I knew about this. I wrote about it during the Obama Administration.
And, yet, I admit that I forgot about this and plum didn’t understand why Biden was permitting, in the technical sense, so much oil drilling and even releasing oil from the strategic reserves.
But Daily Kos‘ Mark Sumner reminds me:
In the last two years, President Joe Biden grabbed the oil markets by the throat and shook them. He’s not just lowered the price that Americans are paying for gas as they head out on summer vacation, he has sent a shockwave of fear through OPEC leaders like Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The urge to simplify foreign situations is understandable, but demands that fossil fuel pumping cease has the unfortunate – such a neutral word for such a complicated and dangerous situation – effect of strengthening the hand of genocidal maniac President Vladimir Putin, because Russia’s primary source of foreign revenue is fossil fuels. Biden better enabling fossil fuels lowers prices, meaning Putin’s revenue is lowered.
Meaning the Russians have a harder time buying the foreign parts required to build the weapons they use to kill and subjugate Ukrainians in Putin’s War. For climate activists, such as those who painted Stonehenge orange a couple of days ago while demanding we stop pumping fossil fuels, this point may not be obvious, but it’s something to bear in mind. Precise thinking, in short supply these days, is deeply important. How so here?
It’s all a web, and one action over here may have an unexpected reaction over there. Should we stop pumping fossil fuels? Not yet, sad to say. The lower the supply, the more everyone who refuses to go along with the other side of the equation – which is, stop using fossil fuels! – is willing to pay for them. And that is how Putin increases his war machine.
The proper side of the equation is the demand side, not the supply side. Reducing supply leads to unwanted consequences.
