✪ Joe Biden is busy blaming gas station owners for the soaring prices of filling up at the pump. He’s also blamed Putin, Big Oil producers, oil refineries, Republicans, and anyone but himself when it’s obvious enough that the root of the problem is his crush-the-oil industry policies that he launched on day one in the name of “going green.”
It’s his latest scheme to deflect blame for the nasty price shocks he’s brought upon on the entire country; with gasoline now averaging about $5 a gallon nationwide, and $6-something in tax-happy, save-the-planet California.
Combine this move with his monster rounds of wasteful federal money-printing which has brought on authentic inflation, and it’s a double whammy of inflation and constrained supply. Oh, but rest assured, he says he’s the good guy here:
“I promise you I’m doing everything possible — everything possible to bring the price of energy down, gas prices down. And I want to make sure we all work on this together.”
So he babbled. That’s taken directly from the White House’s official transcript.
His “everything possible” are weasel words. What he means is everything possible for him politically to look like he’s bringing down prices, but not anything possible that will result in actual price cuts at the pump.
That’s why he’s refused to reverse his horrible decisions on the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada, which would have brought America all the energy it needed, or reverse his bad decisions on drilling on federal land and waters which would have restored American energy independence and perhaps made the U.S. an exporter of energy again. Those would be possible moves he could just have thrown the word out there he was doing and that in itself would have brought down energy prices at least somewhat, minus the cost of Fed-generated inflation, given the importance of the futures market to energy trading. Instead, he’s gone begging to the Saudis and Venezuelans to pump more oil for him and released about half of the total US Strategic Petroleum Reserves; using it as an open-market mechanism to blunt the effects of his bad policies rather than for the emergencies it’s actually intended. None of this stupidity & arrogance has brought down the price of oil.
Now we learn that huge chunk of our SPR oil has gone abroad — to Europe the grasshopper which never bothered to save for a rainy day, and with Putin on the march demanding to be paid in rubles for his oil and natural gas, has left the continent short. Meanwhile, Putin’s making out great on the price of petroleum and the Russian ruble has strengthened to records highs against the Euro & Dollar. Even worse, much of this Biden SPR release has gone to Asia, particularly China, which isn’t even using it to fuel gas stations.
According to Reuters, which broke this story, some 5 million barrels of US SPR oil have arrived at China’s Pacific ports in just the last month alone:
HOUSTON, July 5 (Reuters) – More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency reserves release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices hit record highs.
The export of crude and fuel is blunting the impact of the moves by U.S. President Joe Biden to lower record pump prices. Biden on Saturday renewed a call for gasoline suppliers to cut their prices, drawing criticism from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
The Daily Mail further explains how this can be happening:
Biden’s announcement about releasing the oil barrels was made in April, and saw him say: ‘These releases will put more than one million barrels per day on the market over the next six months, and will help address supply disruptions caused by Putin’s further invasion of Ukraine and the price hikes Americans are facing at the pump.’
But it has had little effect, with a closer look at the press release revealing that the oil released from the strategic reserve was always destined for the highest bidder – even if they were overseas.
That is due to strict international rules dictating the sale and supply of oil – although a regular American who listened to Biden’s proclamation in passing would likely have believed that the increase in supply would have been destined for domestic refineries, to lower US prices.
You can bet that Biden didn’t plan for that when he decided to shift the purpose of the SPR from “emergencies only” to his open-market mechanism, without first shutting down the prospect of that oil going abroad. This problem wouldn’t happening at all if there was an actual emergency with a need to aid America first.
The American Energy Alliance points out that things are actually worse than they appear because China isn’t even using that oil; the Chinese are stockpiling it for their own strategic petroleum reserves; meaning the U.S. oil taken off the market is doing nothing to help lower the price of crude on a worldwide basis.
China has also refused to play Biden’s game. Biden thought he had coordinated a global effort to release more than 1 million barrels per day of strategic oil reserves in order to reduce gasoline and diesel prices since he expected those reserves to be refined and sold to consumers. However, for every barrel of the US reserve the President has released or sold, China has removed a barrel from the global market and added it to existing Chinese stockpiles. China’s stockpiling has eliminated any ability fro U.S. consumers to benefit from Biden’s SPR release. In fact, the exact opposite has occurred; U.S. energy security has been further reduced at the cost of strengthening China’s national energy security.
Biden is draining our SPR energy to fill the Chinese SPR. The American Energy Alliance also notes China is hoping to jump ahead on their expanding refinery capacity; as Biden energy policies stymie America’s refining capacity. Unlike Biden, China always plans ahead.
The whole disaster is intentional of Biden’s part and the only thing the US is getting out of this arrangement is higher fuel prices, a lost stockpile of emergency energy and the beefing up of our competitors and enemies petroleum reserves.
This is incompetence in the extreme if not outright, deliberate treason. Biden’s must be held accountable for this. ✪
▶️ 2 Minutes 51 Seconds
▶️ 3 Minutes 35 Seconds
