Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) want so ban new leases for oil and gas drilling offshore and on Federal lands, and she wants to ban fracking altogether. This assault on our national energy underpinnings would have far-reaching negative outcomes.
- domestic natural-gas prices would jump to somewhere between $9 and $15 per million BTUs from last Friday’s $2.32
- oil would rise to the $80-to-$85 range and could run to $150 during market shocks from last Friday’s $53.78
- entire oil-field service companies would become obsolete
- pipeline owners would suffer without replenishment, as existing wells peter out
Think how such price increases for basic transportation and such job losses would hammer “the little guy” that Warren pretends to so want to protect from Evil Big Business.
And some far-reaching positive outcomes: for Canada, Russia, and OPEC.
- Canadian shale drillers
- big global operators for which higher energy prices would offset losses on US assets.
- Russia: our ability to free our friends and allies from dependence on Russian oil and gas
- Russia and OPEC: the potential for political and economic dominance by these two from their enhanced ability to commit energy blackmail (both of which have demonstrated histories of engaging in such blackmail)—sources of market shocks
Here is a core part of Warren’s foreign policy.