(My new American Thinker)
We've seen lots of cartoons with the caption "I did that," a reference to President Biden causing higher gasoline prices.
Guess what! He really did that. It's not political hyperbole. He did it, and it all started the first week of his presidency. Let's go on Memory Lane with this editorial on Tipp Insights:
On January 27, 2021, seven days into his term, President Biden issued a moratorium on new oil and gas lease permits on federal lands and waters. Republican attorneys general from 13 states sued. A federal judge sided with them, ordering the Biden administration to hold lease sales.
Not rebuffed, Biden, in June 2021, halted the Keystone XL pipeline project. The administration reluctantly held the lease sale, but another federal judge last month, to the administration's delight, canceled leases of more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico.
The results have been immediate. During the first 11 months of 2021, crude production fell dramatically, to just 11.14 million barrels per day, a significant 9% drop. The decrease is a direct result of the aggressive efforts by the Biden White House to cripple oil production and distribution.
As world economies recover from the pandemic and OPEC producers and Russia refuse to increase output, a drop in U.S. energy supplies has pushed oil prices up and up.
Again, he did it. He caused your gasoline prices to go up. Worse than that, he set the table for what we are watching in Ukraine. Back to the editorial:
When Russia "invaded" Ukraine this week, the U.S. and U.K, joined by Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia, immediately announced various economic sanctions against Russia. They were best summarized by the comments of the E.U. foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles: "It will hurt a lot."
No commodity also has a more immediate impact on pocketbooks than oil. Europe, with its historically high fuel taxes, is especially vulnerable. This week, gasoline prices in the U.K. hit 150p a liter, the equivalent of $7.71 a gallon. Oil prices directly impact food costs at a time when inflation has already risen to 7.50 %, the highest in 42 years. If the level of hurt is the new metric, high street prices will hurt commoners just as badly and are unsustainable if the war continues for an extended period.
So he did it. He listened to a bunch of hysterical climate change activists rather than looking at the national security implications of cutting back energy production. The Biden administration's energy policy is run by an 18-year-old European girl named Greta. I'm sure Greta has a nice heart and means well. However, she does not understand geopolitics or how thugs like Putin use oil as a weapon.
Yes, he did that. Let's hope he will undo that and let the U.S. put its energy supplies to work for our interests.
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