The Biden energy scandal

 Real Clear Politics:

Until Wednesday, there was a routine at the White House.

The national average for a gallon of gasoline would drop, and the president’s staff would publicly celebrate the dip as more evidence that the decision to tap the strategic petroleum reserve was helping the everyday American. And while gas was not, and is still not, cheap, the downward streak was undeniable. It lasted 99 consecutive days.

But J.D. Vance doesn’t see that as meaningful progress when prices remain high. If anything, the Ohio Republican now says the streak “should be a national scandal.”

“The fact that we are depleting the petroleum reserve of this country, so Joe Biden can claim a victory on gas prices for a midterm election, is the most politically selfish thing an American president has done in recent memory,” Vance told RealClearPolitics.

Rather than release more than 240 million barrels from that emergency supply, first in response to the coronavirus pandemic and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vance has a simpler suggestion for Biden, one ready-made for the campaign trail as he competes with Democrat Tim Ryan for the open Ohio Senate seat: “What Biden should be doing is letting American companies drill for oil, refine oil, and transport oil.”

Vance wants voters to hold Ryan responsible for Biden’s energy policies – to keep in mind, for instance, the White House moratorium on new federal oil and gas leases as they cast their votes in November. The Republican doesn’t frame this as merely an economic issue. He believes it is also emblematic of a larger class divide in America between those who can easily weather changes brought by new climate policies and those who cannot.

“The elites who drive Democratic policy all make too much money to care about inflation. They live in cities where many of them don't even have cars to begin with,” he argued. “But here in Ohio, most of us need to buy gasoline in order to get to work to do the things that we need to do to live.”

That kind of populist message should resonate in a state that Donald Trump carried by eight percentage points in 2020. But Ohio’s Senate race remains a toss-up, and according to the RealClearPolitics average, Vance leads Ryan by just two points. One reason: Ryan has aggressively courted independent voters, campaigning on how he has split with his own party in Congress, even occasionally siding with Trump, and accusing his opponent – a Yale law school grad, former corporate lawyer and onetime Silicon Valley venture capitalist – of being the actual out-of-touch elitist.

But when Ryan recently told plumbers and steamfitters that it was time to “go all in on natural gas” and that the fossil fuel was “a hell of an opportunity for Eastern Ohio,” Vance pushed back.

“The guy is betting on us being stupid,” the Republican said, insisting that the “thrust” of Ryan’s “public policy career has been trying to ban fossil fuels, but now that he’s running for office in Ohio state-wide, he knows it is unpopular and he’s running away from it.”

The Vance campaign argues that Rep. Ryan, despite his blue-collar rhetoric, is no different than any other liberal progressive. Republicans highlight how the congressman from Youngstown told the Washington Post in 2019 that the federal government should “significantly ramp up oversight and regulation” of the natural gas industry and, if companies didn’t improve their environmental record, ought “to step in and halt fracking operations.” Vance also notes that Ryan supported Biden’s drilling moratorium and opposed legislation to deregulate the permitting process for oil and gas pipelines.

According to Vance, his opponent “totally abandoned” the oil and natural gas industry in the face of increased regulation from the current administration, “but he says he likes natural gas now because he knows that it is politically popular.”
...

Democrats should not be trusted with energy.  Biden's bad policies are exactly what the anti-energy left wants.  They want to stop all production of fossil fuels.  Their policies would lead to extremely limited transportation and starvation,