It’s difficult to imagine a one-year anniversary going any worse. We’re paying over 30 percent more at the gas pump, up to 54 percent more to heat our home, and inflation is at its highest level since E.T. was in theaters. The marriage is off to a rocky start.
Joe Biden is celebrating the one-year passage of his time in office saying “I think the report card is going to look pretty good.” Of course, we could all have a good laugh at just how much Joe Biden has social distanced from reality if the consequences on families were not so painful.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Biden’s anniversary is also the one-year mark of his cancellation of the Keystone pipeline. That’s right, Joe Biden felt shutting down this critical infrastructure was so important, he decided to do it on his very first day. One year later, Americans who lost their job are still waiting for the always “just around the corner” green jobs that never seem to arrive. At the same time, everyone is paying more for everything we buy. This is the cost of losing American energy independence in a single year. Not to worry, there are some who aren’t upset.
Russian President Vladimir Putin definitely agrees with Biden that the “report card looks pretty good.” Just last week, the Biden Administration worked overtime to kill sanctions against a Russian pipeline that will deliver natural gas to Europe. Yes, the same President Biden who couldn’t wait to cancel an American pipeline to save the climate simply rolled out the red carpet for Putin’s pipeline. A proposal to impose sanctions and stop Russia’s energy expansion failed in the Senate, as every Democrat who swears by the Green New Deal voted to let the natural gas flow in Europe. For the record, every green group who makes a living protesting pipelines in the United States also stood by quietly as Putin plowed ahead.
Russian collusion indeed.
The evolution of President Biden’s failure to defend his role in rising gas prices took an odd turn in July. Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki told us there is simply a “misunderstanding” in what causes prices to go up, but we all can rest easy because “we’re working on it.” Roughly a month later, Biden would run to OPEC countries and beg them to produce more oil. Apparently, “we’re working on it” means the same President who shut down Keystone but approved Putin’s pipeline was now begging a group nations, including Russia, to produce more oil. In a result that shocked no one, this strategy failed to lower gas prices and the White House again needed a new plan.
Keep in mind at any point during 2021, the Biden Administration could have simply and quietly revered course. Someone inside Biden’s inner circle should have pointed out that American energy workers stand ready to get back to on the job producing the energy supply our country needs. Unsurprisingly, Team Biden decided it was time to play the blame game.
Toward the end of the year, the strategy from Team Biden was to turn up the temperature and blame everyone else. The is the same Joe Biden who not only cancelled Keystone, but also stopped energy production on federal land, ordered his Interior Department to “review” all federal oil and gas leases and then jetted off to Scotland to lecture us on fossil fuels. Yet, it seems scapegoating is the best response the Biden Administration can employ to deflect from the real consequences for their actions.
In his anniversary press conference, the President said that some of us could be paying $5 for a gallon of gas and noted, “It’s going to be very hard.” What he failed to mention was during Biden’s first year, American oil production was down 260,000 barrels a day. Stated more clearly, as many states reopened in 2021 from the lows of 2020, Joe Biden’s policies delivered less oil than during the worst of the pandemic. Let’s be honest, that was the plan all along.
High prices, economic uncertainty and terrible decisions are the legacy of Joe Biden’s first year as President. While he may give himself high grades, any family struggling to balance a budget knows the truth. And that’s why Joe Biden really hopes we forget.
Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future, a non-profit organization that advocates for American energy. To learn more about how Joe Biden’s actions delivered terrible results, you can see his Top Ten worst energy decisions here.