Instead of taking steps to boost U.S. oil and gas production amid skyrocketing prices and the war in Ukraine, President Biden is standing by his green-energy goals and blaming fossil-fuel companies for the consequences. This will make today’s energy problems even worse.
Though he campaigned on a promise to ban drilling on federal lands and waters, Mr. Biden’s administration now says oil companies aren’t drilling enough. Instead of “doing their part,” the president claims, too many U.S. fossil-fuel companies are “choosing to make extraordinary profits and without making additional investment with supply.”
Attributing high oil and gas prices to these companies’ greed and market power, the White House proposed new investigations into oil companies’ “anti-consumer behavior” last fall. At the end of March, the president also asked that Congress place extra fees on already-agreed federal oil and gas leases that the administration says aren’t being used. There’s nothing in these leases that obliges companies to drill and even those that want to and can afford to are often stuck waiting for further approval from the administration and courts.