Establishment Media Slam Joe Biden for War on American Oil 

The establishment media this week slammed President Joe Biden for his war on American oil amid gas prices upwards of $5.00 per gallon.

“American energy is suffering from a lack of longterm investment, which temporary fixes cannot alleviate,” Jeff Currie, global head of commodities at Goldman Sachs, said Thursday. The Wall Street Journal, writing about the lack of U.S. refining capability, stated President Biden’s overbearing energy policy is to blame for the lack of American energy investment.

“A major culprit is U.S. government policy. Some older refineries have closed because companies couldn’t justify spending on upgrades as government forces a shift from fossil fuels,” the Journal wrote. “They also have to account for the Environmental Protection Agency’s tighter permitting requirements—the agency recently challenged a permit for an Indiana refinery—and steeper biofuel mandates.”

“The U.S. has lost about one million barrels a day of refining capacity in the pandemic. Some new refineries have opened in Asia, but the International Energy Agency recently reported that global capacity last year fell by 730,000 barrels a day,” the Journal continued.

The New York Times admitted the “United States has lost 5.9 percent of its refining capacity since 2019, as refineries have reconfigured to produce new products or closed because their expenses outstripped revenues.”

Biden’s war on energy, which includes driving up private and public financing costs of oil drilling, halting drilling on public lands, and canceling the Keystone pipeline, has driven smaller refineries out of business. According to the Journal, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been a part of restricting oil refining.

“Increasing credit prices have driven some small, independent refineries out of business. Small refineries can seek a temporary exemption from the mandates if they show a ‘disproportionate economic hardship.’ But the biofuels lobby opposes these exemptions, and the EPA just denied 69 waiver requests,” the Journal wrote.

As a result, the remaining American refineries are finding it difficult to keep up with demand amid Biden’s leadership; the president failed to prevent the invasion of Ukraine with sanctions just after a worldwide pandemic subsided, increasing demand.

“Refineries necessary to turn oil into gas and other products are stretched to their limits, with Russian refineries knocked offline and U.S. refining capacity down roughly 5 percent, according to the Energy Information Administration,” the Washington Post admitted.

Downplaying the Ukrainian war’s impact on oil prices, Currie said soaring energy prices are due to a lack of U.S. investment in the fossil fuel sector.

“The global slowdown, let’s say it’s FED induced,” Currie said about the Federal Reserve increasing rates to combat inflation. “It may create a pullback in [oil] prices, but it’s not a longterm fix.”

“There is only one longterm fix to this problem and that is investment, harnessing large amounts of capital into this space to debottleneck it,” Currie said. “What are the reasons for the lack of capital investment?” Currie asked. Naming environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), Currie explained that too much focus on left-wing investment strategies is one of the main reasons the U.S. is unprepared for energy price shocks produced by a variety of factors.

On the campaign trail, then-candidate Joe Biden promised to wage a war on the American oil industry by terminating subsidies and drilling feasibility.

“I want you to look at my eyes. I guarantee you, I guarantee you we’re going to end fossil fuels,” he said in 2019.

“No more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry,” Biden said in 2020. “No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period,” Biden said of his energy policies if he won the presidency. “It ends.”

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.