The Biden administration is limiting liquid natural gas exports. That will increase our trade deficit, wipe out energy jobs, and shrink the size of our economy. Last week, it decided to suspend approval of natural gas export terminals, which energy expert Harold Hamm notes is “bad for Americans and our allies.” Our allies need natural gas from America to replace the natural gas they used to get from Russia:
Just over a year ago Russia invaded Ukraine, and geopolitical instability broke out across the world. Russia quickly weaponized energy, limiting gas supplies to Europe to historic lows before explosions rocked the Baltic Sea, cutting off access from Nord Stream 1 and 2 in what is agreed to have been an act of sabotage.
Europe was facing a record-cold winter and on the brink of a very real energy crisis. Who did Europe turn to in this time of crisis? The world’s energy superpower, of course. American-made, clean-burning natural gas came to the rescue, keeping millions of homes heated and with power in the form of liquified natural gas (LNG)…. It was American-made LNG that got Europe through it.
Yet on Friday, President Biden suspended pending approvals of LNG exports. As Hamm points out,
This is a message to our allies that you can’t rely on America. This is a policy that puts America last. Actions like this prevent America from coming to the rescue of our allies today or in the future, thereby empowering Russia once again and harming Americans and American oil and gas producers by stopping the free market…
Natural gas is one of our most valuable resources in America. And it’s one of the most valuable resources we can export to our allies. It has the added benefit of meeting all climate goals for lowering carbon intensity. Natural gas is a clean-burning fuel that is displacing much of the denser fuels such as wood and coal. We know this in America. No country has reduced its CO2 emissions in the last two decades more than the United States. And that is a direct result of abundant, clean-burning natural gas. You want to make a real impact on air quality around the world? Hold countries like China and India accountable for the coal they’re burning – and export our American LNG success story to the rest of the world – don’t limit it.
The New York Times reports that there are “worries in Europe over the White House move to delay gas terminals,” and Biden’s action “could be a headache for overseas buyers.”
The Biden administration has also made it harder to mine and drill for oil and natural gas. The Biden administration canceled the seven remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s ANWR, even though oil drilling took up only a microscopic fraction of that desolate area, and posed no problem for wildlife.
As the Heritage Foundation notes, Biden took many steps to reduce America’s supply of oil and gas, which will drive up gas prices and make America more reliant on foreign producers:
On Mr. Biden’s first day in office, he issued an executive order directing the Secretary of the Interior to put a …. moratorium on the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program. That program directs the Bureau of Land Management to lease certain lands in Alaska for oil and gas extraction.
A few days later, he issued another order “pausing” oil and gas leases on all public lands and waters.
According to the Bureau, Alaska’s Coastal Plain is “some of the most highly prospective land on Alaska’s North Slope.” It contains billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. It is a king’s ransom of energy wealth, and the law requires that the administration make it available for extraction….The result: Mr. Biden has unlawfully trapped much of America’s vast energy reserves behind a wall of bureaucratic red tape, leaving them unavailable now that the country needs them.
Biden has left America much more vulnerable to foreign oil embargoes, by depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Thanks to his policies, America can’t fully offset any sudden cuts in oil production overseas. Joe Biden has left the reserve partly empty, by releasing oil from it on multiple occasions, such as 50 million barrels in November 2021, 210 million barrels beginning in March 2022. Democrats kept President Trump from expanding the reserve back when oil was dirt cheap. The reserve now is now partly empty, and nowhere near its storage capacity.
In March 2020, President Trump proposed adding oil to the strategic petroleum reserve when oil cost only $14 per barrel (compared to $90 per barrel today), but Democrats blocked him from doing that.
Biden’s releases of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve have been illegal, because they weren’t in response to an emergency, and left the reserve with insufficient oil to respond to a true emergency. Biden’s actions violated the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act, notes Mark Robeck, the former deputy general counsel of the Department of Energy. The law prohibits releases from the reserve unless there is a severe domestic supply shortage, an act of sabotage or natural disaster. Biden’s “unlawful release of oil from the SPR threatens national security by depleting” the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Robeck says.
