Last week, President Joe Biden attempted to explain how the United States can show global leadership with an oil embargo against Russia without clobbering consumers with sky-high gas prices. [bold, links added]
“Loosening environmental regulations or pulling back clean energy investment … will not lower energy prices for families,” Biden said.
“But transforming our economy to run on electric vehicles powered by clean energy with tax credits to help American families winterize their homes and use less energy … that will help.”
Sure, a widespread shift to electric vehicles and winterization might make the world less dependent on Russian oil and gas … in about 30 or 40 years. We might as well wait for the development of nuclear fusion.
Given that it’s 2022 and most people would like relief before 2052, what can be done in the meantime to make up for a shortfall in the oil and gas supply?
This is not rocket science. The answer — the only feasible answer — is to produce more oil and gas here in the U.S.
Fortunately, the U.S. is in a unique position to do this. This means workers will reap the benefits of sky-high oil and gas prices in the form of good jobs — not the low-wage “green jobs” currently done in China, which Biden naively promised to bring to the U.S.
To some degree, fracking on private land can already be ramped up to increase production, with or without Biden’s help.
But the industry could be in a better position if the Biden administration would end its ban on selling new leases on government lands, which has been in place ever since Biden took office.
The U.S. needs to build additional pipelines, such as Keystone XL, to make the movement of oil faster and less expensive.
It should also expedite additional permits to construct and finish liquefied natural gas export terminals to serve Europe, where the need to decouple from Russia will be felt most acutely.
If Biden wants to do something else constructive to assist in the expansion of fracking, he could rescind the nomination of revolving-door lobbyist Sarah Bloom Raskin as the Federal Reserve’s chief bank regulator.
Raskin was nominated to begin with because she wants to pressure banks not to finance oil and gas exploration projects.
In the current environment, banks should be scolded, not praised, for letting environmentalists and their fraudulent claims of a global weather crisis scare them out of financing new and needed energy exploration.
Biden cannot have it both ways. He cannot impose a virtual oil embargo against his own country and against Russia, let alone expect Europe to join him.
This is especially unwise if his alternative plan is to keep begging OPEC countries to make up the difference.
Polls suggest that individuals are, in theory, willing to pay higher gas prices to help Ukraine. But Biden and his advisers are well aware that this will give way to discontent when prices rise.
What’s more, Europe can only be induced to join the embargo if a new source of supply, namely the U.S., presents itself quickly.
This means that the first person who needs to sacrifice for the Ukrainian war effort is Biden, who has to give up the luxury of conspicuous faux environmentalism.
Read more at Examiner
The U.S. isn’t in a completely unique position. The U.K. also sits on massive reserves of fossil fuels, conventional ones in the North Sea plus huge amounts of shale gas. Therefore we’re well placed to achieve energy independence and help wean Europe off Russian energy. Unfortunately after years of neglect/downright hostility from our Government it will take years to open up new fields/start producing meaningful quantities of gas from fracking. However, although the best time to have started increasing production was years ago the second best time is now. Fortunately we have some members of government that have come to their sense and are proposing a radical change in energy policy. Although at the minute they’re still in a minority there’s signs of real change, lets hope that the views of Manchin in the U.S. start to be more widely accepted by Democrats, and change starts to happen on both sides of the Atlantic.
“lets hope that the views of Manchin in the U.S. start to be more widely accepted by Democrats”
There is a major voting block of democrats – government employees – and they are unionized. They’re not about to change.
The current high energy prices have a much greater effect on the real producers in the community. These workers are the ones who will determine the outcome of the upcoming mid-term elections. Watch how the administration tries to pacify them – print more monopoly money – for hand outs.
Biden is like the nervous Super Guy deciding on which Button to Press Ukraine or Man made Climate Change Choose only one like the Fisherman’s Hell choosing between the Tackle Box or the Beer a nd the Devil tells him Choose only One