With recent polls showing that high gas prices are of primary concern to consumers and many experts forecasting gas prices going much higher in the near future, Chuck DeVore, vice president at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said the Biden administration’s stance on fossil fuels isn’t helping.
“I think a lot of that has to do with the Biden administration’s very hardline stance against bringing new oil and gas online, at least in this country,” he said.
President Joe Biden reiterated this stance recently, saying his administration would not allow any new offshore oil and gas drilling.
“Like the current program finalized in 2016, it removes from consideration the federal waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts while inviting public comment on 10 potential sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one in the Cook Inlet off south-central Alaska,“ Haaland said. ”A Proposed Program is not a decision to issue specific leases or to authorize any drilling or development.”
DeVore said it’s important to understand that the United States hasn’t had any oil or gas come out of any new rigs in either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans in decades.
“Essentially, [Biden’s] reiterating longstanding, certainly leftwing policy,” he said.
Passing the Buck
Biden has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for rising gas prices, and accused oil companies and gas station owners of price gouging. The president even took to Twitter to rebuke gas station owners, telling them to reduce their prices.DeVore said this comment is nonsense because the profit margin for gas stations is very small, and it emboldened a Chinese Community Party official to praise Biden for the comment as proof that capitalism does not work.
Devore said Biden’s Twitter post “shows just how off-base the president’s comments have to be, given that Beijing praised them.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.