Newsline

Newsline , Society

How Blue-State Policies Are Making America More Dependent on Hostile Foreign Oil

Posted on Monday, March 21, 2022
|
by Outside Contributor
|
57 Comments
|
Print
Oil

While elected Republicans continue to hammer the Biden administration for impairing domestic energy production, state-level regulations, laws, and attitudes have come under less scrutiny, even as they’ve played a demonstrable role in producing and compounding the problem at hand.

President Joe Biden promised during his campaign that he would allow “no more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one.” And since taking office, his administration has implemented policies, oftentimes under the radar, that have made life more difficult for the domestic oil and gas industry and led to increased foreign — including Russian — imports.

In many ways, he’s been following in the footsteps of blue-state Democrats, whose policies began undermining domestic energy production long before Russian president Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, ramping up pressure on already strained global markets.

The Golden State stands out as perhaps the most glaring example of this phenomenon.

“California is committed to doing whatever is necessary to meet the existential threat of climate change,” said California governor Jerry Brown upon signing the 100 Percent Clean Energy Act in 2018. His successor, Gavin Newsom, has taken this commitment to new extremes.

According to Rock Zierman, president of the California Independent Petroleum Association, California could, with its own supply, replace the entirety of the Russian crude oil it imports “by double . . . if we just got back to where we were when Gavin Newsom started his deliberate effort to shut us down.”

Zierman says that through actions official and unofficial, the Newsom administration has made the state more reliant on foreign oil and contributed to rising prices in the energy sector. When Newsom took office in 2019, the average price per gallon in the state was $3.23; as of this February, it stood at $4.66. California has seen similar upticks in the amount of foreign oil it’s brought to its shores. In 2018, the state imported around 5 million barrels of Russian crude oil. By 2021, that number had more than tripled, per the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. The Biden administration has since cut off Russian oil imports due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and it’s unclear how California will make up the resulting shortfall.

Tangible, stated policies, as well as behind-the-scenes maneuvering, are responsible for these developments. “It’s hard to isolate just one” as particularly damaging, Zierman told National Review, because different companies have different priorities and operations. Among them, though, are the state’s slow-footed permit process and Newsom’s propensity for making burdensome policy changes by executive fiat.

The California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) is presently sitting on permits for 1,000 new oil wells that have already undergone all of the necessary regulatory processes and been approved as per environmental and other standards, according to Zierman. All that’s required of the agency at this point is for them to send a letter to Native American tribes close to the projects and give them 60 days’ notice of the activity. By law, those notices of intent (NOIs) are supposed to be sent within ten days, and yet Newsom’s administration has sat on them for months.

“It seems ludicrous when oil is peaking and volatile and we’re trying to ban Russian imports,” said Zierman, who also noted that he knows of at least two companies that have laid off workers as a result of the delay.

“I’ve been at this for 20 years and I’ve worked with a lot of governors, and I’ve worked with a lot of regulators. I think it’s pretty clear that they’ve been told to slow-play everything,” he continued. “I don’t necessarily want to blame some faceless bureaucracy, because I don’t think that’s what the problem is in California, the problem is Gavin Newsom.”

Zierman says that on top of the 1,000 wells being held up just before the finish line, projects representing another 3,000 wells are tangled in the thorns of the state’s regulatory process, which has been made much more arduous by the Newsom administration.

In addition to initiating a phase-out of new fracking permits and placing a moratorium on the use of cyclic steam injection, Newsom is trying to enact a setback rule that would require new oil wells in the state to be at least 3,200 feet away from any area where citizens live or congregate and impose burdensome requirements on those already in existence.

Zierman estimates that if the wells currently being held up by the state government were up and running, California would produce between 100,000 and 200,000 barrels per day.

On the East Coast, too, state-level policies are frustrating those who believe in pursuing American energy independence.

Steve Plants, president of Plants and Goodwin and of the New York State Oil and Gas Producers Association, says that the rhetoric coming from Biden and New York governor Kathy Hochul has made “banks and investors and even proven operators who are operating on their own cash very reluctant” to move forward with capital-intensive projects.

“Governor Hochul has pushed the idea that, you know, they want to put a statewide ban on any new construction for having a natural-gas hookup to it,” observed Plants. “It’s absolutely ludicrous.”

