fell every year (I have a graphic in the book that makes this even clearer than the one above). During the first three years of the Obama Administration, domestic oil production has gone up every year. In the book I put forward the reasons behind this, but I am curious as to what readers think. Why did domestic oil production increase under Obama when it fell under Bush, and should Obama get credit for this? I think there are two primary reasons behind this, but I will leave it to readers to discuss.
