If it’s taken you a month to recover from all the whoppers contained in the first “Biden 2024” ad – especially its claim that ol’ Joe engaged in “passing laws” that “make us more energy independent” – get ready for another Biden-created insult to your intelligence and attack on your wallet.
In fact, coming as it does on the heels of new Personal Consumption Price Index numbers showing the highest price spike in seven months, driven in large part by inflated Federal Reserve created cash chasing an insufficient petrochemical energy supply, the new Biden lockdown of offshore drilling permits seems almost like an overtly government “middle finger” shoved in front of every one of us.
Nick Pope reports for the Daily Caller News Foundation that Biden’s “Interior Department” Friday announced their “offshore” plan:
“…which allows for three offshore oil and gas lease sales through 2029, with sales in 2025, 2027 and 2029. That schedule represents the lowest number of sales that the administration could have pursued while maintaining its ability to push offshore wind development under provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and it is the ‘smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in history,’ according to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
‘The Biden-Harris administration is committed to building a clean energy future that ensures America’s energy independence,’ Haaland said of the schedule’s release.
The decision is in line with the Biden administration’s sweeping climate agenda, which aims to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. energy sector by 2035 and for the entire U.S. economy by 2050.”
That “net-zero” carbon dioxide emissions target being not only unconstitutional and tyrannical, but also based on zero actual evidence that: A. the globe is catastrophically warming due to man’s activities or, B. that, if it WERE, CO2 is actually a driver of higher temps in Earth’s atmospheric-biological exchange system.
Simply put, Ms. Haaland’s haughty claim that these government meddlers are “building” any kind of “energy independence” into our futures is laughably insulting. The act of restricting the commercial acquisition of energy-providing resources in “the nation’s oceans” is kind of a titanic tell.
And we’re not the only ones noticing it. Writes Pope:
“’The release of the U.S. offshore leasing program, mandated by law and long overdue, is an utter failure for the country,’ National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito said of the schedule. ‘The White House simply ignores our energy realities in once again limiting U.S. energy production opportunities. With global demand at record levels and continuing to rise, regressive policies like this serve to harm Americans of all walks of life.’
The plan is deliberately designed to ‘phase down’ offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the DOI. Offshore oil production in federally controlled Gulf waters accounted for about 15% of total U.S. crude oil output in 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.”
As I have noted for MRCTV, the US Constitution does not allow the feds to control “Gulf” waters, or any other waters. But, of course, the claiming control over these areas gives politicians and bureaucrats power – over us and over businesses that will have to “play nice” as the Bidenistas steer centrally-planned “energy policy” (there is not supposed to be any such thing in a free society) towards whatever unicorn-based fuel future they desire.
This is inimical to human liberty and prosperity.
Pope reminds us that we are not alone in noticing the anti-energy-independence agenda of Biden and his ilk. We are not alone when we recall that this is one more move across a chessboard the feds control, and on which we should not have to be stuck:
“‘At a time when inflation runs rampant across the country, the Biden administration is choosing failed energy policies that are adding to the pain Americans are feeling at the pump,’ American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers said of the schedule. ‘This restrictive offshore leasing program is the latest tactic in a coordinated strategy to reduce energy production, ultimately weakening America’s energy dominance, limiting consumers access to affordable reliable energy and compromising our ability to lead on the global stage.’”
And this recent “plan” from the Biden DOI might better be understood for the evil that it is if one gets a multi-year perspective on the dark tyranny of Biden Administration “energy” attacks.
Related: Wall Street Journal: Biden Has Granted FEWEST Acres of Oil-Gas Leases Since Nixon | MRCTV
For that, let me liberally quote from work I offered in September of 2022:
“Since day ONE of the Biden administration, when Joe nixed the Keystone XL pipeline, to his stoppage of new offshore oil and gas exploration leases, to his most recent move to unconstitutionally ban Russian energy imports (which has not harmed Russia in the least, since Chinese state-tied energy companies are buying the Russian LNG, then reselling it to those “pro-Ukraine” European nation-states, giving both the Russians and Chinese hefty profits) the Biden administration has engaged in a systematic carry-through of Biden’s campaign promise to try to destroy the U.S. oil and gas industries – and all at the expense of not only the energy industries, but at the expense of our ability to better or sustain our standards of living.
Americans for Prosperity started an ongoing list of these poisonous Biden administration policies in December of 2021, and kept updating through June of this year with 25 ways Joe and his chums have used government aggression to stifle energy supply and raise prices.”
They threw these policies in our faces even as they spewed lies about “energy independence” and falsely implied that any lack of petrochemical energy was the fault of the oil and natural gas companies. As I wrote in 2022:
“(E)ven as the D.C. hacks have engaged in this mafia-like intercession between us and those with whom we could – and possibly would like to – exchange for energy, even as inflation has teamed up with their dumb claims of Delphic ‘we-know-the-energy-of-the-future’ genius, the Bidenistas also have engaged in one of the most extended gaslighting campaigns since they blamed the so-called ‘pandemic’ on the ‘unvaccinated.’
Their gaslighting agents included former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who, in March, absurdly claimed that the administration was NOT hobbling energy exploration, implying that it was the oil and gas companies’ greed that saw them not moving to explore – a claim that was ripped to shreds by people who actually make their livings in the field.”
There is a great deal more in that piece, so feel free to check it out.
For now, let’s be sure to note that not only is Biden ready to shut down energy-resource discovery and capture in “the waters” the feds unconstitutionally claim to control, even a hundred miles beyond the soil of the various states, Biden just reneged on an important prior federal “arrangement” to permit oil and natural gas exploration and recovery in Alaska.
It was just September 6 that Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy (R) released a fiery announcement about Biden’s insulting, unconstitutional, move:
“Today the Biden Administration announced that it is cancelling legally-issued leases for oil and gas in the section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge designated for oil and gas development.
The Secretary of the Department of the Interior has the authority to cancel oil and gas leases issued in violation of statute or regulation, but there is no such violation in the ANWR leases. The leases that the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority hold were issued properly as mandated by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.”
And this assumes that even the federal power to control any of that land in Alaska is constitutional, which it is not. As I have mentioned for MRCTV, the US Constitution only allows the feds to control three kinds of land: a 10-square-mile area for the Capitol (currently Washington, DC), military garrisons, and territories, and when territories become states the Constitution mandates that they enter with all the “rights and privileges” of all states. Even if the states could cede land to the feds, the US government would have no constitutional power to run them.
That also applies to areas off the coast of the states.
So this move by Biden not only helps us see just how weasel-like and prone to lying he and his team are, it also reveals their larger Climate Cult agenda to cut into future oil and natural gas production, and it lets us see that none of it is sanctioned by their US Constitution.
And even if the Constitution were amended to allow it, such tyranny over us and our attempts to provide energy to our homes, cars, businesses, and machines – to our LIVES – is utterly despicable.
As are all claims of political power over us and our neighbors.