In addition to permanently banning fracking in 2020, New York has made it extremely difficult to economically transport oil and natural gas into or across the state. “Any pipeline that has any capacity to it at all just gets rejected,” said Plants, who operates in both New York and Pennsylvania, which does allow fracking.

New York’s reluctance to greenlight pipelines has had downstream consequences for other northeastern states as well. As Forbes reported last month, New Englanders were paying — even before the war in Ukraine — $30.50 per metric million British thermal unit (MMBtu). That was close to six times the price Americans on the Gulf Coast of Texas and in Louisiana were paying at the time.

The absurd costs can — to a significant extent — be explained by the source of the region’s supply. Much of the region’s energy needs are fulfilled by foreign countries, including Russia, that send natural gas on massive tankers across the Atlantic.

“That just seems unthinkable when they were 400 miles away from the largest, perhaps the largest gas field in the United States in the Marcellus Shale,” observed Plants. “But if you look at a map, there’s no way to get to New England without going across New York, and the pipelines that were proposed to take this cheap gas and abundant gas to the New England states, was rejected by the Cuomo administration numerous times.”

Plants told National Review that economically, it would not make sense for producers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere to invest in alternative shipping methods. “You need to be able to do it at the economy of scale that not only one ship but multiple ships can operate,” he explained.

Dan Weaver, the president of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA), concurred. “Our biggest issue in Pennsylvania is the inability to get it out,” he told National Review.

Weaver made reference to the Jones Act — which was passed in the early 20th century and requires that ships transporting goods from one American port to another be built, owned, and operated by American citizens — as another impediment to getting domestic product from point A to point B.

He also said that regulatory uncertainty plays a huge role in stymieing production. “It’s delays in getting permits through in a timely manner . . . with any business, any type of uncertainty is not good for business,” he said, adding, “It’s the fact that there’s all these, all these little cuts that make it very difficult to operate.”

Weaver also explained that electoral politics will play a huge role in firms’ strategies and thus the domestic oil supply. “Even within our own state, this is a gubernatorial election year. So everybody’s paying very close attention to what happens next,” he said.

The Biden administration, he submitted, has not been forthright in its treatment of the industry. Earlier this month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated that “there are 9,000 approved oil leases that the oil companies are not tapping into currently.” Weaver said it’s not so simple.

“They may have 9,000 leases, but do they have all the permits in place that allow them to get access to those leases? They’re trying to blame the industry for stuff that they don’t have control over,” argued Weaver. “There’s still a lot of hurdles.”

Over the last several years, a number of other states with Democrats at their helm have passed laws setting goals for emissions decreases. Besides California’s 100 Percent Clean Energy Act — which requires the state’s electricity system to become carbon-free by 2045 — there’s Washington’s Clean Energy Transformation Act (utilities must be carbon neutral by 2030), New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (net-zero emissions economy by 2050), and Hawaii’s House Bill 623 (100 percent renewable energy electricity grid by 2045).

Hawaii has, on average, relied upon Russia for about a third of its oil supply in recent years. House Bill 623 was passed in 2015. Washington imported more Russian oil in 2021 than it had in at least six years.

According to Plants, setting hard dates and goals like that only causes more hesitation on the part of producers. “If you look forward and kind of try to read the tea leaves, it doesn’t look good for the fossil-fuel industry in the state of New York,” he said. “The people in high places in New York have an utter disdain for fossil fuels.”

Weaver also took the administration to task for refusing to take obvious steps toward making the U.S. 100 percent energy independent while at the same time urging the Gulf states that make up the OPEC cartel to increase their production to bring down prices.

“It’s absurd,” he said.

“If I’m Joe Biden, why am I going to call [Nicolás] Maduro or the Saudi Prince? Why wouldn’t I call Gavin Newsom and say ‘Hey, first of all there’s a hundred permits you could just do right now.’ You could literally do them today. You just send a letter to the tribes and you’re done,” wondered an exasperated Zierman. “‘And hey, there’s 900 others . .  Hey, could you maybe do your job?’”

Share this article:
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
57 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
jake the snake
jake the snake
2 years ago

that is because democrats are anti the little guy and fully support big business.

