Biden's insane energy policies
Point of order: Is there anything sane about Joe Biden’s energy policies? For that matter, was there anything sane about Barack Obama’s energy policies while Larry Summers served as Obama’s National Economic Council chair?
Answer: not really. We got continually lectured during that administration that we couldn’t drill our way to energy independence, an argument proven false almost as soon as Donald Trump took office. Biden and his team haven’t made that argument, at least not explicitly, but they have made it very clear that they have no intention of drilling more to re-acquire energy-independent status.
Even with that, however, Summer considers hostility to pipeline creation “kind of insane.” The oil still has to get transported, no? Via Grabien and Forbes:
Speaking at the Boston Globe’s Globe Summit on September 15, former Obama administration Economist Larry Summers said this about current U.S. energy policy: “It’s kind of insane that we have truck and trains carrying oil all over this country, rather than constructing pipelines, which would permit accessing more resources and cheaper, safer transmission.”
Yes, it is kind of insane that regulators in the United States continue to hamper the domestic oil and gas industry by forcing it to move such large volumes of oil via trucks and trains. There is nothing inherently wrong with these modes of transportation, mind you: It’s just that they are less efficient, more expensive, more dangerous and more polluting than moving oil in pipelines. Other than those fairly key factors, they’re great.
Yet, even in the midst of a building global energy crisis, the regulators in the Biden administration continue to hold up permits for critical pipeline infrastructure, which, as I pointed out last week, leaves entire regions of the country highly dependent on trains and trucks to deliver their oil and refined products.
It’s even more insane than it seems on first blush. Trains and trucks rely on fossil fuels, after all, so the transport of oil compounds whatever carbon release comes from the oil itself. Furthermore, both methods of transport hold bigger risks for accidental releases than pipelines do, and both utilize infrastructure that is also used for human transport. And now, the extra use of gasoline and diesel to move oil to refineries on trucks puts upward pressure on already-high fuel prices at the pump.
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This is pretty close to what I have been saying for some time about Biden's energy policy. If he is worried about pollution his policies on the trsport of oil an dgas are absurd. And it is also absurd to burn imported oil and gas rather than domestic because just getting it hear is more expensive and creates more pollution and burning it doe not reduce pollution. It is truly an insane policy any way you look at it.
See, also:
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