January 17, 2025

From Drilling the Economy to Drilling for Oil

We anticipate transitioning from Joe Biden’s green nightmare to Donald Trump’s “energy dominance.”

On Day One of his lousy administration, Joe Biden canceled the Keystone Pipeline deal that would have brought Canadian oil into the U.S. for refining. He killed thousands of (union) jobs and disrupted years of hard work and preparation, but Keystone was more than a pipeline. Killing it fired a shot across the bow of the energy industry: There was a green sheriff in town, and he was going to make American energy dependent again.

Biden proceeded to pass the American Rescue Plan, lighting a wildfire of inflation. The annualized inflation rate hit an appalling 9.1% in June 2022. Biden has repeatedly lied, saying it was over 9% when he took office, but in January 2021, it was about 1.4%.

One of the primary drivers of inflation was the price of energy, specifically gasoline. Gas prices averaged $2.39 when Biden entered the White House. On June 14, 2022, a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline hit a record high of $5.02. That was the nationwide average, of course, and in some locations, a gallon cost $6, $7, or even $8. As the stickers all over gas pumps noted, Joe Biden did that. Worse, he did it on purpose.

Consumers may not always be able to articulate every step of the process, but it’s essentially a straight line from hamstringing extraction and production to higher pump prices. From blocking Keystone to politically draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to his decision just days ago to ban offshore drilling along 625 million acres of U.S. coastline — putting, at best guess, about 100 billion barrels of oil off limits — Biden owns the problem.

It’s true that prices have eased considerably from their record high and that, adjusted for inflation, prices aren’t awful right now. Today’s nationwide average is $3.11, and even in California, it’s “only” $4.43. Yet the average is roughly 40% higher than when Biden took office and nearly 70% higher than the lowest point in Donald Trump’s term.

Speaking of Trump, he takes office Monday, and he plans to restore the energy independence he brought during his first term. In fact, he’s aiming for “energy dominance.”

This entails several things: Undoing Biden’s aforementioned limits on drilling, reversing his tail-pipe emissions rule that effectively serves as an EV mandate, reducing Biden’s onerous Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, and resuming the natural gas exports Biden halted. He may also re-withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which Biden reentered. Acquiring Greenland would be a significant step toward energy development. Just sayin’.

Trump’s nominees for key departments will play a key role in his agenda: Lee Zeldin at the Environmental Protection Agency, Doug Burgum at the Interior Department, and Chris Wright at the Department of Energy. All three are likely to be confirmed, and each has a lot of work to do.

“The American people can bank on President Trump using his executive power on day one to deliver on the promises he made to them on the campaign trail,” said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. “When he takes office, President Trump will make America energy dominant again.”

Why is Trump’s approach important? Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center for Energy Analytics, explains: “Long-term, future-centric energy planning is critical. Despite trillions of dollars in cumulative spending over recent decades on alternative energy, the transition from hydrocarbons remains aspirational. The world today uses far more oil, natural gas, and coal than when the lavish green spending programs began. Oil use itself is now 25 percent higher than in 2000.”

We can’t — and shouldn’t — replace all that energy with Chinese-made wind turbines and solar panels. It’s also not as simple as “drill, baby, drill,” but that holds a lot more hope for economic progress than the Left’s green nightmare.

Follow Nate Jackson on X/Twitter.

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