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
2 years ago

Since Biden wont allow fracking & drilling & open up pipelines

MariaRose
MariaRose
2 years ago

I live in New York State, where the ultra rich liberals, control everything and are quick to blame everyone else for the high cost. The utility companies that supply the energy are highly regulated by the state which demands a high performance level and a high response level when weather conditions cause power outages. I am not arguing that because that at least guarantees everyone minimum loss of utility power.
But what NYS also does is use a Public Utility Commission to set the rates that they decide the utility companies can charge consumers, BUT NYS blames the utility companies for the rising rates —look up the large increases they allowed to occur in January 2022. Okay rates charges are variable because of seasonal needs but NYS is hiding the fact that they are pushing costs of converting to what they call “clean energy” development on to consumers while labeling it —climate change —Green New Deal— while also not mentioning that these “clean energy sources” are not powerful enough to supply the current needs and one needs to use so-called dirty energy to create the “clean energy source. They think that the population will be satisfied with brownouts of power during high energy demands and will accept the excuse that the utility companies are at fault.
Another thing NYS is doing is trying to switch the individual consumer utility account to be managed by a “middleman company” automatically without having the option to opt in themselves by figuring that if they hide this from public information we, the consumers, wouldn’t notice until it was too late to switch out. This “middleman company “ is the same company that caused the Texas utility mess ( no power supply but charged the consumers high rates for delivery to pay for getting the supply turned back on because they didn’t maintain the equipment to high enough standards to keep their profit line high—little thought for the consumer needs). Every utility company in NYS is getting energy supply from the same place all regulated rates decided by NYS. A very Blue liberal state who only takes care of the rich while claiming to take care of the poor people (as long as they don’t see or deal directly with the poor)

WilliamB
WilliamB
2 years ago

Need help with the first sentence of this article. “While elected Republicans continue to hammer the Biden administration…” I guess my definition of “hammer” must be too harsh. Apparently “hammer” is something like Lindsay Graham saying “Now ya’ll need to stop doing that, hear?”

David Millikan
David Millikan
2 years ago

To not Drill in the United States and in our continental shelf
is completely UN-American and pure COMMUNISM.
DICTATOR Beijing biden making other countries rich while making the United States poor when we don’t need Foreign oil or Foreign Natural Gas.
Also, to force our Drillers to use their own money and ridiculous regulations is UN-AMERICAN.
We were ENERGY INDEPENDENT without FASCIST Regulations under PRESIDENT TRUMP and AMERICANS had good paying jobs with Gasoline at $1.59/gal.
and our utilities were a lot lower along with everything else costing a lot less, Before 1-20-21.

Traditionalist
Traditionalist
2 years ago

I’m not sure anyone can make a dent in the “Climate Change” religion adherents’ thinking.

Bob L.
Bob L.
2 years ago

Also watch for the federal government to possibly implement the International Energy Agency’s 10- point plan to cut oil usage because of the (non-existent) oil shortage caused by the Ukrainian conflict. Be you didn’t know we belong to the IEA did you, I didn’t.
Google: Preview of Climate Lockdowns? IEA Urges Emergency Measures to Cut Oil Demand Due to Ukraine War

THX 1138
THX 1138
2 years ago

If only we had banned and outlawed the Democrat Marxists Party with that “hanging chads” nonsense of theirs in Florida TWENTY-TWO years ago! So much could have been avoided by this time.

Kay
Kay
2 years ago

Climate change is climate control by the communist party called democrats. People can not afford a $60,000 EV so you will either pay $6.00 to $8,00 a gallon for gas or take the bus as suggested. If you like communist democrat party to control your life you will vote in 2022 for some of the same. When it hurts bad enough you will thank President Trump for being oil and energy United States free.

David Millikan
David Millikan
2 years ago

Global Warming is nothing but a Lie. It all started when gore lost the election. Then, all of sudden Global Warming popped up.
Just like when DICTATOR Beijing biden got ILLEGALLY and UNCONSTITUTIONALLY in White House all of sudden overnight we were ALL racist. Another Lie.
Just like Global Warming is the #1 National Security threat. What a JOKE!
China, Russia, Iran, and N. Korea ARE THE #1 NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT with DICTATOR Beijing biden at TOP of LIST for NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT.
WAKE UP AMERICA!

