We’ve gone from energy independence to once again relying on OPEC.
But hey at least there aren’t any mean tweets.
The Biden administration is begging OPEC to pump more oil in order to counter rising gasoline prices.
The White House said the deal they reached last month by a group of oil-producing nations known as OPEC+ to boost production is “simply not enough”.
This is all the result of the Biden administration canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, suspending oil and gas leases on federal lands while declaring their intentions to end domestic production of oil.
Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says “we are engaging with relevant OPEC+ members on the importance of competitive markets in setting prices. Competitive energy markets will ensure reliable and stable energy supplies, and OPEC+ must do more to support the recovery.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board takes Biden and his energy policy to the woodshed, writing (emphasis added):
“We thought we’d seen everything, but there it was Wednesday morning in black and white on the White House website: Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, imploring the cartel of oil exporting nations to pump more oil. Talk about a political climate change. This is the same Biden Administration that has spent six months doing everything it can to crush U.S. oil production...
Allow us to help. How about asking Congress and your own regulators to take their foot off the neck of U.S. oil and gas drillers? Before the pandemic, the U.S. had become the world’s largest oil producer. Thanks to private innovation, the end of the U.S. oil export ban passed by the GOP Congress in 2015, and President Trump’s deregulation, America has had to import far less foreign oil.
The U.S. reduced the strategic leverage of foreign producers such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin. But since taking office, the Biden Administration has killed the Keystone XL pipeline to transport oil from Canada and the Bakken Shale to Gulf Coast refiners; canceled oil leasing in Alaska; suspended oil leases on federal land, even after a court ruled the moratorium illegal; increased fuel-mileage standards for cars, which favors electric vehicles; and invoked the Endangered Species Act as part of a strategy to reduce drilling on private land in the West.
No doubt we’re missing something. Someone should ask Mr. Biden, on his next stop for ice cream, why the President thinks oil produced by foreign dictators in Russia, Iran or Saudi Arabia is more desirable than oil drilled by American entrepreneurs.”