You have now entered the Twilight Zone. No, not the Rod Serling variety. Rather NPR’s afternoon program All Things Considered. Or more aptly, Only Liberal Things Considered. I knew I was in for a bumpy ride when they announced that Biden has restored 90% of the jobs lost in the pandemic, solely responsible for adding some 467000 jobs in January. Failing to mention of course that his Covid policies cost the jobs in the first place, policies that the democrats are furiously trying to reel back in. Sorry, butthe economy is going to improve despite Joe Biden. And of course the claim that his approval rating in the polls was bumped up 9 percentage points after his state of the union address, despite the average bump historically being in the vicinity of 0.4%, is preposterous. Did they survey only college educated white women in a Massachusetts Nordstrom’s? Or maybe just the audience that listened to the Ukraine portion of the speech, then promptly fell asleep for the mumbling, uninspired remainder. But the NPR program really started to take on a bizarre, otherworldly tone when they introduced “US Lawmakers are using the Ukraine Crisis to Push for Domestic Energy Production”. And by US lawmakers, I assume they mean Republicans. Oh, the horror. They begin by stating that sanctions have the “notable omission” of Russia’s oil and gas exports, as their inclusion would “only worsen the price problem” that Americans are experiencing at the pump”. But this is where they reveal their true colors by stating “but that’s not stopping lawmakers who want a boost in domestic energy production”. As if wanting to decrease the western civilization’s dependence on Russian oil to fund their incursion into Ukraine is a bad thing. Rather the implication is that we should continue funding Russia by importing oil at $117 per barrel, a notable increase over the $55 a barrel during the Trump administration when we were net exporters of oil. You recall those halcyon days now don’t you? Energy producers have supplied a wish list of solutions from approving the Keystone XL pipeline, to drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and fast tracking export terminals, including ending the moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, all proposals that NPR and liberal climate change activists call “not new”. Like somehow old solutions are no longer viable. But NPR labels all this “rhetoric” as “misleading”. Get this: “The Biden Administration has signaled that it want to move the country away from climate warming fossil fuels”. No kidding. Instead it wants to move us towards climate warming battery production and mining for the resources to produce them. They continue, “but it has not stopped development like critics claim.” Really? “In fact, LNG export terminals are at capacity right now and the industry is sitting on thousands of unused leases.” Thousands? Again….really? Could it be that the leases are being held up by government regulations? References, please.
But then they dragged out their slew of experts. The first the “liberal advocacy group” (their words, not mine) Public Citizen who reported that “Biden has approved more oil and gas drilling permits on public lands per month than Trump in his first three years.” Have they now? “Oil and gas drilling regulation has already been loosened,” stated David Kieve, President of the advocacy arm of the Environmental Defense Fund. “The better way to hurt Russia is to boost”, you got it, “renewable energy production”. If solar and wind were truly viable alternatives, Dave, then yes, it would have an effect but the technology clearly isn’t there yet. Ask Germany how theirshift to renewable energy is working out for them. Or Texas, for that matter, the last time Mother Nature showed us her ugly side. But he continues: “Approving the Keystone Pipeline or spurring more lease sales will lock in greenhouse emissions long term”. And NPR chimes in that “energy analysts say it will do little to alleviate the immediate pain that Americans are experiencing at the gaspump.” Yeah, but do you think it might help alleviate that pain farther down the road? Or perhaps would have prevented it from occurring had we implemented it years ago? In an act of piling on, they introduced Jason Bordoff, founder and director of Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy. Now he can’t possibly be a liberal can he? He responds to the claims that increased production and leases would have an effect: “that impacts the amount of oil that comes to the market years and years into the future that doesn’t affect the fundamentals of supply and demand and prices today. The biggest driver of oil and gas products is the price of oil”. He expects “oil production in the US to surge this year regardless of what the Biden Administration does.” Methinks you underestimate the power of the regulatory arm of the Biden Administration, Jason.
But surely Public Citizen, the EDF and Professor Bordoffare not exactly unbiased sources. In the interest of journalism, don’t you think NPR should have produced actual experts, or maybe a dissenting opinion? Of course not. NPR is the “liberal advocacy group” for the democrat party, after all. So allow me to reference the Wall Street Journal’s dissent. In a March 5 WSJ Editorial, they report that after Nancy Pelosi was asked how high gasoline prices have to rise before she’d support opening federal lands to oil and gas production, she was quoted as stating “I’m not for drilling on public lands”. There you have it. This despite a widely circulated video of her stating that she is against the importation of Russian oil now that they haveinvaded Ukraine. Can’t have it both ways, Nancy. The WSJ also reported that a federal judge has just dismissed the Biden Administration’s “social cost” estimates for greenhouse gas emissions when it was determined that the figures were grossly inflated, using a three hundred yeartimetable in an attempt to “restrict fossil fuels-from stricter fuel economy rules, to methane emission curbs for oil and gas production.” In yet another case of deception, apparently the White House, according to the WSJ, is floating the story that the injunction imposed by the federal judge is causing it to “halt permitting work on 18 wells on federal oil and gas leases in New Mexico and new lease sales”. Despite a judge striking down Biden’s ban on oil and gas leases on federal land in June of last year, a ruling that also ordered the Department of the Interior to hold quarterly lease sales as required by law, they report that since taking office, the Biden Administration has been slow-walking oil and gas permits. Is anyone surprised? When the Interior finally held an offshore sale in November, lawsuits by climate change activists groups landed on the docket of a liberal judge who blocked the sales. And in direct contradiction to NPR’s assertion that the “rhetoric is misleading”, The Journal reports that “Mr. Biden hasn’t held an onshore lease sale and is the only president in at least two decades not to have done so in a given year. Approvals for new LNG terminals and expansions are also sitting” although a better term would be languishing, “ at the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.” You better read that again. The journal sums it up better than most: “regulatory uncertainty and political hostility to fossil fuels discourage long term investment” and it is investment that is “needed to increase supply and keep energy prices in check”. And this premise is crucial now that Russia has decided to use its energy stranglehold over Europe to extort the EU and fund his incursion into Ukraine. Yet after entering the Twilight Zone, the only thing of which we can be certain is that somebody is lying to us.
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