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After Middle East Flop, Biden Administration Out of Answers on Energy Crisis

Posted on Tuesday, August 2, 2022
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by Andrew Abbott
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AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Abbott

Biden Administration

As the calendar turns over to August, oil prices have continued to hover near $100 per barrel, yet more confirmation that President Joe Biden’s desperate trip to the Middle East to beg Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to increase oil production was a strategic as well as a public relations failure. As gas remains well above $4 per gallon, Biden has stubbornly refused either to acknowledge the failures of his administration’s energy policies or take real action to facilitate increased domestic energy production.

After the United States achieved energy independence under former President Donald Trump, Biden quickly reversed that progress upon taking office, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and halting oil and gas leases on federal lands on his first day in office. As a result, the country once again became reliant on foreign energy suppliers – including Saudi Arabia, which Joe Biden had promised to treat as a “pariah” during the 2020 campaign.

That hostile rhetoric came back to haunt him last month, as the President was forced to travel to the Middle East on bended knee and ask the Saudi regime to increase oil production in the hopes of driving down prices. Biden, who greeted the Crown Prince with a fist bump, was widely mocked for his awkward attempt at diplomacy.

As for the actual meeting, both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are offering deeply conflicting reports. While the Biden administration claims the conversation was positive regarding increasing oil production, the Saudis were notably more ambiguous about any commitments to boosting output. Though MBS offered vague promises to support America, Saudi officials emphasized that any decision on oil production would need to be made within the framework of OPEC, the group of petroleum-producing nations that has a major impact on world oil prices. That’s likely bad news for Biden and American consumers, as few nations in OPEC aside from Saudi Arabia have particularly positive relations with the United States.

In addition to Saudi Arabia, Biden has attempted to secure greater oil output from Venezuela – a country that has long been hostile toward U.S. interests, especially under the reign of illegitimate ruler Nicolás Maduro. Much like other American adversaries in OPEC – including Iran – Venezuela suddenly has leverage over the United States thanks to Biden’s energy policies.

Even as they fret over foreign oil production, however, the Biden administration and congressional Democrats have refused to support increased domestic production – and have even sent oil from the U.S. strategic reserve overseas. According to reporting from Reuters last month, more than 5 million barrels of strategic reserve oil were sent to foreign countries, including to Communist China. The Biden administration has still failed to provide any comprehensive explanation for why oil from the reserve – which sits at its lowest level in decades – is being sent abroad while Biden himself pleads with foreign powers to increase their production. At the same time, Biden has refused to lift his ban on new oil and gas leases on federal lands, and his administration has continued to impose a litany of burdensome regulations on oil and gas companies.

In Congress, Democrats have taken a similar path. Last October, members of a House committee harangued oil executives for investing in more drilling operations – just months before Biden officials asserted that it was the “responsibility” of oil manufacturers to increase supply to meet demand. While Democrats’ latest reconciliation framework is being touted as making “investments” in domestic energy production, closer examination reveals that the bill only contains vague calls for “comprehensive Permitting reform legislation” – in other words, no concrete strategies for boosting production.

There is a path by which America could become a global leader in energy production while also addressing environmental concerns. U.S. production of oil and natural gas is cleaner than any other country in the world. By cutting regulations and expanding leases on federal lands, Biden could bring prices down and reduce harm to the environment. Doing so would also isolate U.S. adversaries and support U.S. allies, addressing the national security concerns brought on by overreliance on foreign suppliers.

For the Biden administration, however, such a reversal seems unlikely at best. After promising to advance the “green revolution” throughout his 2020 campaign, Biden still appears beholden to the far-left environmental agenda – even going so far as to say that high gas prices aren’t really a bad thing at all, but are just part of an “incredible transition.” For Americans desperate for cheaper gas and lower costs for basic goods, a different kind of transition may be necessary: a change in leadership.

Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with over a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.    

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Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis
2 years ago

The media corporations are just as corrupt and biased as their party masters!

Senator Ted Cruz offered a solution in 2014 that shoud be revived:

Ted Cruz Free Speech Act 2014
youtube.com/watch?v=JTCPcqPQu9g
Start the video at the 6 minute mark! 

Democrats were behind passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Democrats tell us there is too much money in politics, the corporate voice has too much influence in elections and wealth has too much sway in politics. 

