Turns Out Biden’s Empowering of OPEC Was a Really Bad Idea | RealClearPolitics
Biden can’t control prices, but he could have mitigated the problem consumers now face had he not disincentivized domestic fossil fuel production and refinery capacity. Remember that on Biden’s first day at work, he revoked permits to build the Keystone XL, a 1,179-mile pipeline that was going to carry approximately 800,000 barrels of oil a day into the United States that was slated to be completed in a few months. Seems like the kind of infrastructure that might be quite helpful.
Days later, Biden signed a batch of executive orders halting any new oil and natural gas leases on all public lands. The administration has issued fewer oil leases than any president since the Second World War.
It’s unsurprising, considering the stated policy goal of his party has been to create fossil-fuel scarcity by “transitioning” — subsidizing, mandating and diverting capital — to unreliable and expensive “clean energy” projects. Democrats’ promises and rhetoric are also baked into the price. Even if Biden loosened regulations today, why would nefarious profit-hungry shareholders of the oil industry plow billions into long-term projects when Democrats promise to destroy their business in the not very distant future?
You might think, so what if Big Oil shareholders get a little less money, etc. But high gas and diesel prices hit people in the lower half of income directly. I’m not looking forward to $7/gal gas or $8 here in Californieay. It would hurt less if it were just some sort of natural catastrophe and not the utter, destructive and deluded idiocy of our expert class.
BTW follow me on Twitter at @tacsmith.