While Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine presses on, so does Joe Biden’s war on domestic energy. Americans are footing the bill with a crippled economy, destroyed livelihoods, and threatened national security.
The pain at the pump has now reached record highs. Despite evidence that proves President Biden’s actions have led to increased energy costs for consumers, the White House has been working overtime to convince the public that it isn’t so.
On the campaign trail, candidate Biden unequivocally declared war on American energy. Immediately upon taking office, he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline. Biden had made it clear to the carbon-phobes and dark money special interests who fueled his candidacy that his administration was perfectly willing to sacrifice our economy and high-paying American jobs on the altar of their green energy gods.
With his pen and phone, Biden ushered in an unprecedented and targeted assault on American energy. Even on the eve of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a Biden administration document revealed that the president is considering raising the royalty rate on oil and gas drilling leases. Those climate crusaders seem giddy about driving fossil fuel prices higher than the cost for “green” energy to cause a shift in consumer preferences.
These radical executive actions haven’t gone unnoticed. I have matched Joe Biden’s egregious violations of the law with an even greater force in support of the Constitution. My Republican attorney general colleagues and I have thrown up legal roadblocks at every turn — including lawsuits to stop the “social cost” of carbon rule, restart oil and gas lease sales, and end the Clean Power Plan once and for all.
Unfortunately, the legal process is not a quick one. The middle class and the poor are being forced to choose between needs as inflation erodes their incomes. Biden’s policies have not only increased their gas prices and electric bills, but also their groceries. The only thing that’s not going up is the president’s poll numbers. Instead of pivoting away from destruction, Biden’s band is simply changing the lyrics on the song sheets. Seeing the war in Ukraine as the perfect scapegoat, Biden has claimed that Russia is responsible for the pain at the pump.
Don’t mind the mountains of data that show gas prices were increasing long before Congress forced Biden’s hand on banning Russian oil after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began. Attributing supply-chain issues, inflation, and gas prices to anything other than President Biden’s policies is deceitful, and exploiting the suffering of the Ukrainian people in this fashion is disgraceful.
While the president says he will use ”every tool at our disposal” to control gas prices in the wake of the war in Ukraine, his actions speak louder than his words. In the days since the war broke out, Biden has continued his climate crusade and green-lighted policies that will increase costs for Americans, including new rules that limit truck emissions and promote California’s fuel efficiency standards, more stringent approval criteria for oil and gas infrastructure, and additional environmentalist-inspired disclosure requirements for public companies. His Department of Justice argued at the Supreme Court earlier this month — opposite a coalition of Republican attorneys general — in favor of the Clean Power Plan’s restrictions on the production of energy.
Whether Biden blames record energy prices on oil companies, Putin, or a deficit of ”green” sources, don’t believe it. Biden’s policies, against which I have led successful multi-state lawsuits, are the single biggest factor that is spiking the cost of gas, utilities, and groceries.
We must fully open up domestic energy production, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, and stop implementing policies that hinder domestic energy production. I call on Biden to choose reliable, affordable, and secure American fossil fuels and stop gaslighting the publhic. End your partisan gamesmanship and political grandstanding, and end our dependence on Russian oligarchs, Middle East sheikhs, and failed South American petrostates. Rely upon the hard-working people who ply their trade in oil and gas.
Jeff Landry is Louisiana’s Attorney General.
