Pumping Joe’s Green Turnip Gas Policy

Notice the big spike in gas pump prices recently as Big Oil announced record profits after massive loses during Trump’s pro-energy independence era? Can we thank Joe Biden’s war on fossil fuels at any cost agenda?

WSJ’s editors think the answer is a resounding “yes”: For one, “Exxon’s shareholders can thank the President for his limits on US fossil-fuel production”. Exxon last week reported a record $55.7 billion profit last year, making it “among the most profitable companies in American history,” while others like Shell & BP reporting recent profits in the billions. “What a dramatic change of fortune. Two years ago, Exxon & other oil companies were bleeding cash as prices plunged early in the pandemic. Fossil-fuel opponents celebrated. But as economies recovered, so did oil demand … [now] Big Oil companies are merely benefiting from supply shortages & production constraints the Administration has helped to create,” e.g., with punitive anti-fossil fuel regulations. Point of fact is, the editors say, is US production now sits about 900,000 barrels a day below the pre-pandemic level, “twice as much as Russian oil exports have declined since the Urkraine invasion.”

Moreover, Biden must face the reality it’s now harder to drain the nation’s dwindling national security reserves regularly tapped last year to help hold consumer prices down – a Republican House is helping to resist those moves, and besides, maybe its beginning to be a case of being able to squeeze a turnip only so far. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration keeps piling on its anti-fossil, pro-green agenda that seems to be smashing the turnip with a hammer. Concluded the WSJ: “Those who will pay for these Biden policies are American consumers.”

Davd Soul