Want proof that the Biden administration is really the second incarnation of the Carter administration? We have runaway inflation, Americans trapped overseas, a member of the first family who tried to do business with Libya and a president begging the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC Plus) to increase oil production. It’s like the 1970s all over again.
Gas prices have risen $1 a gallon since Joe Biden’s election, while crude oil prices have doubled since November to $83 per barrel — and some analysts predict they could rise by another $10 before the end of the year. Natural gas prices have shot up more than 150 percent in the same period, which means winter heating bills for the half of American homes that use natural gas are projected to be 30 percent higher than last year — 49 percent higher in the Midwest.
This is the result of deliberate policy choices. Biden has made clear his intention to tax and regulate the fossil fuel industry out of existence. During the 2020 campaign, he declared, “I guarantee you. We’re going to end fossil fuel.”
Well, those threats have consequences. Today, the number of rigs producing oil across the United States is 528, roughly half its 2019 peak under President Donald Trump. When you tell oil producers you plan to put them out of business, they are not going to bolster production or drill more wells. When your $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” plan would impose punitive taxes oil and gas, the producers are going to get the picture that building back better doesn’t include them.
And when you make clear you plan to destroy an industry, banks and investment firms stop investing in it. The New York Times reports that the “flow of capital from Wall Street has slowed to a trickle after a decade in which investors poured over $1.4 trillion into North American oil and gas producers through stock and bond issues and loans” as woke capitalists “pare their exposure to fossil fuels to meet the commitments they have made to fight climate change.” BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has announced that it intends to have “net zero emissions across our entire assets under management by 2050.”
The result? Less fossil fuel production and higher prices — with lower-income Americans who can afford it the least penalized the most at the pump.
Full story here.
