In recent history, one has learned to not trust a lot of information from any US government agency with a hidden/or not-so-hidden agenda — recent example is the State Department’s okay of the horrendous Keystone XL pipeline, claiming the 1,711-mile tube slated to carry peanut-butter-like toxic slop through the gut of middle America “would have minimal effect on the environment.”
Wrong on a lot of counts.

Now, it’s the enthusiasm and optimism on future oil and gas supplies from the Department of Energy, painting a rosy picture that’s not only untrue, but a dangerous lie.

(Illustration found here).

In a kind of preview of next week’s meeting of the the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA to be held in Washington, DC, a group of distinguished energy experts representing academia, industry, think tanks, and non-profit organizations held a press conference on Wednesday in front of the DOE to highlight misleading data that supposedly shows resources “could make the United States self-sufficient in oil and gas.“
The group also dispatched a letter to DOE Secretary Steven Chu to make matters more clear.
From Jim Baldauf, President and Co-Founder of ASPO-USA:

“The risk/benefit ratio is out of balance.
If these exuberant predictions are wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic.
We need to be conservative and prudent in planning for the future.
We can’t bet America’s economy and national security on Pollyanna predictions.
Exuberance about cheap energy may serve the short-term interests of Wall Street, but it threatens the future of our country.”

Not surprising, the DOE seems under the influence: Such rosy forecasts are typical of industry sources.
Duh!

Furthermore, Tom Whipple, a former CIA analyst and chief editor of ASPO-USA’s Peak Oil Review:

“There are literally dozens of reports and analyses appearing every week around the world pointing to the fact that the world is facing major challenges in maintaining, much less growing, the global supply of oil in next few years.”
He added, “Our concern here today is the growing disconnect between the solid evidence of serious troubles ahead and the Department of Energy’s benign projections concerning the availability of fossil fuels in the next 30 years.”

The DOE’s bullshit flies in the face of a pile of reports to the contrary, even last year from the US Department of Defense, saying shortages could start appearing by as early as 2015.
From the DOD report:

“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day,” says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.
It adds: “While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds.
Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India.”

Also last year, a report was leaked from the German army that concluded peak oil is not bullshit and things could get a bit dicey as time wears on — and the report didn’t pull punches, according to spiegelonline: It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the “total collapse of the markets” and of serious political and economic crises.

So one wonders why President Obama’s administration is so tongue-tied and dumb-ass about energy.
Of course, Obama’s been the same way with climate change, and he’s noodling around with some dangerous shit in attempts to get his ass re-elected.
Yesterday, at an University of Colorado rally talking to the young people who flocked to his name four years ago, but now recognize…
He continued to put off making a decision about the upcoming Keystone XL pipeline: “We’re looking at it right now,” Obama told the crowd. “No decision has been made. And I know your deep concern about it, so we will address it.”

‘Deep concern?’
Obama has always had a kind of Pollyanna quality to him, a notion from the old days of “yes, we can.”
Now, we all know it’s just political bullshit.