Do the presidential candidates’ barbs over energy policy hold up?

During the second presidential debate on Tuesday, Mitt Romney accused the President Obama and his administration of slowing down permitting and that “oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land.”

The people at PoltiFact rated the statement as being half true:

. . . there’s nuance in the number. Production under Obama was hobbled due to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, making a one-year figure subject to cherry-picking. And it’s not at all clear that the president in charge when the oil is taken out of the ground deserves full credit or blame; years of prior policies on exploration and drilling had an impact.

On balance, we rate the claim Half True.

FactCheck.org looked at Obama’s charge that Romney called the wind power jobs “imaginary”.

Obama lifted a Romney quote about wind energy out of context in an attempt to draw a sharper contrast between himself and Romney on renewable energy. Romney didn’t call wind energy “imaginary,” as Obama claimed. Rather, Romney said that wind and solar cannot “power the economy.”

While the president was largely considered to have a good outing in the second debate, coal stocks did not fall today on Obama’s rising prospects.

Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE:ANR) was up 8.3% to $9.26 a share. Arch Coal gained 4.5% to $8.13 and Peabody Energy finished the day up 3.63% to $26.85.

Hat tip Daily Dish