Mexican Oil Good, Canadian Oil Bad? -- By Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest

The Obama Administration’s energy policy is looking more convoluted by the day. On the one hand, its controversial nixing of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried Canadian oil south to refineries in the United States, delighted his green base. On the other, the administration has also been behind plans to expand offshore drilling in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. As with so many issues, Obama has managed to find the sour spot on energy, caving to green demands on vital jobs projects but still not doing quite enough to keep them happy.

The energy policy contortionism is about to get worse. The New York Times reports that America and Mexico have just inked a deal to further expand deep water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, despite concerns that Pemex, the Mexican state oil company, is too inexperienced to conduct the drilling in a safe manner.

The logic here is baffling. Earlier this month, Obama rejected plans for a pipeline that would carry already-extracted oil from Canada to America on environmental grounds. Now he seems relatively unconcerned by inexperienced companies conducting far riskier drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. While openness to new oil certainly represents a step in the right direction, Obama’s schizophrenic decisions suggest to us that his energy policy could use a bit more thinking through. CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE Sphere: Related Content