June 6, 2022
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Biden is right, we need to ‘boost the productive capacity’ of oil and gas in the U.S. So, why isn’t he doing it?
By David Potter
In his Wall Street Journal op-ed “My Plan for Fighting Inflation” on May 30, President Joe Biden promised to boost American energy production: “We need to take every practical step to make things more affordable for families during this moment of economic uncertainty—and to boost the productive capacity of our economy over time.”
Biden is right, we need to boost production. So why isn’t he doing it? In fact, U.S. crude oil refinery input is still lower today than pre-Covid times. According to the EIA, the gross input of atmospheric crude oil distillation units in so far in 2022 has averaged 15.67 million barrels per day. Compare that to the 16.99 million barrels per day in 2019, or the 17.3 million barrels per day in 2018 under Trump before the pandemic in 2020 when oil prices briefly went to zero and global production ground to a halt. That’s a 9.4 percent decrease in input when comparing 2022 with 2018. Considering there was no energy crisis in 2018, but that there certain is one in 2022, it is reasonable to expect President Biden to create conditions to increase domestic input when he is the one who decided to ban oil imports from Russia, a country that once sold America roughly 8 percent of the U.S. petroleum supply.
As a result, the national average gas price has reached an all-time high of $4.85 per gallon. At the same time, diesel, a major factor in consumer goods inflationary costs, has also hit an all-time high of $5.64 per gallon. Biden’s announcement with the International Energy Agency about releasing 60 million barrels of oil doesn’t do much considering America consumes about 20 million barrels per day.
First, Biden’s Department of Interior restricted their oil and gas lease sales after a “robust environmental review, engagement with Tribes and communities, and prioritizing the American people’s broad interests in public lands,” resulting in an “80 percent reduction from the acreage originally nominated” from “646 parcels on roughly 733,000 acres that had been previously nominated for leasing by energy companies”, and “the final sale notices will offer approximately 173 parcels on roughly 144,000 acres.”
Next, the Department of Interior decided to cancel the sale of Alaskan and Gulf Coast oil and gas leases altogether, citing a lack of interest for canceling the Alaskan sale, and blaming the Gulf slowdown on a federal court ruling against the Biden administration metric for allowing federal oil leases on the basis of global and societal costs of carbon emissions. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that this interruption could cost nearly 500,000 barrels of oil and natural gas per day between 2022 and 2040. By 2036, it could 885,000 fewer barrels of oil and natural gas per day. That’s a 33 percent decrease of where production would be with the leasing program in place and on schedule.
In short, continuing offshore drilling is a “practical step to make things more affordable for families”, but the Biden administration chose to not renew this routine 5-year leasing program. It has been the norm since 1980, but and is required by law, but nonetheless the Department of Interior canceled the sale.
Making matters worse, the Biden administration is also taking actions that reduce the net crude oil refining capacity of America. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on June 3 issued new biofuel blending mandates for this year and the previous two years. The proposal was originally made in December, but now the standard has been formally issued. The EPA in December proposed to set volumes for 2022 at 20.77 billion gallons, for 2021 at 18.52 billion and for 2020 at 17.13 billion.
This would be less consequential if small refineries were exempted from such high volumes, but the EPA has denied all 69 petitions for exemption. In a statement to Reuters, EPA spokesperson Tim Carroll said the following. "Together, these actions reflect the Biden administration's commitment to reset and strengthen the RFS (U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard), bolster our nation's energy security and support homegrown biofuel alternatives to oil for transportation fuel."
Yet most refineries do not blend fuel. Smaller refineries could be purely focused on processing crude oil, but the government will require them to shift their focus to ethanol biofuel blends. Generally, refineries are forced to buy RIN (Renewable Identification Number) credits to participate in production at all.
Unfortunately, just as energy prices are skyrocketing amid a production lag, RIN credits are surging in price in 2022. The average cost increase has been 10 percent, but the credits for diesel have shot up 33 percent. This is a major financial disincentive that will almost certainly result in a net loss of raw refinery power in America as refineries simply cannot turn a profit paying for these credits to and to have their fuel blended. The ones that can afford the credits and blending pass the costs on to the end consumer at the pump. Refineries need to be able to refine without being penalized.
United Steelworkers union spokesperson Mike Smith, which represents refining industry workers, said "it's clear that the biofuel thresholds are now unattainably high.”
Lastly, Congressional Democrats are proposing raising taxes on Made-in-America oil and gas by $145 billion. This will be through a combination of eliminating current credits and deductions, increasing existing tax rates, and restoring previous taxes that do not currently exist. There is no conceivable way that this will “make things more affordable for families”.
