The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) on Thursday launched a series of ads in blue states where the Democratic-led legislatures and President Joe Biden have been engaging in disastrous energy policies even before Russian President Vladimir Putin had invaded Ukraine last month. Putin has been a popular boogeyman for the White House and their allies in the mainstream media, but a Monday report from Isaac Schorr for National Review Online highlighted that's not the whole story.
From the report:
President Joe Biden promised during his campaign that he would allow “no more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one.” And since taking office, his administration has implemented policies, oftentimes under the radar, that have made life more difficult for the domestic oil and gas industry and led to increased foreign — including Russian — imports.
In many ways, he’s been following in the footsteps of blue-state Democrats, whose policies began undermining domestic energy production long before Russian president Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, ramping up pressure on already strained global markets.
The states where the ads will air include Colorado, Maine, Nevada, and New Mexico, which, as I covered earlier this month, were included in the RSLC's memo of legislative targets for 2022. Colorado is considered a state where they can possibly flip chambers, while the RSLC includes Maine, Nevada, and New Mexico as states that are as included as "Possibilities for Meaningful Gains in Liberal Strongholds."
The ads remind that "gas costs more than ever," blaming it Democratic control in the state capitals and in Washington, D.C.
The ads also highlight the dependence on foreign oil, which includes bad actors such as Venezuela, as well as Saudi Arabia and the Unite Arab Emirates, where they won't even take our calls. "We depend on other countries for energy, even though we produce more than enough here at home," the ad said, later warning about "outsourcing production to dictators."
Ramsey Touchberry, in reporting for The Washington Times, which received a first look at the ads, quoted RSLC Communications Director Andrew Romeo as blaming Biden. "Voters across the country who are furious with President Biden for crippling America’s energy independence also have Democratic legislators in blue states across the country to blame for skyrocketing prices at the pump," he said. "Radical liberal energy policies enacted at the state level are part of the reason why the United States is at the mercy of dictators when it comes to oil production, and the American people will reject state Democrats and their war on domestic energy in November."
As Touchberry also noted about gas prices:
Republicans have sought to capitalize on record-high gasoline prices by contending it is the fault of domestic energy and climate change policies from the Biden administration and in states controlled by Democrats.
The national average for a gallon of regular gas was $4.24 as of Wednesday, down 9 cents from the all-time high of $4.33 on March 11 but up $1.36 from one year ago, according to AAA. Gasoline prices have spiked since Moscow’s war against Ukraine and a U.S. ban on Russian oil imports, but inflation was pushing energy costs upward long before the geopolitical conflict.
Nevada was the lone state among those targeted by the RSLC with prices above the national average. The western state’s average was $5.16 per gallon while the other three had averages ranging around $4 or higher.
America has been less energy independent since literally day one of the Biden administration, when the president signed an executive order canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline.
According to reporting from National Post, a poll of Americans conducted on March 10 poll of Americans by Maru Public Opinion for Postmedia found that 71 percent of respondents favor Biden restarting the pipeline. This includes a plurality of respondents, at 39 percent, who say they favor it "strongly."
The Biden administration has continued to blame Putin's invasion of Russia, and Democrats have doubled down on not reviving the project.
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