The Biden administration has always been off-message with regard to America’s energy crisis, which was exacerbated by President Joe Biden’s policies, and the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
However, as the Daily Caller noted, the messaging coming from the White House within the past few days has been nothing short of a total circus, with some officials calling for less reliance on fossil fuels, and with the president making promises to EU partners to produce more fossil fuels for export.
The totally confusing and asinine messaging comes at a time when record-setting high domestic gas and energy prices have continued to cripple the bank accounts of lower and middle-class America, with no real relief in sight.
The situation has become so overwhelmingly bad for the Biden administration and Americans in general, that even some hardcore progressive Democrats have called for increased oil drilling on American soil to offset the spike in prices caused most recently by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
What’s going on?
At roughly the same time that President Joe Biden announced a deal to export an additional 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to member nations this year alone, White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy insisted that the focus should be on “green” energy.
“This is not a fight about coal anymore,” she said. “It is a challenge about natural gas and infrastructure investments because we don’t want to invest in things that are time limited.”
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan added in a recent call with reporters that LNG shipments to EU allies will grow “not just over the course of years, but over the course of months as well,” adding that it will “grow over time.”
At the same time as that particular line of messaging, Biden, at a recent presser, said he’s calling for “reducing Europe’s demand for gas overall,” before going on to say that because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. seeks to “double-down on our clean energy goals.”
In other words, it doesn’t appear as if anyone in the White House, including the president, knows their foot from their hand with regard to America’s energy goals and concerns, neither in the short term or long term.
Sudden reversal
Shockingly, the left-leaning Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced this week that a strict climate policy announced earlier this year that “mandated a more stringent environmental review of pipelines and other fossil fuel projects,” has now been rolled back. FERC members said the policy is now in “draft” mode.
“After further consideration, the Commission today designated both documents as draft policy statements on which the Commission is seeking further public comment,” FERC announced. “The two draft policy statements will not apply to pending project applications.”
There are a number of additional examples of recent flip-flops on the energy crisis, but the bottom line is that Biden’s White House is in a full-blown panic, and as a result, doesn’t appear to have a clear and confident answer to the energy crisis. Sadly, that doesn’t come as a surprise to many.