Biden Policies Continue to Enrich OPEC, Russia

January 5, 2022

More bad news for American drivers this week, as OPEC and Russia announced that they would continue to only increase oil production on a gradual basis. The news comes in spite of the fact that the Biden administration has been begging OPEC to increase production since last summer. As The New York Times reports:

The slow ramp up in production could lead to tension with the Biden administration, which wants the producers to pump more oil in an effort to lower gasoline prices in the United States. Gas prices, nationally at $3.28 a gallon, are now about one-third higher than they were a year ago, according to the Energy Information Administration, a government agency, and contributing to rising inflation.

The Biden administration has been eager to put the blame on OPEC, Russia and other foreign entities for high gas prices, a strategy they’ve been employing for a while. Last November, PTF wrote about comments that U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made on NBC’s Meet the Press, saying, “Gas prices of course are based on a global oil market. That oil market is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is OPEC.”

At that time, we pointed out how it was Biden’s policies that have put OPEC and others into a position of strength. As Walter Russell Mead wrote in the Wall Street Journal last October:

The real problem is that the green agenda as currently conceived is an effective machine for undermining the economic and political power of the democratic world and boosting the influence of precisely the authoritarian powers President Biden has made it his mission to oppose. By artificially depressing fossil-fuel production and investment in the democratic world faster than renewables and other fuels can fill the gap, Biden policy promotes a multiyear, multitrillion-dollar windfall for countries like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

President Biden’s policies seem based on assumptions that regularly ignore the continued demand – and need – for reliable sources of energy like fossil fuels. As a result, we’re paying more for energy, and even worse, paying groups like OPEC and countries like Russia for the privilege. American voters will likely remember that this November.