Rik
Rik
2 years ago

Unless you’ve not lived under Jackass Jerry Brown’s Anti-American Communist wannabe policies, that’s why we have the HIGHEST gasoline prices in the whole country! . . . Lowest price I’ve seen today was $5+ to $6+/gallon! . . . Welcome to American Communism people.

Robert
Robert
2 years ago

All by design. Kamala Harris is the dumbest person ever to be elected as a V.P.

johnh
johnh
2 years ago

Article says: Biden campaigned “No more drilling on Federal Lands” and so how can Biden/Psaki claim they are not fault to rising oil price….and try to blame it on Putin. Why won’t Biden back off on putting the Green Climate agenda ahead of the American people.

Garye
Garye
2 years ago

Just another of joebama and the marxist democrat party’s assault on America!
Anything,everything to ruin the middle class, eliminate God given rights and destroy Freedom and independence.
THROW THEM OUT – THROW THEM OUT.
They are destroying Our Country!
Hateful,divisive, discriminatory, immoral, anti freedom, self-serving, corrupt democrats.
Remove them from EVERY local, state and federal office for treason and failure to uphold their sworn duty to the Citizens they WORK FOR!

Willie Ryan
Willie Ryan
2 years ago

Ever time a democrat gets in office there goes the place they are.

Karen
Karen
2 years ago

First, there is NOT a problem with our earth. We don’t need to make global warming a major worry. Read what the scientists are saying. Second, Biden made a mess of this as usual ’cause he never was too smart EVER. What a buffoon! Looking forward to when the Reps get in that they start something to get all the Dem buffoons outta here in 2024 and look into all the marks of treason taking place and put the garbage Dems in jail for life or hang ’em high!

Richard
Richard
2 years ago

The current occupant of Government Housing AKA “The White House” can’t find the men’s room door. Thus our “third term president”, obama is calling the shots. When is the “news” going to recognize it and say it like it is?

jake the snake
jake the snake
2 years ago

that is because democrats are anti the little guy and fully support big business.

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
2 years ago

Since Biden wont allow fracking & drilling & open up pipelines

MariaRose
MariaRose
2 years ago

I live in New York State, where the ultra rich liberals, control everything and are quick to blame everyone else for the high cost. The utility companies that supply the energy are highly regulated by the state which demands a high performance level and a high response level when weather conditions cause power outages. I am not arguing that because that at least guarantees everyone minimum loss of utility power.
But what NYS also does is use a Public Utility Commission to set the rates that they decide the utility companies can charge consumers, BUT NYS blames the utility companies for the rising rates —look up the large increases they allowed to occur in January 2022. Okay rates charges are variable because of seasonal needs but NYS is hiding the fact that they are pushing costs of converting to what they call “clean energy” development on to consumers while labeling it —climate change —Green New Deal— while also not mentioning that these “clean energy sources” are not powerful enough to supply the current needs and one needs to use so-called dirty energy to create the “clean energy source. They think that the population will be satisfied with brownouts of power during high energy demands and will accept the excuse that the utility companies are at fault.
Another thing NYS is doing is trying to switch the individual consumer utility account to be managed by a “middleman company” automatically without having the option to opt in themselves by figuring that if they hide this from public information we, the consumers, wouldn’t notice until it was too late to switch out. This “middleman company “ is the same company that caused the Texas utility mess ( no power supply but charged the consumers high rates for delivery to pay for getting the supply turned back on because they didn’t maintain the equipment to high enough standards to keep their profit line high—little thought for the consumer needs). Every utility company in NYS is getting energy supply from the same place all regulated rates decided by NYS. A very Blue liberal state who only takes care of the rich while claiming to take care of the poor people (as long as they don’t see or deal directly with the poor)

WilliamB
WilliamB
2 years ago

Need help with the first sentence of this article. “While elected Republicans continue to hammer the Biden administration…” I guess my definition of “hammer” must be too harsh. Apparently “hammer” is something like Lindsay Graham saying “Now ya’ll need to stop doing that, hear?”

