Vitter: Obama administration is 'manipulating' offshore drilling numbers

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said the Obama administration is misleading Americans about increasing offshore energy production.

“There is no disputing the fact that our nation’s domestic energy production on federal lands is far lower than it was before this administration took office, yet they continue to manipulate the data,” Vitter said in a statement Thursday.

His comment followed an announcement of a western Gulf of Mexico lease sale by the Department of Interior. Vitter said the sale is only the third lease sale since the drilling moratorium in 2010, which occurred as a result of the BP Gulf oil spill. He said that if it weren’t for the moratorium, 10 lease sales would have happened under the same period of time.

“Energy production on federal property is a process that requires leasing, permitting, exploring, more permitting and then hopefully production,” Vitter said. “The federal government can cripple any one of these stages, and this administration has made it their standard to stymie the process.”

In the second presidential debate last week, Obama and Romney argued over whether energy production from federally controlled areas had increased or decreased under the Obama administration.

Vitter said because of the drilling moratorium, and the slow leasing process since, the government lost billions of dollars in revenue.

Vitter has also been urging the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to go back to the previous five-year leasing plan that would open up nearly all of the Outer Continental Shelf for lease sales, something environmentalists oppose.

—This article was updated at 11:04 a.m.

---