According to Democratic US President Joe Biden and his cohorts, the only way to save American gas and oil prices, or at least bring them back to the lower amounts we are used to, is to beg OPEC to increase their crude oil production to the United States. The logic, of course, is something akin to the basic rule of supply and demand; the more oil that becomes available to us, the cheaper it will be for the American people.
However, there’s a major problem in that line of thinking – namely that OPEC has increasingly less and less reason to do anything for the United States.
As Tennessee Republican and US Senator Marsha Blackburn recently explained on a Tuesday appearance on Fox News’ “Fox News @ Night,” we officially no longer have any sort of “leverage” with the oil-producing organization or its nation members.
In fact, as she points out, the US owes OPEC a great deal, not the other way around. “The OPEC nations combined together are one of the top five holders of US debt.” A debt that only grows by the day under the failing leadership of Joe Biden. As Blackburn rightfully surmises, this means we have “no leverage in this fight.”
Now, this is important because the nation members of OPEC just met on Wednesday to discuss and vote for possibly decreasing production, exactly what the US cannot afford to let happen. Less oil production means fewer oil barrels for the US and a guarantee that the high gas prices we’ve seen of late will only rise.
But as Blackburn said, we don’t have any leverage. Nothing we can do or say to OPEC might make them swayed to our needs anymore. We’ve run out of pleas, run out of reason, and run out of grace.
Of course, OPEC doesn’t have to be our only source of saving grace when it comes to oil production.
As you are likely well aware, the United States can, and has before, provided for itself when it comes to energy resources. In fact, we did so quite well just a couple of years ago under former President Donald Trump. If you’ll remember, our economy was booming then (despite still recovering from a pandemic). Gas prices were low, and we had all the reason in the world to believe that’s how things could stay.
But apparently, that was not to be.
A mere two years later, the US has found itself in dire straits, not only with rising gas prices but inflation through the roof and crime rates skyrocketing. At least for the first and partly for the second problem, things could have been different if only Biden and his administration had made some other policy decisions.
Blackburn also pointed out that a number of Day One policies led by Biden have brought us to where we are today.
First was the cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline. This project would have employed some 11,000 or so Americans and thousands more Canadians and stretched from Alberta down to Texas, supplying numerous states and districts with American-made oil and gas along the way.
Then in one fell swoop, he ended offshore drilling, fracking, and any and all new oil leases on federal land. Months later, leases on public and private land were canceled, too.
Then he made sure that millions of acres of land, 23 million acres to be exact, set aside for the sole purpose of researching and producing oil in Alaska were banned for those purposes.
Additionally, Biden limited the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to only allow a million barrels a day to be released and has made no plans whatsoever to increase or even refill this.
As Blackburn says, “So, of course, the price is going up.” I mean, what did he expect was going to happen?
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? He didn’t think, or he didn’t really care.
Even more tragic is the idea that this could all be part of his plan. If this makes Americans more likely to switch to electric, as he suggests, he’ll have even more control, won’t he?
Blackburn is right; thanks to Biden, we are doomed.
