The Russian assault on Ukraine confirmed vulnerabilities in safeguarding American energy security. With the U.S. now importing more oil and gas from the rogue nation, it’s time to pursue energy independence again.
Make no mistake: preservationist environmental policies are squarely to blame for our present situation of high gas prices and energy bills. If President Biden is serious about punishing Russia, he wouldn’t just impose harsher sanctions; he’d equally scale back his extreme climate agenda.
To punish Russia, our nation must unleash energy dominance again. Here’s how.
Revoke Executive Order 13990
To mitigate the damage caused by energy dependence, the Biden administration must repeal Executive Order 13990 that went into effect on January 20th, 2021.
Billed as “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science To Tackle the Climate Crisis,” the directive instructed agencies - including the EPA, Interior, and Energy Departments - to effectively undo four years of good energy policy.
For instance, Section 2 of E.O. 13990 —“Immediate Review of Agency Actions Taken Between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021 — instructed agencies to “immediately review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions (agency actions) promulgated, issued, or adopted between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021.”
Section 4 of the directive called for pausing ANWR exploration “relating to the implementation of the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program, as established by the Record of Decision signed August 17, 2020, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” And Section 6 called for revoking the Keystone XL Pipeline, suggesting it “disserves the U.S. national interest” because of the so-called climate crisis. (Talk about asinine.)
Last November, the Interior Department concluded there were shortcomings in our federal oil and gas leasing program. In its press release, the agency said, “The Interior Department is committed to modernizing its oversight of oil and gas leasing and development to help address the climate and biodiversity crises and to advance environmental justice.”
Unbelievable. If the aforementioned policies aren’t abandoned, they’ll exacerbate the problem.
Direct FERC to Approve New Pipelines, Export Terminals
Last week, the Wall Street Journal editorial board rebuked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) - the agency regulating “interstate transmission of natural gas, oil, and electricity” - for revising policy pertaining to new natural gas pipelines and export terminals permits.
“We live in strange and contradictory times. President Biden is trying mightily to deter a Russian invasion in Ukraine at the same time his regulators are working to give Vladimir Putin more leverage over global energy supplies. Obsessive climate politics gets more self-destructive by the week,” WSJ wrote.
E&E similarly noted FERC rulemaking is undergoing a radical transformation:
FERC updated a 23-year-old policy for assessing proposed natural gas pipelines, adding new considerations for landowners, environmental justice communities and other factors. In a separate but related decision, the commission also laid out a framework for evaluating projects’ greenhouse gas emissions.
If the Biden administration wants to advance energy security, they’d allow new pipeline construction by embracing the Keystone XL Pipeline. They’d also persuade Atlantic Coast Pipeline backers to reconsider the canceled project and not undermine the Mountain Valley Pipeline underway here in Virginia.
Alas, they won’t.
Abandon 100% Decarbonization Push in U.S. to Deter Putin
The U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) says America is heavily dependent on fossil fuels for energy production and consumption. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
The agency explains, “Fossil fuels, or energy sources formed in the Earth’s crust from decayed organic material, including petroleum, natural gas, and coal, continue to account for the largest share of energy production and consumption in the United States. In 2019, 80% of domestic energy production was from fossil fuels, and 80% of domestic energy consumption originated from fossil fuels.”
Net-zero policies urging the phasing out of fossil fuels play right into Putin’s hands. President Biden would be wise to abandon this push, given what’s transpiring in Eastern Europe. Sadly, he won’t.
Dependence on adversaries like Russia weakens us and undermines our standing in the world.
Look at Germany as a cautionary tale. The European nation foolishly abandoned nuclear power plants and backed NordStream 2 up until recently. Due to vulnerabilities in its electric grid, it leaned on coal over wind for electricity generation in 2021.
So much for renewables being sustainable…
As a result, the U.S. must double down on natural gas, oil, and nuclear for the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
An inconvenient truth: Russia employs disinformation campaigns targeting fracking here. And it similarly funds disinformation campaigns against pipelines.
Sanctions alone won’t deter Russia; unleashing American energy dominance again will.
To punish Russia, America must boost domestic production of oil, natural gas, and nuclear energy. It’s time to ignore litigious (and hypocritical) radical environmental activists. Let’s unleash those “molecules of freedom” once more.