Fallin faults Obama on energy projects

WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- Republican Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said Saturday President Obama has blocked energy projects that would make America less dependent on foreign oil.

"The bottom line is this administration is taking credit for American energy production while it works to aggressively undermine it," Falin said in the weekly Republican media address. "Besides being hypocritical, the president's double-talk is dangerous to our economy and our national security."

Fallin criticized Obama for holding up the Keystone XL pipeline that would transport crude recovered from Canadian oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

"We know that families, already struggling in this poor economy, are feeling pinched by rising costs at the gas pump," Fallin said.

"America remains dependent on foreign oil from unstable and anti-Western regimes, and yet the president is blocking the pipeline that would transport oil to the United States from our neighbor and ally -- Canada."

On a recent trip to Oklahoma, Obama took credit for the southern portion of the pipeline but that didn't need his approval because it was already in the works, Fallin said.

She also said the president "made the outrageous claim" his administration is responsible for an increase in domestic oil drilling.

While drilling has increased on privately owned land, she said, drilling on public lands has declined and leases for drilling by the Bureau of Land Management are now less than half of the number under former President Bill Clinton, Fallin said.