Little-seen Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm is being thrust into the spotlight to answer to the never-ending rise in energy costs. With gas as one of the main focuses, she stood at the podium to answer questions about what Americans should expect in the coming months for energy. As everything else continues to shoot up, some relief or good news is needed soon.
When asked about President Biden taking credit for a previous drop in prices as the pump, and if he would accept responsibility for their massive hike, she gave a tremendously incomplete response. “It’s obviously based upon international and climate events, so, for example, Winter Storm Elliot pulled two million barrels off the U.S. market because of refineries that went down. That crimp in supply causes prices to go up.” She also talked about China’s potential increase in demand.
Her answer is a correlation, not causation. The refineries going offline would not have mattered so much if we were already producing more than enough oil for our use. A release from the strategic reserves would be easier to replenish and could be executed to keep supplies consistent. While its primary use is supposed to be for the military should we get into a conflict on our shores, the secondary use of releasing reserves is just smart business.
Yet Biden has been overusing this resource without replenishing it almost since the moment he took office. His policies to make new oil and gas production nearly impossible in the US have crippled us as a nation. Canceling land leases, destroying offshore drilling deals, and putting an end to the Keystone pipeline contract choked the US oil pipeline long before the conflict in Ukraine, or even China went into complete lockdown.
Despite this, Biden and his office have consistently referred to the recent increases as the “Putin price hike,” yet nearly every Biden policy he has made about energy has been going against the use of fossil fuels. As a result, when Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, he went into a panic.
Knowing full well that this would cripple Russian oil, he released 180 million barrels for sale from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in March. A move that in conjunction with other releases has dropped our reserves to the lowest since the 1980s according to Forbes. Given our situation, this is incredibly moronic.
Russia is getting its back against the wall with Ukraine, and China is coming back into the global market and is threatening Taiwan. Plus, the always-deranged North Korea is begging someone to dare them to press the button. These three nations are each more than capable of triggering WWIII by giving the order.
In a situation like this is where we need to be self-reliant and get energy under control. However, if our own Secretary of Energy doesn’t even understand the history of the Biden administration when it comes to energy, this might be a futile effort. Considering she along with Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) is trying to get natural gas appliances banned.
Placing their focus on the stove, the Gov also wants to see gas furnaces and water heaters banned by 2030 according to a speech she gave on January 10th. Using poverty and race as the reasoning behind the ban, she now has the Biden administration taking notice and reportedly considering it.
Never mind the fact that their theory is shortsighted, it’s also not true. Gas stoves are found in every high-end home. No self-respecting chef or even higher-end home cook would use electricity to cook on. They get, use, and swear by the best tools for the job, and electric just isn’t it.
If Biden wants to stabilize gas prices, he’ll have to turn his back on the leftist agenda. He’ll be forced to admit we need domestic oil production to remain competitive. He would also need to look at what it would do to our economy. As his politics and investments are based on instability, this won’t happen. There’s nothing in it for this selfish man.
