Biden’s Hypocrisy on Climate Policy

August 27, 2021

An essay published by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday stated two days after the release on August 9^th of the United Nations’ biggest scientific report on climate change in nearly a decade, the Biden administration issued the statement calling on OPEC to produce more oil.

The irony just keeps getting better with the Biden administration’s misguided energy policy. The essay went on to describe how the ‘awkward juxtaposition’ of these events show why climate action has proven to be so difficult.

The administration’s recent OPEC statement provoked predictable outrage from many in the environmental community. But while it was no doubt hypocritical, given the administration’s at times apocalyptic rhetoric about climate change, it also offers a useful lesson in how detached the global climate discourse has become from global realpolitik.

Energy prices affect everyone and big jumps in oil prices have been a key factor in past recessions. So, when there are shortages and higher prices it increases energy costs for transportation and electricity and heating that make up an outsize share of household expenditures, especially for working-class households.

Faced with an economy that still runs mostly on fossil fuels and voters who don’t share the priorities of activists when it comes to the short-term costs of rapidly cutting emissions, President Biden speaks from both sides of his mouth: He warns of the existential threat of climate change and calls for a rapid energy transition while at the same time proposing more incremental clean energy policies and demanding that OPEC crank up oil production.

It is clear Biden’s ill-informed energy policies have led to the recent energy shortages and higher energy prices in our country. When the administration calls on OPEC to pump more oil to fix the problems it itself has created it only highlights how important affordable energy is to economic growth. Instead of utilizing our domestic energy industry that has constantly been attacked by Biden, he turned to foreign nations to provide energy at home. This will be a stain on his presidency and one American energy workers will not forget.