OPINION:
President Biden’s energy policies are helping Russia and bringing death, destruction and suffering to Ukraine.
As Russian artillery, missiles and drones rain down on Ukraine, countless hospitals, schools, homes, power plants, and agricultural and industrial capacities are being destroyed. Russia’s war against Ukraine and its people is an unconscionable war crime.
On the frontlines, a kind of stalemate exists, with bloody battles ongoing and lying ahead. Russian President Vladimir Putin has just announced a massive half-million-man conscription plan, and no one knows how many of his soldiers he is willing to sacrifice to prolong his war and outlast the willingness of democratically elected governments in the U.S. and Europe to continue providing the weaponry and funds Ukraine’s people need to fight on.
Perhaps Mr. Putin sees Vietnam, Afghanistan and even Syria in the rearview mirror. He’s counting on evolving political pressure in America and Europe to reduce or reverse their support for the war — if not now, then in the months or possibly even years ahead.
Global energy prices will have a lot to do with that, and our response to his aggression is playing into Mr. Putin’s hands … and hopes.
Despite a partially enforced embargo (or perhaps because of it), sales of oil, gas and coal are generating much more revenue for Mr. Putin’s war machine now than in prewar 2021 — with revenue for 2022 projected to be another one-third higher.
By keeping its own oil and gas locked up, Europe is still financing Mr. Putin’s war against Ukraine and the West. By not ramping up America’s own vast energy-producing capacity, Mr. Biden is complicit in ensuring the high energy prices that sustain Russia’s war machine and war crimes.
Given enough time, U.S. oil and gas could substitute for Russia’s all over the world. America could be the “Energy Source for Democracy,” just as it was the “Arsenal of Democracy” in World War II. The U. S. is the world’s largest producer of oil and gas and has the world’s largest coal reserves. It’s also the cleanest producer.
In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Jamie Dimon, chairman of JPMorgan Chase and a Democrat, called for an “all of the above” Energy Marshall Plan that would rapidly ramp up all forms of U.S. energy production, including hydrocarbons. Is Team Biden listening?
Europe chose a particularly rapid path to green energy over its economic and geostrategic security. It unilaterally disarmed itself of its own energy weapon. Worshipping at the Altar of Climate Change, it banned hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the leading innovator in oil and natural gas production in the past half-century.
Germany, the largest economy in Europe, embraced Russian energy while closing down its fossil fuel and nuclear electricity generating plants in favor of massive wind and solar energy development. History will not be kind to Angela Merkel, Germany’s and the European Union’s lead architect of putting Europe at the mercy of Russia’s energy weapon.
Yet today, Germany is burning more and more coal, even dirty lignite, to compensate for its lost nuclear power and Russian gas. As a result of its anti-gas-production policies, Germany’s coal burning rose some 27% in 2022 versus 2021 and will likely grow still more this year. Think what that means for greenhouse gas emissions!
While America has partially stepped into the European fossil energy breach with its current oil, gas and coal capacity, the Biden administration’s war on future fossil fuel development and investment limits what the USA can do, particularly if the war drags on.
Expanding U.S. capacity means investing in new drilling, new pipelines, new refining capacity, and new port and shipping facilities. Yet Mr. Biden’s legislative and regulatory policies have had the exact opposite effect.
Yes, Team Biden is exhorting the oil and gas industry to increase output, and the industry is responding, but that means little more than pushing companies to do more with current capacity because the Green New Deal “whole of government” approach deliberately stifles longer-term U.S. oil, gas and coal production.
What a signal it would be to global energy markets if the chains shackling U.S. production were removed! Global energy prices would likely fall immediately as energy markets factored in a new energy supply future. But that’s a nonstarter unless the American government rethinks its shortsighted and overly ambitious climate change agenda.
Unilateral oil, gas and coal energy disarmament is a bad idea at any time — but especially when you’re at war with an energy-rich, energy-weaponized enemy like Mr. Putin’s Russia. Unfortunately, that’s precisely what’s happening.
We desperately need to work toward disarming Russia of its potent energy weapon by expanding our own production.
How many Ukrainian lives could be saved, and how much destruction in that country could be avoided if America simply made greater use of its own energy weapons?
• Don Ritter served in Congress for 14 years with a focus on energy/environment and defeating communism.
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