Tipsheet

Biden Contradicts White House, Promises 'No More' Oil Drilling

Spencer Brown
Spencer Brown  |  November 07, 2022 11:00 AM

When President Joe Biden is on a roll, it's difficult to stop him, apparently. After sending his West Wing scrambling again into damage control mode (again) following his remarks about coal last week, the White House is back in need of clean up on aisle Biden after he declared war on oil.

The latest off-the-cuff statement putting pressure on the White House to explain what Biden meant came as the president campaigned in New York for endangered Democrat incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul Sunday night. 

Speaking to what must have been some kind of climate protester in the crowd, Biden says "No more drilling. There is no more drilling. I haven't formed any new drilling," the president reiterated. 

As Katie pointed out on Twitter, Biden's words contradicted what White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said on Saturday when she tried to brag that the Biden administration has "increased" the production of oil and natural gas: 

Biden's words were not his only worry, either. Elsewhere during his remarks, Biden's roaming around the stage almost went awry when he apparently tripped over something:

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The "no more drilling" stance is not new for Biden, who trotted that out as a primary campaign refrain in 2020. While attempting to win his party's nomination, Biden said he would ensure there was "no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill — period." When asked to clarify by moderator Dana Bash if there would be any room for "coal or fracking" in a Biden administration, he said "no" and pledged he would "make sure it's eliminated."

But his 2020 rhetoric and this Sunday's apparent admission that he's banned oil drilling contradicts Biden's previous attempts to label complaints from oil and gas companies being strangled by Democrats' energy independence-killing policies as "simply not true." 

The Biden administration and other Democrats in Congress have tried to blame what is allegedly "greed" exhibited by oil and gas companies for high fuel costs — while pretending their anti-American energy policies have had nothing to do with resulting shortages in energy supplies. 

But as Biden said on Sunday night, "there is no more drilling," validating the concerns raised by American companies who have seen the president's administration kill off projects, cancel leases, and suspend future expansion since day one in the White House. 

Biden's declaration that American oil drilling is a thing of the past follows his comments about coal that angered Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and sent the White House grasping for excuses to explain away the president's words. Speaking about coal on Friday, Biden said his administration was "gonna be shutting these plants down all across America, and having wind and solar" instead, a similar claim to the one he made Sunday about the end of oil drilling. 

Senator Manchin called Biden's comments "outrageous and divorced from reality" for ignoring the "severe economic pain" being felt by Americans due to rising energy costs. The West Virginia Democrat said comments like those from Biden "are the reason the American people are losing trust in President Biden."

That caused the White House, through Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, to rush out a statement on Saturday claiming Biden's words had "been twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended," despite Biden's words being perfectly clear (for once), as Katie reported here. 

Meanwhile, President Biden's drawdowns from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve have reduced America's emergency stockpiles to their lowest level since 1984.