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Some liberal icons of pop culture, including a Biden Administration member, began to reluctantly accept fossil fuels over the last two weeks.
Elon Musk, a space and energy entrepreneur and energy investor called for increased domestic oil production and exports a few weeks back. Despite leading Tesla, the largest, most successful electric vehicle manufacturer in the world—a company that benefits from higher oil and gas prices—Musk tweeted to his 63 million followers, “Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil and gas output immediately. … Obviously, this would negatively affect Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil and gas exports.” Musk is putting the nation’s well-being ahead of his self-interest.
Bill Maher, an ardently liberal talkshow host called for compromises on the domestic production of oil and gas and on nuclear power. Maher said, “I feel like this country, if it was a normal country, or the way it used to be, seminormal, we could make a grand bargain. Where the left gave up some things, they would — I mean, nuclear, I’m not for nuclear. I know it’s not a perfect solution, … [b]ut … there are no perfect solutions, give a little on that one or maybe even fracking. As long as we’re going to use the energy, use it here…use the stuff that we get…because we’re a big energy producer now.”
Maher was essentially saying, you don’t have to like nuclear, oil, and gas to acknowledge the important role they play powering an affordable economy.
Perhaps the most surprising thing of all is The Wall Street JournalRichard Glick, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), recently endorsed natural gas. The article noted that in response to industry officials questioning “whether the Biden administration’s commitment to cleaner fuels would hinder the development of gas-export terminals … when Europe wants more Western fuel as a bulwark against Russian aggression,” Glick said, “If you are going to export natural gas and it’s going to reduce coal-fired generation in Poland, for instance, that actually is a net-positive.”
Of course, Glick’s faint praise for natural gas was tied to the Biden administration’s obsession with fighting climate change, not with regards to the more direct problem of reducing Europe’s and America’s reliance on Russian oil and gas.
Although the Biden administration isn’t able to stop talking, it should continue to exert pressure on them for domestic oil and gas production. Among the actions Biden should take would be to reverse recent regulations limiting flaring, fracking, methane emissions, restarting oil and gas leasing on federal lands and offshore—which, by the way, they were directed to do by a federal court—clear the backlog of thousands pending permits for oil and gas production for leases already purchased, and expedite the approval of oil and gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas export terminals.
The FERC has a bipolar approach on natural gas. It promotes it publically as a useful resource, but also passes policies that hinder its use or increase infrastructure. The new rules, however, are totally unnecessary.
Data tracking the increased natural gas use in the United States show emissions reductions have proceeded despite environmentalists’ concerns.
Tim Benson from The Heartland Institute conducted an analysis and found that since 2005 natural gas-fired power generation had increased by 108% while electricity sector emissions fell by over a third.
More important than words are actions. The United States pulled out from the Paris Agreement but emissions declined under Donald Trump. Emissions fell even more under President Donald Trump than they did in any country remaining in the Paris Agreement.
Sadly, thus far, the Biden administration’s response to the energy crisis and the sky-high inflation it has caused has been to beg a slew of dictators not named Vladimir Putin to increase their oil production while draining the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Apart from that, Biden’s administration did nothing other than to go on television and accuse others of creating the crisis.
Biden’s team is trying to play both sides without making real moves that might enrage their radical, progressive, environmental base.
The words aren’t enough. Washington’s wealthy politicos must walk the talk by removing the chains from our energy industry.
Linnea Lueken (L[email protected]) is a research fellow with and H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., ([email protected]Director of The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, he is ).
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