Jim Brown, Onenewsnow

Obama is funding oil development in Brazil with George Soros

An energy analyst says he cannot understand why the Obama administration is borrowing money to lend money to Brazil so it can conduct oil drilling off its eastern coast, yet will not support oil drilling in American waters.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration has agreed to lend $2 billion to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance oil exploration off the country’s coast near Rio de Janeiro. The U.S. Export-Import Bank has issued a "preliminary commitment" of $2 billion to Petrobras, but may loan more. Earlier this month, a Brazilian official said the U.S. could provide up to $10 billion for the drilling project.

David Kreutzer is senior policy analyst in energy economics and climate change at The Heritage Foundation. He questions why the United States is not drilling in its own deep-water oil fields.

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Ben Lieberman, The Washington Times

How does $8-a-gallon gas sound? Few Americans would want to see that happen. Unfortunately, President-elect Barack Obama’s choices for the governments two highest energy posts have expressed a surprising level of comfort with sky-high gas prices.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the incoming Obama administration and new Congress have suggested they may reverse the pro-domestic oil drilling measures enacted since last summer. It is starting to look as though the change coming to Washington will bring bad news at the pump in the years ahead.