Busting Ten Energy Myths

Let’s get specific – about how Biden’s anti-energy policies are devastating American consumers. Here are ten myths about his energy policies that need correction. Taken together, they explain why average Americans are scrambling, forced to cash savings just to survive. Americans must know the truth.

Myth One: “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is fine. Being used properly, lowering oil prices.” Wrong: At a time of high conflict and low oil production, the SPR is dangerously low, at 1984 levels, which is doubly bad since we use 20 percent more energy now.

Worse, the SPR was drained for political reasons – midterm elections. The goal was to artificially lower gas and heating costs after Biden decimated US oil production, leases, pipelines and then asked our allies – who ignored him – to make up the difference. Lastly, prices barely budged.

Myth Two: “Drilling permits for federal lands are at record levels.” Wrong again. A backlog was cleared, then permits fell to a trickle. Moreover, a permit is the first step, and Biden knows lawsuits by his environmental activist friends sideline permit use and production.

Myth Three: “New leases on federal lands are available.” Barely. In January 2021, Biden halted leases for oil projects on federal lands and slow-rolled pending leases. Further eroding production, he suspended leases in the Arctic Refuge and New Mexico, notably despite Native Americans’ interest in them.

Myth Four: “New public regulations do not hamper production.” Nonsense. Biden reasserted the “Waters of the US” rule, instantly producing new uncertainty for producers. He then pushed “new standards” for ozone, and rescinded common sense review of the Endangered Species Act, triggering fresh litigation.

Myth Five: “Rejoining the Paris Accord did no harm, all good.” Absurd. Rejoining that cobbled together, legally unenforceable, oddly activist pledge to “Mother Earth” in an unratified (and unratifiable) treaty that gives China – the biggest polluter – a pass, was politics. It unilaterally hurts US producers, gives billions of US tax dollars to other polluters, and was recently reinforced by Biden’s pledge to strap Middle Class America with global “climate reparations.”

Myth Six: “Democrat environmental policies are transparent.” Hardly. Biden has empowered a raft of unappointed regulators to create policies with no oversight and little public discussion. Beyond an all-powerful White House Climate Czar – who held illegal, anti-US conversations with Iran prior to his new job – a number of hidden councils have been created. 

These little-known and largely untracked “councils” push regulating for “social costs” from “greenhouse gases,” redefinition of national “monument boundaries,” quiet compliance with old “ozone protocols,” ways to kill the “coal and power plant communities” using the rubric of “revitalization,” pushing new “appliance standards” (backdoor to killing gas-powered tools), integrating “comate considerations” into all policy, federalizing “30 percent” of US waters by 2030, and on and on. 

Myth Seven: “White House and Democrat climate priorities will not affect citizen mobility.” Rubbish. The “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” encouraged states to end gas-powered cars, ironically for electric cars powered by a fossil fuel grid. But it went further, mandating states produce a “carbon reduction plan” intended to “reduce driving” – or face federal sanctions.

Myth Eight: “Nothing Biden is doing will affect car prices.” Double rubbish. Not only are overspending and anti-fossil fuel policies driving gas and wider inflation to unsustainable levels, but used car prices jumped 59 percent in three years, new car prices 29 percent – with no relief in sight. Moreover, Biden’s EPA final rules add an extra $1000 to every new car.

Myth Nine: “Broad guidance favoring climate does not much affect prices.” Sure. That is why prices are jumping as Biden’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pushes new regulations called “carbon pricing,” ending common refrigerants – higher prices for countless appliances.

With this, business innovation has been hit by new regulatory schemes, including changing definitions to include soft “social cost” analysis and new penalties for business, raising the price of getting anything to market. Likewise, under a misnamed “Clean Energy Standard” – new penalties on business are pushed.

Myth Ten: “No unfair taxes are being pushed.” Baloney. Democrats managed to get big anti-business taxes first in the “Green New Deal” tucked into the “Build Back Better” and “Inflation Reduction” Acts, which have little to do with building anything back or reducing inflation, except excess spending and taxes elevate inflation, interest rates, and unemployment.

So, where are we really? We are creeping toward George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, or your favorite dystopian, socialist top-down, “we will tell you what to think and do” world.

Bottom line: How do we reclaim our world, economy, individual rights, government, and truth – from those who quietly and insidiously regulate and legislate under these false statements? 

Simple: We have to pay attention to facts – not false rhetoric. We need to demand those in power listen, serve the citizens, and speak truth – not default to “double speak,” talk down, hide facts, and behave as if we are too dumb to know our self-interest. We do know it, and now they must.