From national review this morning:
Who’s policies restricted drilling and refining in America? Under Trump the US was energy independent and exporting energy to Europe.
Biden reversed all that and gave Putin a pipeline to boot, giving him leverage over all of Europe. WHY?FTA: As of May 2022, spare capacity and refining capability are highly constrained, according to the International Energy Agency, which reports that “global oil inventories declined by 45 [million barrels] in March and are now 1.2 billion barrels lower since June 2020.”
Even before he was elected, Biden offered a “guarantee” that he would “end fossil fuels.” Since assuming office, he has taken a hard stance against domestic fossil-fuel production. While he has sometimes encouraged American oil companies to produce more oil, that encouragement has, to say the least, been undermined by continued attacks on a sector he seems all too willing to scapegoat. Recently proposed SEC rules on climate-change-related disclosures to investors are just one example of the administration’s attitude toward oil companies, and whether or not they are approved, they are hardly likely to encourage investment in domestic-energy production.The same could be said of the signal sent by the president in his first day in office, when he revoked the Keystone XL’s pipeline permit and instituted a (since-halted) moratorium on new oil and natural-gas production on federal lands. The fact that American oil production tends, in many cases, to be cleaner than overseas production — and could thus play a significant role in decreasing global emissions — is apparently lost on the administration.
Congress and the Biden administration should reverse course on their harmful energy policies by introducing common-sense reforms to reduce prices in the short and long terms. Temporarily halting summer-blend requirements, for example, could reduce the cost of gas by as much as 15 cents per gallon. Reducing barriers to and approving key infrastructure projects, such as Keystone XL, would also alleviate price concerns by offering the promise of bringing more supply to market, something that would, if only at the margin, lower prices today, and would have the potential to lower them more in the future.
As Americans continue to feel the impacts of high gas prices, lawmakers must look past politics and offer solutions that address the root of the problem. While gas prices are largely a result of global markets, policy decisions affect future supplies and investments. The ill-considered energy agenda being pushed forward by the White House has hurt American companies and consumers alike.
My only relatively mild disagreement with this is that politics are at the center of it. And at the center of those politics is the global warming myth which is being used as a political tool by some.
It’s long past time to recognize that the devotion to the global warming myth is precisely how we got into this current situation, and that what is needed to eliminate the problem is a 180 on energy policy.