Democrats deliberately drove up gas prices and now blame industry
Democrats are so nervous about November's election that they just wasted a morning in the House Energy and Commerce Committee trying to scapegoat the oil industry for the high price of gasoline.
“Big Oil is lining their pockets with one hand and taking billions in taxpayer subsidies with the other,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, in one typical statement. “Meanwhile, the American people are getting ripped off as these companies choose to keep production low so that their own profits stay high.”
It is difficult even to know where to begin with such nonsense. But before going into the granular details about the false and misleading Democratic assertions on this issue, ask yourself one simple question: Do oil companies make their money by not selling as much oil as possible when global prices are really high? Or do they make money by selling as much oil as possible when prices are really high?
Congressional Democrats seem clueless about how markets work. Oil companies, refiners, and retailers could not keep gas prices this high even if they wanted to.
More galling, however, is that the Democrats trying to point the finger of blame for high prices at private enterprise are pretending that they dislike high prices when, in truth, they have long pursued higher gasoline prices as a policy goal. The only reason they are upset about it now is that it is likely to contribute to their defeat in the midterm elections.
In the service of reducing carbon emissions, Democrats have long openly worked to raise the price of fossil fuel energy. They have done so by proposing carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, higher leasing fees, and other measures to jack up costs so people burn less of it. This is why Barack Obama said, in answer to a related question about electricity, that his energy plan would make prices "necessarily skyrocket." This is why Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna praised BP's CEO less than six months ago for pledging to reduce oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. Reductions in oil production and rising gasoline prices are part of the Democrats' agenda and the Paris climate agenda.
There's even more to it than that. Over the past decade, the Democrats' overt hostility toward fossil fuels has even driven companies in the industry to sideline production, purely for public relations purposes, while prioritizing meaningless, politically correct carbon emissions goals. How can Democrats suddenly feign outrage at their incredible success in influencing the industry?
The reason Democrats float conspiracy theories about price-fixing and price-gouging is that voters see their party as the main problem. President Joe Biden's administration has been working since day one to bully banks out of funding fossil fuel projects. Upon taking office, his first act was to cancel the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada — which is kind of funny in retrospect, since the war now has him desperately trying to find more ways to bring oil down from Canada. To appease pipeline opponents, Biden prefers to transport oil by rail, using dangerous, carbon-spewing diesel trains.
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What have Democrats done to increase the supply of US oil and gas production? Not one thing. They would rather hit the US petroleum reserve meant for wartime emergencies than allow drilling at a fair price. It has been a deliberate policy of the Biden administration and the Democrats to drive up the price of gas in hopes people will switch to crappy green energy. What is bothering the Democrats now is that voters are on to their scam. They get a reminder every time they go by a gas station to vote against every Democrat on the ballot. It wasn't that long ago that Bioden's energy secretary laughed when she was asked about the high price of gas. Do not buy their lies at election time.
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