We Used to Be Energy Independent: What Happened?

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When the Biden Administration took office, it unleashed a dangerous “Mandate and Moratorium” strategy, a green jihad of sorts against the U.S. energy sector. The strategy was simple-- create supply constraints for domestic oil and gas producers by dismantling distribution systems, tightening regulations, and suspending leases and permits, therefore impacting future drilling activity. Co-conspirators like Black Rock’s, Larry Fink, then jumped in by urging institutional divestment from the oil and gas sector and wielding a pseudo-sophisticated set of investments standards known as environment, social and governance (ESG). The strategy was topped off with the complicity of social media and tech’s intolerance for a diversity of ideas, ensuring Americans couldn’t discuss the flawed energy policy, let alone dissent from it.

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But consider the changes for which the Biden administration is directly responsible since taking office:

Dismantling Distribution Networks
Keystone XL-Pipeline de-construction: With construction already under way, President Biden stopped the Keystone XL Pipeline project via executive order on his first day in office. The line was intended to transport oil from fields in western Canada and the Bakken basin in North Dakota to Steele City, Nebraska, connecting to other pipelines that feed refineries on the Gulf Coast. It would have moved up to 830,000 barrels of oil daily, creating a safer, higher capacity and faster way to get product to market.

Increased Regulatory Overreach
Because the administration knows it lacks the necessary majorities in Congress to compromise American energy independence, it circumvents the legislative process by using administrative rules. Immediately upon entering office, agencies began implementing new rules that have reduced supply or increased the cost for energy producers.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) suspended new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and in offshore waters, including areas where oil and gas production was already occurring.

Department of Energy (DOE) is also holding up permits and approvals for multiple liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals. Instead of the U.S. supplying Europe with American natural gas, Russia has been filling the void. The Biden administration needs to speed the permitting and approval process for these export projects and remove harmful barriers to domestic production and pipeline projects. The delay diminishes future supply, thus increasing the price.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has been broadly interpreted by Biden-controlled agencies, impeding an array of oil and gas related projects and driving up the cost to develop and complete those projects.

The Social Cost of Carbon Standard (SCC) is a contrived measurement predicated on energy-related projects' being environmentally costly and therefore harmful economically. With biases built into the construct, no energy project will ever be "green" enough. This thumb on the scale is intended to increase the price of U.S.-produced energy.

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