OPINION:
President Biden’s “green” policies have put him over a barrel — an oil barrel. With the price of the power-packed extract soaring ever upward, the president continues to squint heedlessly past the nation’s unmatched bounty of energy resources while pleading for help from other lands. Under his brand of leadership, the mighty American economy is buckling, and Americans are getting rolled.
U.S. drivers watch dizzily as the dollar figures flash by on the gas pump, faster and faster with each fill-up. The price has more than doubled since Mr. Biden took office, topping $4.86. Moreover, fuel is costing Americans collectively $626 million a day more than a year ago, according to fuel-tracking firm GasBuddy.
The surging expense is adding to inflation, now at 8.3%, and driving up the cost of other necessities, including food. It’s one reason mega-entrepreneur Elon Musk admitted recently that he has “a super-bad feeling” about the economy.
Feigning helplessness, Mr. Biden said last week, “We can’t take immediate action that I’m aware of yet to figure out how we’re bringing down the prices of gasoline back to $3 a gallon.”
Perhaps the president has forgotten the steps he has taken to curtail domestic oil production. He has canceled a pipeline that would have transported oil from Canada, banned oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that Alaskans had endorsed, and slow-walked drilling permits on other federal lands. “Immediate action” to nullify those foolish acts would slow or reverse the upward price spiral.
Instead, Mr. Biden is counting on OPEC to raise its oil-production levels and bring Americans relief. The oil cartel has agreed to pump an additional 648,000 barrels a day in July and August in order to stabilize global markets reeling from the current effects of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the president’s war on fossil fuels.
It is likely no accident that Biden officials reportedly have been shuttling to Saudi Arabia for talks about boosting oil supplies. Even less coincidental is news of a possible Biden visit to the desert kingdom during a trip to the Middle East in July.
As a candidate, Mr. Biden called the oil-rich nation a pariah state on account of the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But that was then. Now, the president apparently would rather crawl to Riyadh and meet with the man he accused of ordering the killing — Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — than take his foot off the neck of the U.S. oil industry.
The infuriating fact is that Mr. Biden bought the Democrats’ all-inclusive “progressive” policy package, complete with its “green” label, as a prerequisite for the party’s unconditional support. By design, it obligates the president to bend the nation’s fossil fuel-based economy just short of the breaking point, which would trigger a counter-revolution at the ballot box.
Henceforth, the method is clear for turning the U.S. economy against the American people: Bend it like Biden.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.