David Millikan
David Millikan
2 years ago

To not Drill in the United States and in our continental shelf
is completely UN-American and pure COMMUNISM.
DICTATOR Beijing biden making other countries rich while making the United States poor when we don’t need Foreign oil or Foreign Natural Gas.
Also, to force our Drillers to use their own money and ridiculous regulations is UN-AMERICAN.
We were ENERGY INDEPENDENT without FASCIST Regulations under PRESIDENT TRUMP and AMERICANS had good paying jobs with Gasoline at $1.59/gal.
and our utilities were a lot lower along with everything else costing a lot less, Before 1-20-21.

Traditionalist
Traditionalist
2 years ago

I’m not sure anyone can make a dent in the “Climate Change” religion adherents’ thinking.

Bob L.
Bob L.
2 years ago

Also watch for the federal government to possibly implement the International Energy Agency’s 10- point plan to cut oil usage because of the (non-existent) oil shortage caused by the Ukrainian conflict. Be you didn’t know we belong to the IEA did you, I didn’t.
Google: Preview of Climate Lockdowns? IEA Urges Emergency Measures to Cut Oil Demand Due to Ukraine War

THX 1138
THX 1138
2 years ago

If only we had banned and outlawed the Democrat Marxists Party with that “hanging chads” nonsense of theirs in Florida TWENTY-TWO years ago! So much could have been avoided by this time.

Kay
Kay
2 years ago

Climate change is climate control by the communist party called democrats. People can not afford a $60,000 EV so you will either pay $6.00 to $8,00 a gallon for gas or take the bus as suggested. If you like communist democrat party to control your life you will vote in 2022 for some of the same. When it hurts bad enough you will thank President Trump for being oil and energy United States free.

David Millikan
David Millikan
2 years ago

Global Warming is nothing but a Lie. It all started when gore lost the election. Then, all of sudden Global Warming popped up.
Just like when DICTATOR Beijing biden got ILLEGALLY and UNCONSTITUTIONALLY in White House all of sudden overnight we were ALL racist. Another Lie.
Just like Global Warming is the #1 National Security threat. What a JOKE!
China, Russia, Iran, and N. Korea ARE THE #1 NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT with DICTATOR Beijing biden at TOP of LIST for NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT.
WAKE UP AMERICA!

Rik
Rik
2 years ago

Unless you’ve not lived under Jackass Jerry Brown’s Anti-American Communist wannabe policies, that’s why we have the HIGHEST gasoline prices in the whole country! . . . Lowest price I’ve seen today was $5+ to $6+/gallon! . . . Welcome to American Communism people.

Robert
Robert
2 years ago

All by design. Kamala Harris is the dumbest person ever to be elected as a V.P.

johnh
johnh
2 years ago

Article says: Biden campaigned “No more drilling on Federal Lands” and so how can Biden/Psaki claim they are not fault to rising oil price….and try to blame it on Putin. Why won’t Biden back off on putting the Green Climate agenda ahead of the American people.

Garye
Garye
2 years ago

Just another of joebama and the marxist democrat party’s assault on America!
Anything,everything to ruin the middle class, eliminate God given rights and destroy Freedom and independence.
THROW THEM OUT – THROW THEM OUT.
They are destroying Our Country!
Hateful,divisive, discriminatory, immoral, anti freedom, self-serving, corrupt democrats.
Remove them from EVERY local, state and federal office for treason and failure to uphold their sworn duty to the Citizens they WORK FOR!

Willie Ryan
Willie Ryan
2 years ago

Ever time a democrat gets in office there goes the place they are.

Karen
Karen
2 years ago

First, there is NOT a problem with our earth. We don’t need to make global warming a major worry. Read what the scientists are saying. Second, Biden made a mess of this as usual ’cause he never was too smart EVER. What a buffoon! Looking forward to when the Reps get in that they start something to get all the Dem buffoons outta here in 2024 and look into all the marks of treason taking place and put the garbage Dems in jail for life or hang ’em high!

Richard
Richard
2 years ago

The current occupant of Government Housing AKA “The White House” can’t find the men’s room door. Thus our “third term president”, obama is calling the shots. When is the “news” going to recognize it and say it like it is?

Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry participates in a briefing Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Chandler West)
Elon Musk Trump Rally Butler PA
J. D. Vance speaking with attendees at the 2021 Southwest Regional Conference hosted by Turning Point USA at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona.

Stay informed! Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter.

"*" indicates required fields

57
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x

Subscribe to AMAC Daily News and Games