It's GOOD that extraction of resources from public lands is down (if it is)

From Barack Obama's photostream on flickr

During the second presidential debate, candidate Mitt Romney accused President Obama of causing a decline in extraction of energy resources from public lands.  Although this accusation is misleading if not outright false, Obama could have derailed Romney entirely by agreeing with him and taking credit.

How about this exchange:

ROMNEY (what he actually said):  "As a matter of fact, oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production is down 9 percent. Why? Because the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands and in federal waters."

OBAMA (what he could have said):  "As President and steward of our federal lands, I am proud of the fact that the resources on these lands are managed and conserved.  Our federal lands are meant not just for our generation, but for the next and the next and the next ten after that.  Governor Romney appears hell-bent on extracting every drop of oil, molecule of gas and lump of coal from our federal lands as soon as humanly possible. Right now the private sector is preferring to find resources on private lands rather than public.  That is good.  Since that's the case, I believe we should conserve the resources we have on our public lands for the future, when our descendants may need them more than we do.
So thank you, Governor Romney, for complimenting me on my conservative approach to use of our public lands.  I am proud that we are deliberately and carefully managing those resources for use of all Americans, present and future."

Romney is not for favoring particular technologies (well, unless it's nuclear, that is)

A quick glance at the "Energy" tab on Romney's website led me to notice this logical inconsistency.

"History shows that the United States has moved forward in astonishing ways thanks to national investment in basic research and advanced technology. However, we should not be in the business of steering investment toward particular politically favored approaches. That is a recipe for both time and money wasted on projects that do not bring us dividends."

So he doesn't want to play favorites.  There are plenty of economists who share this basic philosophy: let the market determine the winners.  (In general I agree with this philosophy, but only if the market prices externalities appropriately.)

His site also says:

Even the IEA can't do math. No one understands growth!!

I was looking at the IAE statistics about coal, and I came across a couple of different statements that stand in sharp contrast.  First there was this:

Total recoverable reserves of coal around the world are estimated at 909 billion tons—reflecting a current reserves-to-production ratio of 129 years.  Historically, estimates of world recoverable coal reserves, although relatively stable, have declined gradually from 1,145 billion tons in 1991 to 1,083 billion tons in 2000 and 909 billion tons in 2008.  Although the decline in estimated reserves is sizable, the large reserves-to-production ratio for world coal indicates that sufficient coal will be available to meet demand well into the future. (emphasis mine)

Above this statement on the same page was this graph

 

accompanied by this statement:

The growth rate for coal consumption is uneven, averaging 1.1 percent per year from 2007 to 2020 and 2.0 percent per year from 2020 to 2035.