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 I'm no apologist for Russian dictator Vladimir
Putin and I'm appalled by the war crimes his regime is committing as it wages a
voluntary war of aggression against Ukraine.
But Putin's war crimes should not get Biden off the hook.
The president made it abundantly clear on the campaign trail that his
administration would do everything possible to sacrifice domestic energy
production on the altar of the left's green energy fantasies.
Now, Americans are suffering the consequences.
Inflation is at a previously unimaginable 7.9 percent on a year-over-year basis.
That's a new 40-year high – for the third month in a row.
'[The] inflation report is a reminder that Americans' budgets are being
stretched by price increases and families are starting to feel the impacts of
Putin's price hike,' said Biden on Thursday.
Today's spiking energy prices were also entirely predictable.
As the saying goes, Biden should have been careful what he wished for – because
now he's got it.
Speaking in a presidential debate with Senator Bernie Sanders looking on, Biden
made his energy policy very clear.
'Number one, no more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on
federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil
industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one.'
Consistent with Biden's campaign pledge, his administration has been taking
steps deliberately calculated to increase energy costs in the hopes of making
fossil fuels as unaffordable as possible while making less efficient and more
expensive 'green' alternatives appear more desirable.
Killing the Keystone XL pipeline and withholding permits for drilling in the
Artic National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR), the Gulf of Mexico, and other federal
lands were just the beginning.
John Kerry, the administration's 'climate czar,' has been pressuring banks and
financial institutions to reduce their commitments to U.S. oil and gas companies
and to deny financing for oil production worldwide by joining the Net-Zero
Banking Alliance.
Large banks including Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley,
Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase had all joined the Alliance by March of last
year, within a mere 2 months of Biden taking office.
The explicit intention of this pressure campaign is to cut financing for oil
producers, driving up the costs of production and reducing the supply, all of
which drives up the prices at the pump.
It's not rocket science.
Kerry's action drew some attention.
Members of the Senate Banking Committee sent Kerry a letter last April objecting
to the fact that he had 'been pressuring banks to make extralegal commitments
regarding energy-related lending and investment activities' that would result in
'higher energy costs for American consumers.'
The following month, 15 state treasurers sent Kerry a letter complaining that he
and other members of the Biden administration were 'privately pressuring U.S.
banks and financial institutions to refuse to lend to or invest in coal, oil,
and natural gas companies, as part of a misguided strategy to eliminate the
fossil fuel industry in our country.'
So, it wasn't like people didn't see what Kerry and Biden were up to long before
Putin invaded Ukraine.
But scapegoating is nothing new for this president and his administration.
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While Biden has blamed Putin for rising energy prices, White House Press
Secretary Jen Psaki has pointed the finger at the U.S. fossil fuel industry,
observing that there are 9,000 pre-approved oil and gas drilling leases that
have gone unused.
'I would suggest you ask the oil companies why they're not using those if there
is a desire to drill more,' Psaki snapped at a Fox News reporter earlier this
week.
Psaki's claims ignore reality.
For one, drilling is expensive, and the Biden Administration has done all it can
to make obtaining financing for these projects as difficult as possible.
Even if you have a lease, you still need permitting, access for shipping, and
the capital to get the rig up and operating.
The cost for land drilling starts around $20 million and can go as high as $26
million per oil rig. Offshore rig costs start around $210 million.
Even if you have a lease for drilling, getting an oil field up and running is an
expensive endeavor.
If you are an independent producer, the costs can be crippling, particularly if
you lack credit.
Plus, companies large and small considering making the investments necessary to
open new wells need confidence that the federal government isn't going to
regulate them out of business.
As things stand under Biden, that confidence level is low.
Oil is, of course, priced internationally based on global supply and demand as
well as anticipated supply and demand.
So, when the US, at the time an energy independent nation and the world's 4th
largest oil exporter, elected a president committed to curtailing production,
anticipated supply declined.
Given increased demand as the world emerged from the pandemic, it is neither a
mystery nor a coincidence that the world's energy prices soared – even before
Putin invaded Ukraine.
When America was aggressively tapping into its vast shale deposits under
President Trump, prices at the pump fell and inflation was low.
When Biden reversed that momentum, prices shot up – contributing to a surge in
inflation.
If Biden wanted to see energy prices decline, he could let the world know that
supplies were about to increase by announcing that his administration is going
to aggressively support U.S. oil and gas producers, encourage – rather than
discourage – investment, grant permits, construct pipelines and reduce
regulations.
An increase in anticipated supply alone would reduce current prices. Of course,
none of that is going to occur because Biden's goal is to increase – rather than
decrease – costs for fossil fuels.
But the Biden administration's determination to stifle domestic oil production
has failed to reduce consumption.
In fact, the US Energy Information Administration forecasts that US consumption
will continue to increase going forward.
Rather, Biden's policies have resulted in increasing our oil imports mainly from
our geopolitical adversaries.
Why anyone considers it better for the environment to burn foreign oil rather
than US produced oil remains a mystery.
Andy Puzder is the former CEO of CKE Restaurants, a senior fellow at the America
First Policy Institute and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
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