The good news: The One is finally backing off-shore oil exploration that can help a nation’s citizens become more energy independent. The bad news: He’s only backing off-shore oil exploration for Brazil.

The worst news: We’re paying for it.

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas. …

But it still doesn’t allow the U.S. to explore in Alaska or along the East and West Coasts, which could be our equivalent of the Tupi oil fields, which are set to make Brazil a leading oil exporter. Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won’t allow at home.

First of all, why are we lending billions of dollars to foreign oil companies? Not only does Petrobras have a net income of $15.3 billion, but Obama spends his time demonizing oil companies when he’s not demonizing private insurance. The US government helping American oil companies explore new resources is worthy of condemnation, but let’s lend billions for Brazilian oil companies to do the same? It’s bullshit.

Second, we’re told that we can’t pursue off-shore oil exploration here because it’s bad for the environment. Let’s go after “greener” alternatives that fossil fuels, we’re told. After all, we’d only be exploring for resources that are really bad for the environment and we shouldn’t be encouraging that.

And yet we’re committing $2 billion from the American treasury to help a wealthy Brazilian oil company pursue off-shore oil exploration? Is it somehow less destructive to the environment when Petrobras is drilling than when Exxon is?

Ed Morrissey has a modest proposition:

Here’s a proposal: Let American companies do what Obama is paying Brazilian companies to do — drill offshore.  We won’t have to pay them money or float them any loans to do it, either.  In fact, we will make money off of the leases, while the effort creates hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs in the US, creating more tax revenue rather than emptying out the Treasury.

But Obama will never do it. Foreign countries benefiting from oil resources is just dandy in his view. Just as long as America doesn’t achieve energy independence or benefit economically.