This week, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine dragged on, gas prices in America soared to their highest levels since 2008, increasing over 57 cents in just one month. In parts of the United States, gas at the pump costs in excess of $7 per gallon.
The answer to this challenge is obvious: The United States ought to open the drilling floodgates. In 2019, net imports of crude oil and finished products were exceeded by American exports of such products for the first time on record. That was due to the massive increase in American production thanks to fracking over the course of the prior decade. This did not mean that the United States had stopped importing crude oil. But as of 2019, we were importing some 3.8 million barrels of crude oil per day, radically down from over 10 million in 2005. More production, generally speaking, means less dependence.
And that matters, as we’re now seeing. Europe, which is far more dependent on foreign oil than the United States, has seen its energy prices skyrocket since the Russian invasion. That’s why Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced, “Europe has deliberately exempted energy supplies from Russia from sanctions. Supplying Europe with energy for heat generation, mobility, electricity supply and industry cannot be secured in any other way at the moment.” U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed: “I think there are different dependencies in different countries, and we have to be mindful of that.”
So now would be an excellent time for the United States to grab muscular leadership of the world energy markets. Instead, the Biden administration — which opted upon taking office to undercut the oil and gas industry and radically subsidize inefficient “green energy” production — has decided to seek energy aid from some of the world’s worst dictatorships. This week, the Biden administration sent emissaries to the Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in an attempt to increase oil imports from the socialist hellhole. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “The purpose of the trip that was taken by administration officials was to discuss a range of issues, including certainly energy security.”
Meanwhile, Juan Guaido, leader of the Venezuelan opposition, was left out in the cold. “It is foolish to think that Maduro will quit Russia,” he quite logically explained. “This is a mistake. To buy oil from Maduro is the same as buying oil from Putin.”
But this is the point: For the international Left, dependency on oil-driven authoritarian states is preferable to energy independence. It allows Left-wing leaders the privilege of appeasing their environmentalist base while at the same time keeping energy prices low. Carbon-based emissions are too hideous to be considered so long as they’re being produced on American or European soil — but we’re perfectly willing to subsidize Russian President Vladimir Putin, Maduro and the Iranian ayatollahs to exploit the environment and enrich themselves while promoting tyranny at home and abroad, so long as Greta Thunberg isn’t disappointed in us.
And so we continue to promote the abject idiocy of Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who recommended to those suffering from high gas prices that they just shell out for an electric vehicle. We continue to nod along to the stupidity of Psaki, who agreed that the solution to $7-a-gallon gas was “getting the whole country off of fossil fuels.” Then we import our energy from the world’s worst despots.
Opposition to oil and gas development has always been the privilege of rich countries; we simply outsourced the pollution and environmental degradation elsewhere. But as it turns out, in the end, we all pay the price for our willingness to pay off autocrats just so we can temporarily pretend that we did our bit for Greenpeace.
Ben Shapiro, 38, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and editor-in-chief of DailyWire.com. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers “How To Destroy America In Three Easy Steps,” “The Right Side Of History,” and “Bullies.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
The Russians are destroying not only Ukrainian Cities, but the breadbasket of Europe, particularly eastern Europe which will result in a mass starvation equaling what Stalin did to the Ukraine in the early 1930s, planned and executed by the mind of Vlad the evil. The United States agricultural might and strength could and should step in to fill the gap but for the fact that JOE BIDEN and his society enforcing ideological fools, cut off our ability for Oil independence and stubbornly prefer to IMPOSE their will on the free people of America to live in an unlit energy land of windmills and beany copters, instead of nuclear plants, Coal and natural gas driven power plants, that cheaply feed our power needs, feed our people, and could feed the soon to be starving people of Eastern Europe. About 80% of the cost to produce most grains is in the energy expenses of plowing, planting, harvesting, and transporting the produce to market. Biden’s pathological party of obsession to force electrical down the throats of freedom loving and freedom to decide AMERICANS will soon double, then triple, the cost of our food which will become scarcer as the farmers go broke, prohibiting American’s ability to feed the world. The only reason this is a no brainer to Joe is because Biden OBVIOUSLY has no brain. God help us USA, who allowed a contaminated hate filled election to steal our peace, steal our prosperity, and put a man into the highest office unfit to run a dog kennel. 8 Months is too long to wait to remove him.
I was watching a local interview with a farmer, who said cost for feeding his cattle, has already risen 85%,, since the PRE PANDEMIC levels…. ALL BECAUSE OF WHAT’S going on in our white house.
the green movement is nothing but a soviet style takeover of people and there freedom to live.
if these commies get control of your light switch and gas tanks it will be game over.
IN many ways, they already DO have control..
The Biden-Harris Administration’s refusal to allow domestic oil production to increase while begging foreign producers to increase oil exports to the U.S. leads me to one conclusion. Biden and his radical climate change supporters are totally committed to degrading America’s fossil fuel industry and making gasoline and diesel so expensive that we will be forced to purchase extremely costly EVs. What these fossil fuel haters fail to realize is that our nation’s security is directly tied to our ability to be energy independent and our ability to rely 100% on green energy is several decades away at an estimated cost of as much as 15 trillion dollars. In the aggressive pursuit of their green energy nirvana, climate change zealots are blinded to the fact that they are making America economically and militarily weaker and our foreign adversaries stronger.
As i said Monday, HIS PROMISE TO destroy our energy industry, is the ONLY PROMISE HE’s trying to keep.
Joe Biden and the greenies chant “Death To America” by strangulation.