Biden Begging OPEC Is So 2008

August 23, 2021

In a Forbes piece today, University of Houston Energy Fellow Loren Steffy discussed Biden’s ask earlier this month to OPEC to increase oil production due to increased energy prices and shortages in the U.S. caused by his own ill-informed policies. The piece opened, “President Biden, 2008 called. It wants its energy policy back.”

The sad truth is the Biden administration retreated back to the old tactic of begging OPEC for more oil from the Era of Energy Scarcity. A tactic we should have retired thanks to the energy abundance in the U.S. ushered in by the fracking boom.

Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer of Pickering Energy Partners explained, “Asking for more U.S. production goes against the green climate initiate that the administration is pushing. So they ask OPEC, which pushes the hydrocarbon production somewhere else. The Saudis are easy relief for everyone except the oil and gas industry in the U.S.”

After years of investing in and the immense groundwork American energy workers put in to move the country toward energy independence, the Biden administration is now turning against the domestic industry with messaging about phasing out fossil fuels. Instead of asking U.S. producers to open to taps Biden turns to petro-dictators for oil. Giving economic and job benefits to foreign countries instead of the America people but backing up his promises to his eco-left supporters – a clear top priority on his agenda.

The article went on:

For some 40 years, the U.S. was dependent on foreign oil. Then the fracking boom came along, and by 2014, OPEC took notice. U.S. oil production more than doubled in less than a decade, surging from 5 million barrels a day to almost 13 million barrels by early 2020. We suddenly found ourselves as one of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers, in addition to our long history as its biggest consumer.

That production increase changed the nature of petro-politics and gave us far more foreign policy flexibility than we had before. In recent years, domestic production has slipped back to between 10 million and 11 million barrels, the result of weak demand during the pandemic and greater calls from investors for more financial discipline from producers.

The Biden administration has made it clear that it would like that decline to continue. It champions policies designed to hasten the end of fossil fuels, such as its proposed fracking ban on federal lands, for example. While that has little immediate impact, it causes energy producers to hesitate in committing large amounts of capital to new projects.

The Biden administration doesn’t seem to comprehend what was accomplished by U.S. energy producers in the past decade or all of the economic and job benefits the oil and gas industry has provided. It’s a shame to American energy workers, household energy bills across the country, and now our position on the national stage.