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Sarah Palin was on Fox News’ Fox and Friends this morning to argue that the oil spill in the Gulf is not a good enough reason to not, drill, baby, drill. Palin said, “We still need to drill, baby, drill.” She also bogusly claimed that without offshore drilling energy production would be, “outsourced.” Does she understand that the oil belongs to the companies, not the American people?

Here is the video courtesy of Media Matters:

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When asked if she had changed her position on drill, baby, drill, Palin said, “No, we still need to drill, baby, drill, and we need to drill safely and ethically, and if we don’t do that here then we will be outsourcing our energy production and development into countries and foreign waters that do not have the strict standards that we have. The problem here with Gulf spill is that we didn’t adhere to those standards, and the MMS didn’t regulate aggressively enough, and BP told the government some things that now we are finding out aren’t necessarily true, so there’s a lot blame to go around. Certainly, the American public can’t be blamed for the problem that we are seeing today that tragedy in the Gulf, and they should not be punished. They should not be punished with cap and tax either. A tax on energy that now Obama is talking about in kind of a response to the Gulf spill, and we shouldn’t be published by outsourcing our energy development anymore than we are already outsourcing.”

Palin claimed that she didn’t support a moratorium on offshore drilling but she did call for government oversight. (This sounds an awful lot like the same big government that Palin is always criticizing Obama for). For a so called energy expert, Sarah Palin knows virtually nothing about how energy markets actually work. Her claim that without offshore drilling American energy production would be outsourced is a lie, based on the even bigger lie that the oil drilled for in this country belongs to America. This is absolutely and completely false.

Oil companies pay fees and royalties to state and federal governments for the right to drill. Any oil that they discover belongs to the companies, not the nation where the oil is taken from. The oil companies are free to sell their oil on the global market to anyone they please. This is why offshore drilling does not ease America’s energy woes. If Palin was serious about keeping energy production in the US, then she would support truly domestic alternative energy sources, which really do stay in the US, not the big lie that America can drill its way to energy independence.

The very system that Palin is supporting is run by international corporations who extract oil from the United States and sell it around the world. Palin tried to use an outsourcing argument to defend the very outsourcing that occurs with offshore drilling. The reality is that there is not enough oil anywhere in the US to feed our habit. Sarah Palin is selling the myth that America can drill its way to energy independence. Cap and trade and alternative energy aren’t punishments for the American people. They are possible ways for the US to get off foreign oil. Of course, this is the last thing that a shill for big oil like Palin ever wants to see.