Up until the Trump presidency, politicians regularly talked about the need to make America energy independent. That talk has stopped, largely because the goal has been reached. The U.S. is now a net energy exporter, thanks almost entirely to the development of new technologies that allow us to find fossil fuels where they could not be found before.
The oil and natural gas boom brought about by fracking has not only ended the nation’s reliance on crude oil imports, it also put an end to the domestic coal industry. As a result, U.S. carbon emissions are down significantly, lower even than the targets fixed in the international Paris Climate Accord from which President Donald J. Trump withdrew the nation shortly after entering office.
Rather than cheering these developments, former Vice President Joe Biden wants to bring them to an end. He wants the nation to be depended on synthetic and renewable fuel substitutes that are not yet developed and wind and solar power that is expensive to build, even more expensive to maintain in good working order, and which has proven harmful to birds and other wildlife – all to appease Luddite environmentalists who fill his campaign coffers with money and his campaign offices with activists.
To what should be his shame, Biden can’t be clear with the American public about what he has in mind for U.S. energy production save for statements about his plan to end our reliance on fossil fuels to heat and cool our homes and businesses and power our factories within several decades.
The technology to do all this is unproven, at least at the commercial-scale required to produce the base power load needed. Yet he dismisses technologies like fracking that are proven as environmentally harmful and unnecessary.
Contrary to what he’s said while debating Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden has said repeatedly he would end fracking in the United States. He’s been caught on tape more than once making this promise. In a July 2019 interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Mr. Biden said he would eliminate fracking. “Would there be any place for fossil fuels including coal and fracking in a Biden administration?” she asked. Mr. Biden responded, “No, we would work it out. We would make sure it’s eliminated.”
In his October 22 debate with Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden again promised he would shut down the entire American oil industry. Here’s this, from the transcript, so you can read it yourself:
President Donald Trump: Would you close down the oil industry?
Former Vice President Joe Biden: By the way, I have a transition from the old industry, yes.
President Donald Trump: Oh, that’s a big statement.
Former Vice President Joe Biden: I will transition. It is a big statement.
President Donald Trump: That’s a big statement.
Former Vice President Joe Biden: Because I would stop.
Moderator Kristen Welker (NB): Why would you do that?
Former Vice President Joe Biden: Because the oil industry pollutes, significantly.
Whether or not he used the word “ban” is irrelevant. If he can’t ban it, he’ll tax and regulate and sue it out of existence by raising the costs involved with it to a level when it no longer makes economic sense to do it.
If Mr. Biden’s plan prevails, it won’t just devastate the economies of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, and it won’t just send millions of Americans whose jobs depend on the fracking industry onto the unemployment lines, it will produce higher prices at the pump for every American while making the nation once again reliant on foreign oil imports coming from politically unstable parts of the world. If that weren’t enough, the biggest beneficiary of the Biden plan will be Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who just can’t wait to get the rest of the world, particularly eastern Europe, dependent once again on his country’s crude and natural gas.
No amount of spin or clean up from Mr. Biden or his team can explain away what he’s promised to do. The former Vice President said “Yes” when the president asked if he would close down the oil industry. Mr. Biden’s stance towards almost everything that goes into U.S. energy independence shows him to be a job killer, a friend to the oil sheiks and eastern European oligarchs and others who’d like nothing better to have their knees on the necks of U.S. industry by controlling the nation’s supply of energy.
Advertisement
Support Doug Collins for Senate
Peter Roff
Peter Roff is affiliated with several Washington, D.C. public policy organizations and is a former U.S. News and World Report contributing editor who appears regularly as a commentator on the One America News network. He can be reached by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.
Joe hurt himself more last night than TRUMP could have ever hurt him. Running off at the mouth is the best thing that could have let Biden do. Biden shot himself in the foot so may times that is what made it the best
The Democrat Party has become a Communist Party under China. The Black Lives Movement is run by two
Mao graduate women. To bring USA down to a pawn country of China and we all lose every Right to a life,
Joe Biden is a sick man and his wife should be ashamed of allowing him to be on the stage. Her morals are
as bad as her son and husband. The $ payout must be enormous for the family. The dishonesty is a black
market for our beautiful country. George Soros must be very proud.
Retard joe just needs to keep talking. He’s helping Trump win.
These Bidens are worse than some of the crime boss familys in New York. Crooked corrupt bastards .they should be in jail. Not running for office. Would be like electing Carlo Gambino president.
The Texas economy revolves primarily around the petroleum industry. Many communities depend on it for jobs either directly or indirectly. Even local business depend on customers who work in the industry. The money the State receives from the industry is the reason Texas does not have an income tax. Destroy the petroleum industry in Texas and you destroy the Texas economy. The State may even have to impose an income tax to run the State. And Biden expects native Texans to vote for him? That would be insane.
What about the devastating effect on the average American (or the :low class” as Biden calls them?). As he “transitions” what happens to our vehicles? Will every household be forced to give up their “dirty” cars (even classic cars?) to “transition” to electric cars? How much will that cost both in time (waiting for a recharge) and money (tens of thousands of dollars each car owner will be forced to spend.). Sure, lets support the R&D, but I don’t think Biden thinks through the implications of what he says. Oh, and by the way, how nonsensical is it to both support fracking and want to get rid of the industry that is dependent on it?
The one thing we can count on Beijing Biden to do is to obey his globalist masters, who have ordered the total destruction of America.
In Biden’s America, he and his cronies would travel in luxury, live in luxury, and enjoy special protections, while the rest of us have to either walk or ride horses wherever we need to go, live in complete squalor, and be at the mercies of criminals and government goons.
Stark warning to every American with a brain, that is.