Biden repeats Carter's energy debacle

 Jerome Corsi:

The Biden administration’s climate policies have fueled double-digit inflation and negative growth in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) not seen since 1979 when the OPEC oil embargo helped usher Ronald Reagan into the White House.

In the last year of his presidency, Jimmy Carter struggled because the OPEC oil embargo caused long lines at the gas pump to pay surging gasoline costs. In February 1977, during a nationally televised speech to the nation, Carter wore a cardigan sweater from a seat in the White House, urging Americans to turn down their thermostats to 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night to waste less energy. Carter ushered in the Reagan presidency by arguing to Americans that the energy shortage was “permanent,” and urged a shift to “solar energy and other renewable energy sources.”

Also in 1979, to fight surging inflation, then-Fed Chair Paul Volker placed a lid on the money supply, raising interest rates, which peaked at 20.0% percent in June 1981. This dramatic move drove inflation down from a high of 14.8% in March 1980 to 2.5% three years later. The price of Volker’s decisive moves was that the U.S. economy suffered two punishing recessions.

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In Biden’s case, the oil shortages and rising energy prices are self-inflicted wounds, not the result of foreign action, as with the OPEC oil embargo. As one of his first acts in office, Biden reversed a key Trump policy and canceled the Keystone Pipeline. This evidenced the Biden administration’s decision to move away from U.S. reliance on hydrocarbon fuels in favor of the Green New Deal’s push toward solar and wind power.

President Trump had proven the United States was nowhere near running out of oil. On August 20, 2019, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy, announced that the United States established new production records, with U.S. petroleum and natural gas production increasing in 2018 by 16% and 12%, respectively. The EIA further announced that the United States surpassed Russia in 2011 to become the world’s largest natural gas producer and surpassed Saudi Arabia in 2018 to become the world’s largest petroleum producer. The EIA report commented that the 2018 increase in the United States, which boomed under the Trump administration, constituted “one of the largest absolute petroleum and natural gas production increases from a single country in history.”

In sharp contrast, by mid-June, after five months in the White House, the Biden administration had to acknowledge that oil imports from Russia set a record high in March 2021. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), U.S. imports of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia reached 22.9 million barrels in March 2021, despite strained relations between Washington and Moscow.

Under Biden, the United States is entering a period of stagflation last seen when Carter mused that running out of oil made renewable fuels America’s only alternative. In July 2022, the GDP dropped 0.9% in the second quarter of 2022, following a 1.6 percent decline in the first quarter. Once again, the U.S. is in a recession according to the principles of classic economics, which define the onset of a recession as two straight quarters of negative GDP growth.

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Biden's energy policies are idiotic.  He continues to reduce production on US-controlled sites while importing oil instead.  This has driven up the world price of oil and funded Russia's war in Ukraine. He has more than doubled the price of gas at the pump in the process.  Every trip by a ga station is a reminder of his inept policy.