Energy Independence

Let’s say, arguendo, that the Biden-Harris administration is sincere in its desire to switch America over, entirely, to renewable energy sources. Let’s say, also arguendo, that that’s even a good idea. Former Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke had some thoughts that bear on the execution of these premises:

The first two years of the Trump administration, we went from 8.3 million barrels a day [and] declining in just two years to 12.5 million barrels a day, the world’s largest exporter of energy. And it just wasn’t fossil fuels, it was across the board. So fast-forward now; we have Russia and we should immediately ban Russian oil [the Biden-Harris administration finally got around to doing this last Tuesday, albeit with an unspecified effective as of date].

However, the Biden-Harris administration still is begging OPEC to increase its oil output, now talking seriously about lifting sanctions on Iran so as to buy Iranian oil, and adding to that going to Venezuela to “negotiate” for oil from that nation. This is because we no longer have the ability to control our own energy pricing through our own domestic oil and gas production. Paradoxically, Biden-Harris has attacked our fossil fuel industry with greater zeal than it has shown against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

All of that is in the name of getting us off fossil fuels and onto “green,” renewable energy sources as quickly as domestic fossil fuels can be eliminated, regardless of the cost to us Americans, financially and politically around the world, and regardless of the current inability of wind and solar to deliver reliable energy, much less in the amounts our economy needs.

Here’s an alternative path to that golden chalice.

Biden-Harris should take the Federal government out of the way of our fossil fuel production industry—oil, natural gas, and yes, coal—and let us produce all of that energy that the market can bear. That will let us return to energy independence.

Biden-Harris acolytes always point to the 9,000, or so, oil leases that oil producers already own and aren’t exploiting. Biden-Harris acolytes, along with Biden-Harris himself, carefully ignore the fact that those leases require exploration and development of actual oil locations and that the Biden-Harris administration is sitting on existing permit applications to do that and refusing to accept (or slow walking, which functionally the same) new permit applications. Biden-Harris acolytes, along with Biden-Harris himself, also carefully ignore the usurious royalties Biden-Harris has decided to charge on new extractions–new oil and gas drilling/fracking. Biden-Harris acolytes, along with Biden-Harris himself, also carefully ignore the administration blocks on pipelines–and blocks on the separate permits needed to transport oil and gas via those pipelines (and via train in the case of oil)–and on storage facilities so that oil and gas can be delivered to refineries, and they carefully ignore the time required to obtain rights of way for those pipelines even were on permitted [sic] to be built.

Oil and natural gas producers also are wary of the Biden-Harris administration’s fickle performance with regard to its fossil fuel regulating regime and are hesitant to commit the several millions of dollars that are required up front just to get started when that fickleness is too likely to block an effort after those millions have been committed.

Letting our nation return to energy independence will, tautologically, make us not dependent on other nations for our energy—not our enemies, not our allies, not our friends.

That will put us—our free market economy and its private enterprises—back in control of our energy production. That production control would extend to production from all sources, including renewable (and nuclear, which can be quasi-renewable) sources.

That will generate the time and prosperity that then will let us develop the technologies needed to get reliable renewable energy in the industrial quantities we need, without the worsening pollution and expanding carbon footprint (assuming, once again arguendo, that that’s a bad thing) inherent in current production abilities, at a pace that we can afford, and at prices we Americans can afford to pay.

3 thoughts on “Energy Independence

  1. You make a solid argument, but I got distracted along the way.

    15 instances of “Biden-Harris” in your post, including the one you injected into someone else’s quote.

    “Biden-Harris himself”? Is that one person?

    Seems gratuitous to me. What’s your point? That Harris is really pulling the strings at the White House? Biden is just a figurehead?

    How does this advance your argument?

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