Republican lawmakers and right-wing media have responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by waging a misinformation marketing campaign in regards to the Biden administration being “at conflict with fossil fuels.”
The aim, after all, is to leverage the disaster in Japanese Europe to supply extra entry and regulatory aid to an oil and gasoline sector that's already very worthwhile, closely sponsored, has monumental sway in Washington, and is sitting on unused permits to drill throughout tens of millions of acres of land and water.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) accused President Joe Biden of main “a frontal assault on oil and gasoline.” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) bemoaned Biden’s “backwards, America-last vitality insurance policies.” And quite a few different industry-backed members of the GOP have spent the times since Russia launched its violent conflict peddling industry speaking factors and demanding Biden “unleash” America’s full oil and gasoline potential.
The GOP marketing campaign responsible Biden for each Russia’s conflict and excessive gasoline costs has included deceptive statements and outright falsehoods, in addition to circulating lists of calls for that carefully mirror these of the fossil gas industry. It's being led by a few of Washington’s largest beneficiaries of industry marketing campaign donations. And it comes on the heels of the most recent dire local weather report from the United Nations, which warns that the window for reining in greenhouse gases with the intention to “safe a livable and sustainable future” is quickly closing.
Let’s break down among the largest whoppers:
1. The Biden administration ‘destroyed’ America’s vitality industry
In a publish to Twitter this week, Home Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) wrote that rising costs on the pump throughout Biden’s presidency “is what occurs whenever you destroy America’s vitality industry” — a part of a broader argument that Biden is waging “conflict” on home fossil gas firms.
For a destroyed industry, Massive Oil is doing exceptionally effectively. Two years after the pandemic tanked oil demand and costs, the nation’s largest producers — ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips — have seen their income skyrocket alongside vitality costs. And whereas Biden campaigned on a promise to “tackle the fossil gas industry” and finish drilling on federal lands and waters, that has not materialized.
In reality, to the frustration of local weather and environmental advocates, the Biden administration permitted extra drilling permits throughout his first 12 months in workplace than former President Donald Trump did in any of his first three, in accordance with knowledge compiled by the conservation group Heart for Western Priorities. It additionally held the biggest offshore oil and gasoline lease sale in U.S. historical past within the Gulf of Mexico final 12 months. A federal decide later vacated these leases, concluding that the Biden administration didn't correctly account for local weather results when it held the offshore public sale.
“The Biden admin is doing subsequent to nothing to virtually inhibit near-term oil manufacturing,” Casey Merriman, an analyst on the industry analysis agency Vitality Intelligence, wrote on Twitter.
None of that is more likely to mood Republican rhetoric. Biden’s “companies have been waging conflict on home manufacturing, and we’ve seen home manufacturing dropping and dropping and dropping,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) instructed Fox Information this week.
In actuality, the U.S. produced extra oil and gasoline throughout Biden’s first 12 months in workplace than throughout Trump’s, and crude oil output is forecast to succeed in a document excessive in 2023, in accordance with the U.S. Vitality Data Administration.
2. Biden ‘ended’ oil and gasoline drilling on federal lands
In an interview late final month with right-wing information outlet Newsmax, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin determined to invade Ukraine due to Biden’s vitality insurance policies, together with “ending drilling on federal lands.”
Biden didn't finish federal drilling — removed from it.
Early in his tenure, Biden paused new oil and gasoline leases on federal lands and waters pending the end result of a overview of the federal leasing program — an motion that industry-allied Republicans falsely labeled a “ban” and falsely predicted would devastate the vitality sector. A Trump-appointed federal decide in Louisiana later struck down Biden’s govt order that froze new leasing.
Extra just lately, in February, the Biden administration instituted a second pause on new federal leasing and allowing in response to a second Trump-appointed decide’s ruling that blocked the administration from utilizing a better calculation for the damages related to planet-warming greenhouse gasoline emissions.
None of this has prevented U.S. firms from transferring forward with drilling below already permitted federal permits or on state or personal lands. Roughly 75% of home oil manufacturing and 86% of gasoline manufacturing happens on state and personal lands, in accordance with the Inside Division.
