The Sad Truth: America Has No Energy Policy

[rebewranger]

April 18, 2022
The Sad Truth: America Has No Energy Policy
By William Manning

The Biden administration, like all political enterprises, loves to take credit but is loath to confess mistakes.  Biden is currently looking for someone, anyone, to take the fall far escalating gasoline prices.  A favorite scapegoat is the oil and gas industry.

According to many Democrats, the industry is a blight on humanity that must be canceled. High oil prices fit the DNC playbook, so be prepared to view morose montages displaying diabolical men drilling dirty oil wells.  In an odd turn of events, these diabolical oil executives are being scolded because they aren't drilling oil wells as quickly as President Biden would like.  Some Democrats accuse executives in the oil industry of being unpatriotic in light of the Russo-Ukrainian war (read: Putin's price hike).  Industry executives would respond more favorably to a coherent energy policy than harassment by politicians.

Government policies related to the COVID pandemic reduced demand for oil, so the industry stopped drilling activities.  As the pandemic abated,  and the economy improved, the Biden administration took office intent on canceling the oil industry.  As demand for oil increased, the industry wasn't inclined to invest in drilling.  Oil companies enjoyed higher prices after a difficult year, while lenders and investors, burned by the 2020 bust, resisted financing new ventures.  The industry was content to earn money on existing production and hesitant to invest capital in the unfriendly environment the Biden administration had created.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/the_sad_truth_america_has_no_energy_policy.html

[rebewranger]

If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Sounds about right.

A few thoughts on a solid energy policy would include

1. Reliability as a priority.  Promoting this would include a diversity of supply, coal, nuclear, natural gas, renewables, etc. with free market forces being the predominant decider in the components of this diversity makeup.
2. Domestic supply as a priority.  Extracting resources from one's own land/waters, manufacturing all components to do so domestically and harnessing that energy means one enjoys the benefits of adding value to GDP instead of subtracting from GDP by paying foreigners.  Domestic resources/manufacturing might even enjoy a premium to accomplish this.
3. As the primary governmental policy maker as per the Constitution, states are free to choose their own individual methods to achieve these results without impact by the federal government, including federal tax levies on energy.  Note that more manufacturing here means more energy needs so importing will still occur.
4. Security of supply should include not only a diversity of different energy sources, but also that an emergency supply be maintained by the federal government.
5. Federal governmental policy should be restricted to compiling the combined energy supply makeup of the states as well as opening up federal lands/waters, encouragement of cooperation between states/countries to promote cheap and accessible energy supply, and to provide guidelines only to the states on environmental practices.  At times there may be reason to engage in federally-funded research that benefits all states.