OPINION:
Americans appalled at the skyrocketing cost of fossil fuels are ready to intensify their economic pain to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for his heartless invasion of Ukraine. Resistant at first to demands for a cutoff of Russian oil, President Biden has now granted citizens their wish. Unless he is subsequently poked and prodded into releasing his grip on the nation’s own energy resources, the coming injury to the U.S. consumers is likely to be agonizing.
A bipartisan upswell of support in Congress to ban the import of Russian oil and natural gas forced Mr. Biden to make a virtue of necessity. “This is a step we are taking to inflict further pain on Putin, but there will be costs here in the United States as well,” Mr. Biden said while announcing the oil embargo on Tuesday. “Defending freedom is going to cost us as well.”
A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday found that a hefty 71% of respondents support a ban on Russian oil even if it meant paying higher gasoline prices. Only 22% say they oppose such a move. “Americans are ready to put a chokehold on Russia’s key financial lifeblood, oil, no matter what the consequences are at the pump,” said Quinnipiac pollster Tim Malloy.
The president’s message included neither jot nor tittle signaling his intention to cease his own war on U.S. fossil fuel producers, which has hampered their access to America’s vast energy resources. Fairly daring them to drill in defiance of his policy preferences for solar and wind power, he warned oil and gas firms against “profiteering.”
Consumers already struggling to afford record-setting gas costs that exceed a national average of $4.25 a gallon must now brace for a new price surge brought by the loss of 700,000 barrels a day of Russian oil. Gas and groceries are now on track to cost families an extra $3,000 this year.
Mr. Biden’s initial opposition to calls for using oil to punish Mr. Putin now looks suspiciously like jiujitsu — resisting a grappling opponent and enticing him to thrust with his full weight, then suddenly giving way, causing him to fall on his face. By resisting a Russian energy ban until public outcry reached its crescendo, the president has given the public what they demand.
Consequently, Americans have their unassailable moral victory, and they can take pride in the fact that U.S. petrodollars will no longer pay for Russia’s callous bloodshed in Ukraine. And Mr. Biden has a Russian scapegoat for higher-priced energy to shield him from vicious backlash by angry voters.
There is another energy embargo of sorts, though, that still requires attention — the one that Mr. Biden has enacted to slow the extraction of U.S. oil and gas resources and block conduits that transport them to consumers. Americans should now demonstrate the same determination to end the president’s obstruction of their own energy resources that they showed in their refusal to accept any more of Russia’s.
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