We’ve talked about this a few times on the blog, two recurring themes that today are simply laughable. The first is that Democratic policies are short-term and not really helpful, and the idiocy of politics surrounding the “strategic petroleum reserve.”
First, the name itself implies what it is right – strategic reserve. To be tapped in times of emergency. Yesterday President dementia decided that his own policies causing high gas prices was emergency enough to tap the reserve. He announced the government would release 50 million barrels into the system. Sound stupid? It should, because it is.
Depending on which source you believe, the US consumes somewhere between 18 and 20 million barrels of oil per day. So yah, Biden is releasing a whopping 2 1/2 days of supply into the system.
The oil markets predictably yawned. Prices remain steady right at $80/barrel. Will it bring prices down any? It might. But even if it does, it would only be for literally a few days. Talk about doing something because it sounds good. Well, what do you expect but politics from a lifetime politician turned puppet, err, President.
Biden, or should I say whoever is really in charge and tells him what to say, has implemented several policies since taking office to take our production of home sourced oil off line. This has been done on purpose for two reasons of course – first, they want to to push everyone into an electric vehicle. Second, since Trump had made us energy independent we must immediately reverse that policy because it was Trump’s doing.
Had he not stopped the Keystone XL pipeline the day he came into office that project alone would have been able to deliver 750,000 barrels of oil a day. Imagine where we’d be if that had been flowing for the last six months? We’d still have oil in our STRATEGIC RESERVE. Gas sure as hell wouldn’t be $3.50/gallon. And that’s just ONE project. How much other production is off line because of the other projects he has killed?
Did I mention that back in March the Biden administration scoffed at a University of Wyoming study noting that this could cost as many as 300,000 jobs to implement these policies? No way Biden said, his team said it was only 60,000 lost jobs. ONLY 60,000. You and I both know the truth likely likes somewhere in between.
His cancellation of oil and gas leases Trump had signed also screwed us out of treasury revenues, estimated at $83 BILLION dollars. He wants to tax the billionaires, but first let’s cancel the stuff already bringing in damn near a hundred billion a year. Seriously.
The bottom line is tapping the strategic petroleum reserve is nothing but a good sound bite for Jen Psaki to talk about. It helps nothing and only continues to weaken our ability to withstand an actual emergency.
His reckless attitude towards energy is treasonous. This is what is disturbing.