Even if the abovementioned tax increase does not come to fruition, Biden’s Department of Interior unfortunate decision to intentionally delay the routine renewal of a 40-year gas and oil lease program, and arbitrarily penalizing oil refineries for doing their jobs, neither boosts “the productive capacity of our economy over time” nor makes “things more affordable for families”. Instead, Biden appears to be taking impractical, counter steps that result in higher fuel prices for families.
David Potter is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2022/06/biden-is-right-we-need-to-boost-the-productive-capacity-of-oil-and-gas-in-the-u-s-so-why-isnt-he-doing-it/
Gregg Jarrett: Biden's proposed assault weapons ban has a serious constitutional problem
By Gregg Jarrett
President Joe Biden is demanding that Congress act immediately to ban assault weapons in America such as the AR-15 that was used in several recent mass shootings. As we grieve the horrific loss of life, it is understandable that emotions are running high. And while emotions often lead to action, those actions are not always lawful. This is Biden’s real dilemma.
Our current president has a proclivity to assign blame for everything that goes wrong. For years, his favorite boogeyman for gun violence has been the National Rifle Association and weapons manufacturers. During his 2020 presidential campaign he warned, "I’m going to take you on and I’m going to beat you." He all but repeated that vow during his address to the nation on Thursday evening.
As is often the case with Biden, he has sought to vilify the incorrect target. His obstacle to the gun control measures he envisions is that pesky document called the Constitution and, specifically, the Second Amendment. As a lawyer, he should know this but apparently does not. Someone should clue him in. If he does know, then he’s guilty of recklessness for the sake of demagoguery.
In the seminal case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court validated an individual’s right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. Biden is correct when he states that this cherished right is not absolute. But he is wrong when he asserts that Congress has the power to outlaw the guns he wants to ban. Neither the president nor the legislature has the authority to eliminate a constitutional right. That can only be accomplished by amending the Constitution.
In Heller, the high court cautioned that lawmakers do have the ability to impose reasonable limits including the "possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings." However, a complete ban on a category of guns would surely exceed the Constitution’s constraints. Even the liberal leaning 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last month struck down a California law involving a semi-automatic weapons ban.
Biden wants to eliminate an entire class of guns that are immensely popular. More than 15 million Americans own an AR-15 (ArmaLite Rifle). Contrary to belief (and Biden’s past incendiary remarks), it is not an automatic weapon like a machine gun that continuously chambers and fires bullets when the trigger is activated. Instead, it fires a single round each time the trigger is pulled.
The AR-15 appeals to gun owners because it is lightweight, has interchangeable parts, is easy to use, and is highly effective for both self-defense and hunting.
The president also wants to outlaw high capacity magazines. That would render the vast majority of firearms in the country inoperable since most modern guns are designed to accept only magazines that carry more than 10 rounds. Biden obviously knows this, which is the unstated intent behind his agenda that he is conveniently concealing.
Finally, almost as an afterthought Biden tossed in another demand that semi-automatic handguns be banned. For millions, they are the weapons of choice among smaller firearms. But it was such a brief mention by the president that you may have missed it. The casual nature of its reference underscored his lack of seriousness.
In his address Biden asserted, "It’s not about taking away people’s guns." Sure it is. No reasonably intelligent person believes that outlawing millions of firearms that people already own does not have the desired effect of disarming a significant portion of the population. Law-abiding citizens should not be penalized for the aberrant acts of a few.
Biden justified his sweeping ban by citing previous legislation a generation ago. In 1994, Congress passed the federal Assault Weapons Ban. It managed to survive a handful of legal challenges but never on the basis of the Second Amendment. The law expired years before the Heller decision established the current constitutional standard. According to the Department of Justice, the earlier ban had no measurable effect on gun violence.
Despite his best efforts to demonize Republicans for daring to uphold constitutional principles, Biden scarcely addressed the elephant in the room, the Second Amendment, in the wake of the Heller opinion. He likely knows that his demands to eliminate specified guns are unconstitutional. At one point he stated, "If we can’t ban assault weapons…" and then he proceeded to offer other common sense measures.
Those ideas are absolutely worth exploring because they may well pass constitutional scrutiny. Some of them appeal to Republicans who have expressed a willing to craft bipartisan solutions. They include raising the age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, enacting national red flag laws, greater mental health efforts, stronger background checks, and increased security for schools. On their face these are rational steps that could have the potential to reduce some violence. However, it is a hard reality that not every tragic mass shooting can be prevented.
On Thursday evening, Biden described a crisis of urgency and implored Congress to act expeditiously. Then, he jetted off for his palatial pad in Rehoboth Beach for a long weekend.
Perhaps the crisis is not so imperative after all.
To view online: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-assault-weapons-ban-constitutional-problem