Oil industry warns that Democrats’ fossil fuel ‘hostility’ will hobble U.S. in energy race

The nation’s leading lobbying group for oil and natural gas offered a warning Wednesday that Democrats’ climate change agenda is undermining America’s energy dominance.

Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, urged President Biden and congressional Democrats to shelve ambitious green energy mandates that jeopardize access to cheap and abundant fossil fuels.

“Washington is on the cusp of spoiling the American energy advantage, undermining it with short-sighted policies and hostility towards U.S. oil and natural gas,” Mr. Sommers said at API’s annual State of the American Energy conference in the nation’s capital. “Our leaders are placing the American energy advantage at risk for future generations.”

The rhetoric underscored what the broader energy sector and congressional Republicans say will be the consequences of Mr. Biden’s climate change agenda. From power plants and vehicles to home appliances and financial investments, the administration is promoting new laws and proposing regulations to rapidly push the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels to slash emissions.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Mr. Sommers made the case that “war and instability continue” while the “global energy crisis does not” — despite what he said were the Biden administration’s restrictive energy policies. The U.S. has rebounded from pandemic-era energy woes and is producing record levels of renewables and fossil fuels, including north of 13 million barrels of oil per day, an increase of more than 1.5 million daily under Mr. Biden.

“That’s a huge American success story,” Mr. Sommers later told reporters. “Unfortunately, it’s happened despite Biden policies.”

He said energy, and its effects on the economy, are on the ballot this November.

“Americans are going to go to the polls, and they know that energy is on the ballot and everything else that energy touches,” Mr. Sommers said. “Jobs are on the ballot. American security is on the ballot. Manufacturing is on the ballot. Inflation is on the ballot.”

This year’s theme of API’s annual event was to “keep the lights on,” a nod to criticism that Mr. Biden’s breakneck pace of net-zero emission goals for the power and transportation sectors could threaten reliable domestic energy and America’s place on the world stage as an energy superpower. 

The Biden administration wants to force two-thirds of new vehicle sales to be electric by 2032, a 100% clean electricity grid by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050.

Mr. Sommers zeroed in on one policy in particular that will have an impact on domestic oil and natural gas production for decades to come: the lack of drilling leases on federal lands and in waters under Mr. Biden.

Mr. Biden has offered 18 onshore leases in three years as president — much to the chagrin of climate activists — compared to 96 offered by then-President Obama in the same time frame.

As lawmakers did in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, Mr. Sommers urged Congress to force Mr. Biden’s hands on new leases.

“In the absence of U.S. energy leadership, the world will likely turn to … dirtier fuels from unstable regions,” he said. “Just as yesterday’s policies are felt today, today’s will be felt tomorrow.”