The answer to this question is an immediate no. The POTUS couldn’t do it in 2008; the POTUS couldn’t do it in 2012 (at least to an immediate effect).
Republicans this morning are gleefully sharing how the Democrats are more hypocritical than the right, because whereas only 18% of Republicans changed their minds from ’08 to ’12, a full 40% of Democrats changed their minds from ’08 to ’12 — ostensibly because the man in the White House changed.
Now obviously, the POTUS has very little to do with oil production. The reason why oil prices are through the roof is because 2 billion people in Asia with roaring economies growing at 10% a year are emerging into the middle class. A further 1 billion people are on the cusp of doing likewise. Guess what they want? Cars. Trucks. Equipment. The list goes on…
This isn’t Obama’s fault, but rather a macro-level good ol’ fashioned supply and demand problem.
Of course, did Democrats suddenly realize this in say, 2009? I leave the reader to your own conclusions on that matter… so yes, the point being made in Republican circles does have some degree of merit.
Consider this before we all go running off the cliff though — Obama does have the ability to pursue through policy alternative means of energy production. America has 300 years of proven coal reserves in the ground as of today. America has proven oil and gas reserves that we refuse to tap. The blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline is a mindnumbing move designed to prop up an artificial economy in green energy — a technology that despite the resources being thrown at it, from a physical sense, simply isn’t producing results.
Perhaps — and I’m just throwing this out there — Democrats are more forgiving to a POTUS willing to seek alternative means of energy production? No matter how wasteful they really are at the end of the day (and especially if one views monetary units in terms of energy conversion — we simply aren’t getting any bang for our buck).
So for the short and mid-term, America could certainly use a bit less politics and a lot more common sense when it comes to cheap energy. For the long term, the federal government should either (1) pursue effective mid-range and long-range solutions for energy production using existing resources that complement clean and powerful energy solutions such as hydrogen cells, fusion, or clean coal, or (2) simply allow the free market to innovate a solution.
A $74 trillion worldwide economy will certainly find solutions much faster (and more efficiently) than a $3.8 trillion United States government.