Fact-Checking 3 Ridiculous B/S Biden Claims

Gas

 Joe Biden has strenuously claimed that rising gas costs are not a result of his administration’s policies. This week, he revealed the United States would prohibit oil imports from Russia due to the full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Biden likewise has suggested that U.S. oil companies are responsible in part for the greater costs due to insufficient domestic production. Here’s a take a look at 3 major claims about gas prices from the president:

1. ‘9,000 Permits to Drill’

When he revealed the restriction on Russian oil imports, Biden stated the increase in gas rates in previous months was not the fault of his administration’s policies.

Biden stated that only 10% of production takes place on federal lands, and the oil companies have “millions of acres leased” from the federal government.

“They have 9,000 permits to drill now. They could be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year,” the president said. “They have 9,000 to drill onshore that are already approved. So, let me be clear. Let me be clear: They are not using them for production now. That’s their decision.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, there were 9,173 authorized licenses at the end of 2021.

However it’s not quite that easy, stated Katie Tubb, senior policy analyst for energy and the environment at The Heritage Foundation.

“The 9,000 leases [statistic] is incredibly misleading and shows the administration doesn’t understand their own processes for managing energy production on federal lands and waters,” Tubb told The Daily Signal in an email. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation)

“Bidding for and winning a lease on federal lands and waters is the beginning of a long process to actually produce energy. After leasing, there’s exploration, environmental reviews, permitting, drilling a well, and putting in infrastructure … to actually access oil/natural gas.”

That can take years since of litigation and ecological reviews, according to the Western Energy Alliance, which is protecting 2,200 leases for development from claims brought by environmental groups. The federal government also conducts an analysis mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Some leases will not be developed if the business determines the quantities of oil and natural gas are inadequate.

Even more, depending on the 9,000 leases line is “misdirection” from the White Home, according to The Wall Street Journal editorial board. That’s because it’s not enough to simply have permits.

It takes about 140 days for the federal government to approve a drilling permit, according to the paper. Additionally, the Journal said, policies have made it tough for companies to get permits to contract rigs for operating on federal lands.

Likewise, the Department of Interior’s five-year leasing program for the Gulf of Mexico ends in June, and the Biden administration hasn’t proposed a new strategy, according to the Journal.

In the past week, the Biden administration proposed new environmental standards that would manage conventional trucks and declined to appeal a federal court choice that vacated the only leases it offered last year on federal lands or waters.

2. Keystone ‘Nothing to Do’ With Oil Supply

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was dismissive of questions relating to the Keystone XL pipeline, which Biden canceled on his very first day in the oval.

“The Keystone was not an oil field. It’s a pipeline,” Psaki said this week. “Also, the oil is continuing to flow in, just through other means. So, it actually would have nothing to do with the current supply imbalance.”

The pipeline carrying oil from Canada into the United States would not right away improve supply. However, as a futures market, oil prices are based in part on expected supply.

Improving the long-term outlook would likely impact rates, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, an app that directs motorists to the best fuel offers, told Politico.

“The president should immediately rescind his policies to block the Keystone XL pipeline, and let the market decide” De Haan said, including:

“He should also cease anti-oil-and-gas stances and let markets decide. That won’t help much now, but in the long run, it will reverse his damaging decisions. And the nation should support growing our energy independence, to help offset future situations like this.”

Likewise, in the long term, the Keystone XL pipeline– extending from Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Nebraska– would bring about 830,00 barrels of oil per day into the United States from an ally.

That would quickly supplant the 800,000 barrels daily the United States imported from Russia during 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Info Administration.

Future expectations get factored into commodity costs and futures, Tubb said.

“Approving the pipeline now would be good longer-term policy, and would also send a strong signal to markets (investors, financiers, energy companies) that energy production and infrastructure are welcome,” Tubb stated, noting:

“We saw just this week how powerful those signals can be. The price per barrel of oil increased following Biden’s ban on Russian imports, then fell when the political ramifications were more muted than feared (and the EU didn’t join in the ban) and when the UAE mildly broke ranks and encouraged OPEC to consider increasing production. “

3. ‘Putin’s Rate Hike’

The Labor Department’s new numbers, just released Thursday, reveal customer costs rose 0.8% over the past month and nearly 8% over the past year. Gas is a huge part of that, and Biden said it’s the fault of Putin.

“Today’s inflation report is a reminder that Americans’ budgets are being stretched by price increases, and families are starting to feel the impacts of Putin’s price hike,” Biden said. “A large contributor to inflation this month was an increase in gas and energy prices as markets reacted to Putin’s aggressive actions.”

The national average rate for routine unleaded gas is $4.31 per gallon, according to AAA. That’s up from $3.47 a month earlier prior to Russia’s full-blown intrusion of Ukraine. A year earlier, when Biden had been in power for less than 2 months, the nationwide average price was $2.81.

Putin is clearly an aspect, but inflation and rising gas costs have actually been an issue for a long time, Tubb said.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is certainly impacting oil markets and creating a lot of uncertainty about future supply/scarcity that are impacting price, but to stop there is misleading,” she said, including:

“President Biden has consistently told energy companies to increase supply today, but don’t make any long-term investments. What company wants to risk millions to billions of dollars in employees, equipment, infrastructure if they’re not going to get a return?”

Although Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called upon the industry for more energy output, Tubb kept in mind the different federal agencies targeting the oil market with regulations, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Labor Department, and the Workplace of Comptroller of the Currency.

Amos Hochstein, an energy consultant at the State Department, said the “conflict has made it clear to us that we should double down and triple down on the transition [to green energy], and to make it broader, bigger, and faster.”

Biden noted in remarks today: “Loosening environmental regulations or pulling back clean energy investment won’t—let me explain—won’t—will not lower energy prices for families.”

He added: “Transforming our economy to run on electric vehicles powered by clean energy with tax credits to help American families winterize their homes and use less energy, that will—that will help.”

However, the Energy Information Administration discovers no circumstance under which global demand for oil and gas would not increase through a minimum of 2050.

H/T The Daily Signal

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