As White Home press secretary Jen Psaki has identified repeatedly in current weeks, the industry has stockpiled greater than 9,000 unused however permitted permits to drill onshore. Practically half of the roughly 25 million federal land acres at present below lease usually are not at present in manufacturing.
“I'd counsel you ask the oil firms why they’re not utilizing these if there’s a want to drill extra,” Psaki instructed Fox Information’ Peter Doocy throughout a press convention this week.
Whereas Republicans revive the “drill, child, drill” mantra and demand Biden “unleash” American vitality, the oil and gasoline sector and its Wall Road buyers have made clear they've little curiosity in ramping up drilling amid document excessive costs, as NPR has reported.
And even when they did, it could do little if something to ease gasoline costs within the brief time period.
3. Biden ‘shut off’ the Keystone XL pipeline
The controversial Keystone XL pipeline was a proposed 1,179-mile, $8.5 billion undertaking that might have transported some 830,000 barrels of soiled tar sands oil per day from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska. Biden revoked a key allow for the Keystone XL by way of a local weather govt order on his first day in workplace, successfully killing it. Solely 8% of the pipeline was constructed and it by no means carried oil.
Nonetheless, Republicans have attacked Biden with falsehoods in regards to the beleaguered undertaking, at occasions conflating it with the bigger Keystone Pipeline system that’s been in operation since 2010 and which the Keystone XL was speculated to tie into.
Biden “shut off the Keystone Pipeline,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) declared in an interview final week. “Get the Keystone Pipeline working once more!” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) demanded at a congressional listening to. “If we had a powerful president, he would put the Keystone Pipeline again on-line,” Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) instructed Fox Information. And at a press convention Tuesday, Sen. Roy Blunt falsely acknowledged that the Keystone XL would have “produced” roughly the identical variety of barrels that the U.S. at present imports from Russia.
Once more, the Keystone XL was by no means operational. And it was by no means going to “produce” a drop of oil. Slightly, it was a proposed extension, or shortcut, to move Canadian oil to Nebraska, the place it could hyperlink up with the present Keystone pipeline and be despatched to refineries in Texas and finally exported abroad.
Requested Wednesday if Biden would rethink his choice to kill the Keystone XL, Psaki mentioned doing so wouldn't handle any of the present petroleum issues within the U.S.
“The pipeline is only a supply mechanism, it's not an oil subject,” Psaki mentioned. “It doesn't present extra provide into the system.”
4. Biden ‘destroyed American vitality independence’
There are a lot of iterations, however the Republican argument is principally that Biden “reversed,” “sabotaged” and “sacrificed” the so-called “vitality independence” — some name it “vitality dominance” — that the U.S. purportedly achieved below Trump.
“Trump gave us vitality independence. Biden gave us costly gasoline,” Jordan just lately tweeted.
“Biden’s anti-energy insurance policies have precipitated skyrocketing costs, ended America’s vitality independence, and compromised our nationwide safety,” Home Republicans wrote in a publish from their official Twitter account.
“Vitality independence” can have totally different meanings. If Republicans are speaking about merely producing extra vitality than we eat, the U.S. stays vitality impartial at the moment, as Robert Rapier, an vitality industry engineer and writer, identified in a Forbes piece this week. But when they’re speaking a few nation freed from any imported petroleum merchandise, the U.S. by no means achieved that below Trump.
“Flatly acknowledged, america isn't oil-independent, and hasn’t been for the reason that early days of oil manufacturing,” Yahoo Finance columnist Rick Newman wrote this week.
The U.S. has been the world’s largest producer of oil and gasoline since 2018. And in 2020, it turned a internet exporter of oil for the primary time. Nonetheless, it imports tens of millions of barrels of oil per day, together with from Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and, till just lately, Russia. Earlier this week, Biden signed an govt order banning Russian petroleum imports — a transfer that had bipartisan help however that Biden warned would drive gasoline costs up even greater. (Beneath Trump’s watch, Russian oil imports elevated 39%, as HuffPost reported).
As the previous few months have highlighted, the U.S. stays on the mercy of a world vitality market that units oil and gasoline costs at dwelling and overseas — a actuality that the Biden administration and environmentalists argue ought to inspire the nation to transition rapidly to renewable vitality sources.
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