“Putin’s war is causing gas prices to rise, but this is no excuse for large oil companies to pad their bottom line with war-fueled profits,” tweeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) along with an MSNBC video of her explaining her stance. “Senate Democrats are watching closely—and already working on a windfall profits tax.” Warren also said that she gets “supply and demand—that prices go up” but that “profit margins should not go up, that’s just oil companies gouging.”
While responding to reporters about Russia’s incursion into Ukraine two weeks ago, President Biden committed that his administration was using every tool at its disposal to protect American businesses and consumers from rising prices at the gas pump. “I will do everything in my power to limit the pain that the American people are feeling at the gas pump.”
The receipts on this are EXPANSIVE and media can either carry White House propaganda or consider the actions they’ve taken to drive these prices up well before this crisis took off. pic.twitter.com/qcc8XuFZkM
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) March 9, 2022
“Loosening environmental regulations or pulling back clean energy investment won’t — let me expand. Won’t. Will not lower energy prices for families,” he said during a speech at the White House announcing his decision to ban oil imports from Russia to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for escalating his war in Ukraine.
Canada has long pitched its crude as one that is not produced in rogue government regimes such as Venezuela, Iran, or Russia, and Alberta’s top officials now say that its crude could be the answer to more supply from allied nations to the United States.
How’s that going to help Iran become a nuclear state?
On Monday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) criticized the Biden administration for reportedly looking to boost energy production in Iran and Venezuela and stated that doing so would make the authoritarian Maduro regime and Iran’s dangerous regime partners “to save our economy” and argued that every day America waits to boost domestic energy production, “continues to put us in an awkward position.”
Joe Biden has once again led from behind on Western policy regarding Russia. Well, to be fair, this time he’s more leading from the middle — between the private sector and the governments in the EU. Bloomberg reports that Biden will finally sanction Russian oil imports to the US, although most of Europe will take a pass on such action.
Crude oil prices rose as high as $130.50 a barrel on Sunday evening.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki released a set of talking points on social media, arguing against a focus on boosting oil production in the United States.
“It’s a reminder that real energy security comes from reducing our dependence on fossil fuels,” Psaki wrote, noting that Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine was causing a spike in oil prices.
“High oil prices really aren’t great for anybody,” Kevin Birn, vice-president at energy consultancy IHS Markit, told the Calgary Herald’s Chris Varcoe. “In energy-producing regions, there’s a lot of interest and excitement about prices when oil pushes past $80.
“But the longer-term consequences are also not good, even for the producers … People will try to reduce their use of energy because it’s eating into their disposable income too much and so you get demand destruction.”
Suggesting his brain is an irony-free zone, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told Bloomberg News last week that Canada can’t replace Russian oil and natural gas supplies to Europe because, “our export capacity is pretty much maxed out.”
Of course, the reason it’s maxed out is Canada’s lack of oil and natural gas pipelines, the same ones Guilbeault campaigned against in his previous life as a Greenpeace activist.
Putin has started what some people are referring to as WWIII. Biden’s response has been to join other nations in hitting Putin with some financial sanctions, which have thus far not changed Putin’s game plan.
Biden is also sending, depending on your source, roughly $74 million to Russia EVERY DAY for oil.
Why hit Putin with sanctions if you’re handing him mad stacks for oil? Something is up. Biden could open the Keystone XL pipeline. He could “drill, baby, drill” in the States and tap into what might be billions of barrels of oil, but White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki refers to that idea as a “misdiagnosis.”
So instead, Biden is helping to pay for Putin’s war.
You have completely lost touch with the Western provinces. You’re going to destabilize the country. You’re going to make people cold and poor. All to sustain your idiot moralistic utopian delusions. What in the world do you think will replace fossil fuel? Your good wishes? https://t.co/7J31jKfSUH
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) January 14, 2022
President Joe Biden is desperately trying to get his multi-trillion dollar spending package passed on Capitol Hill before Christmas, but according to the Wall Street Journal, Build Back Better includes a significant tax on natural gas.
“Revoking the permits for the [Line 5] pipeline that delivers oil from western Canada across Wisconsin, the Great Lakes and Michigan and into Ontario, would please environmentalists who have urged the White House to block fossil fuel infrastructure, but it would aggravate a rift with Canada and could exacerbate a spike in energy prices that Republicans are already using as a political weapon,” Politico Pro reported. “Killing a pipeline while U.S. gasoline prices are the highest in years could be political poison for Biden, who has seen his approval rating crash in recent months.”
Apparently the people behind Joe Biden realize the ridiculous prices at the gas pump are going to be a major political issue for them in the next election. As a result, they have decided to release 50 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR), enough for approximately 3 days of demand.