After Watergate “We the People”, non-profits, political parties and PACs were regulated but the corporate media were exempted, because government could not infringe corporation’s 1st Amendment rights.

What happened to equal protection and rights under law? how does exempting the corporate voice and regulating citizen’s voice lessen corporate influence?

PaulE
PaulE
2 years ago

Another article stating the obvious. The Democrats created the current energy crisis through a series of intentional actions designed to damage and hopefully crush the American domestic oil and natural gas production, transportation and refining industry. These new, so-called called “green policies” have worked EXACTLY as they were intended to do. They worked the same way in western Europe over the last 20 years to successfully depress economic growth and raise of the cost of everything by several multiples. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that if we choose to copy the same economically destructive policies here, we would end up achieving the same results.

We are just getting started in our “new normal” under the global green agenda that masks the underlying socialist agenda. We now have much higher energy prices, that have rippled through the entire economy to force prices upward on almost everything. All of this was of course completely preventable, but there is no sense in dwelling on past bad choices by the American people when it comes to elections. Bad choices usually yield bad results and we are now saddled with the consequences of those choices.

We are stuck with these policies for at least another 2.5 years. Until perhaps a Republican, one with the actual will to stand up to the left in this country, resides in the Oval Office and reverses every single one of the Democrats’ policies. Until then, the American people just have to learn to live with the these bad policies. More will soon be coming our way when the skinny BBB Bill is passed and signed into law. I expect Senator Sinema will cave shortly under intense pressure and give the Democrats the votes they need to ram that spending extravaganza through.

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
2 years ago

What energy have None, Biden blocks all save Machins pipeline deal??

James Thompson
James Thompson
2 years ago

This administration has no answer for anything other than lining their pockets!

Rik
Rik
2 years ago

The ONLY person Jacka** Joe has TRULY made happy is Dimwit Jimmy Carter who IS NO LONGER THE WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY! America, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave IS NO MORE! Here’s hoping that doubled+ gas prices wake up the People but the Commies have learned how to cheat to win and I have no confidence that the Republicans “learned” how to stop them!

Tom
Tom
2 years ago

If you send the 82 Airborne to the Cayman Islands and bring back our money Biden will stop asking Harris and ObombA what to do making Hunter to get a job at “ Greasey Mack’s”. I prefer oiling up the prison door hinges and introducing Hunter to Claud- fete his new roomy.If I didn’t laugh I would cry.

johnh
johnh
2 years ago

Biden must stop his war on fossil fuels & admit he is a major reason gas prices are high.

Phyl
Phyl
2 years ago

Biden doesn’t have to look past his nose to find who’s to blame. All he needs to do is open the pipelines.

David Millikan
David Millikan
2 years ago

It’s simple DICTATOR Beijing biden.
DRILL in UNITED STATES of AMERICA and QUIT your LIE on Global Warming.
We ALL know that Global Warming is a LIE and your Electric Vehicles is a LIE.

BACKWOODS
BACKWOODS
2 years ago

UNDO THE FIRST FEW EXECUTIVE ORDERS.

Moses
Moses
2 years ago

Undo all of your Executive Orders, tell your doctor you need to resign, have your wife get the car and take you to the basement of your home. Do not answer the phone.

Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis
2 years ago

Climate change is first a political question and only a far distant science question. When will the political class finally figure this out? A short time ago, under President Trump, America was energy independent and exporting energy to the rest of the world. Only idiots in the Democrat party cannot figure out a solution to high prices at the pump!

We are being led by a fool and his continuing failed leadership is a Clear and Present Danger to the Security of these United States!

Chris
Chris
2 years ago

It’s all about the step by step process to make us all dependent on the government. They already accomplished dividing us racially. Once this is complete, Then comes socialism

Tim Darnell
Tim Darnell
2 years ago

Biden cut off both legs of energy independence and is still trying to run a quick race to “green up” the U.S. The economy will never work well this way, so strap-in and elect common-sense people to get us back to our energy independence.

virginia state flag and voter box
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at a roundtable with business and labor leaders, Friday, November 18, 2022, in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)
jim nicholson and kamala harris with bible and rosary behind them about her anti-catholic acts
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