gas prices

Pump Pain: Don’t Blame Big Oil, Blame Big Government

Blaming the oil companies for these outlandish gasoline and diesel prices is absurd.

If you want to point a finger, look to the U.S. Government, currently headed by a gaggle of leftist rebels who loath Big Oil, affordable fuel, and the American Dream.

The most recent example of this came from the lips of President Biden, who sneered at thoughtful comments made by the CEO of Chevron.

In a letter to the President, Michael Wirth, the Chevron’s chairman of the Board and CEO, noted that “your Administration has largely sought to criticize, and at times vilify, our industry. These actions are not beneficial to meeting the challenges we face and are not what the American people deserve.”

Asked for his reaction, Biden sneered at reporters: “He’s mildly sensitive. I didn’t know they’d get their feelings hurt that quickly.”

Then Biden seemed to fuse two separate issues: refining capacity and oil production.

“Look, we need more refining capacity. This idea that they don’t have oil to drill and to bring up is simply not true. This piece of the Republicans talking about, ‘Biden shut down fields’ — wrong.  There are 9,000 of them, okay? So they — we ought to be able to work something out whereby they’re able to increase refining capacity and still not give up on transitioning to renewable energy.  They’re both within the realm of possibility,” Biden said.

Biden’s stock response regarding the “9,000 leases” is totally misleading because it suggests that oil companies can just put a drill in the ground and suck up the oil waiting below.

First, not all leases are productive, some prove to be bone dry, others have oil but it is out of the reach of current technology. Second, establishing a working oil well takes considerable time and bureaucratic effort.  Third, starting from its opening days the Biden administration has virtually shut the door on the  production of natural gas and oil.  On Day One, the President signed an executive order to impose a temporary moratorium on oil and gas leasing activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR); withdrew offshore areas in Arctic waters and the Bering Sea from oil and gas drilling; and revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

Days later, the administration acted to indefinitely pause all new oil and gas lease sales on federal lands and offshore waters, immediately restricting the industry’s opportunities to explore and invest in new areas.

Then there is the refinery issue. In a letter this month to oil refiners Biden ripped the industry for “price gouging.” Such a bogus claim works well given that most people have no clue what a refinery is or does.

There are 129 oil refineries in the U.S. and only about 700 refineries in the entire world. Many foreign oil companies build their refineries here (the largest U.S. refinery, in Port Arthur, Texas, is owned by Saudi Aramco). U.S. based refineries are the most efficient in the world and able to process more types of oil than most other refineries.

When Donald Trump was touting America as a net energy exporter, he was telling the truth. Trump reduced regulation, opened opportunities,  and the industry flourished with loads of solid jobs and lower prices at the pump. The U.S. has built this incredible energy infrastructure mostly through private investment. Unlike other countries where the energy sector is generally state-owned, the U.S. has a competitive oil-and-gas industry that prizes efficiency and production. Obviously profit is required to keep this industry sound. If the government owned these operations is would be a financial and production disaster.

Additionally, because of government red-tape, spurred in large measure by draconian environmental policies, a new refinery has not been constructed in the U.S. since the Marathon’s facility in Garyville, Louisiana came online in 1977 (the last refinery built with significant downstream unit capacity). Even if the green light was given to build a new plant today, an oil refiner would need to ensure a decades long capital commitment before it could offer a return to it’s shareholders, all while environmentalist policies would be pushing for the “end to Big Oil.”

 

Biden: Willing to Start World War III, Russia-China: “We dare you.”

The mainstream media is purposefully sidestepping what could well be the biggest story in a generation. President Joe Biden has said that he, as Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, has a “sacred obligation” to “defend every square inch” of NATO territory even if it means starting World War III.

It must be made clear that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a thirty-nation treaty group. NATO has repeatedly stated that Ukraine has not met the requirements for membership. The majority of countries surrounding Ukraine are NATO members.

Biden told the group, “We’re going to stand together with our allies in Europe and send an unmistakable message that we will that we will defend every inch of NATO territory. If they [Russia] moves once–granted if we respond–it is World War III, but we have a sacred obligation on NATO territory.”

Biden’s remarks were made Friday in Philadelphia at a meeting of the Democratic Party Caucus.  He also cautioned that providing direct military aid to Ukraine could spark a World War.

Biden’s threat of war squares with statements made on Monday by the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Kristina Kvien.

“We’re trying everything we can to make sure it doesn’t lead to World War III,” Kristina Kvien told NPR. “But ultimately … that depends on the actions of President Putin,” she said. “We have sent extra troops to Poland and other NATO allies that border Ukraine to make sure that they have the security they need. … If Russia takes one step, one inch into NATO territory, NATO will be prepared to respond.”

Background: NATO is a 30-country alliance that has been supplying assistance to Ukraine in the form of money, weapons and sanctions against Russia, however, it has not deployed troops to Ukraine because Ukraine is not a member of the alliance. Instead, NATO forces are at the ready to defend nation members should Russia escalate its aggression and attack alliance countries.

NATO was initially formed after WWII to deter the expansion of the Soviet Union and curb any strong nationalist military movements in Europe, as the world saw during the Second World War with the Nazi Party.

Nevertheless, the U.S. continues to send record amounts of military aid to NATO countries surrounding Ukraine, as well as Ukraine itself. Earlier in the week Biden confirmed that 12,000 U.S. troops were on Russia’s border with Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Lithuania. Biden has also authorized an additional $200 million in military equipment for Ukraine, this following a record $350 million on February 26.

What we are witnessing is proxy war against Russia. To think Russian leader Vladimir Putin is not a bit more than agitated by this audacious taunt by Biden is nonsense.

Should anyone be surprised if Putin were to respond to these threats in kind?  If Putin gets to the point where he feels Russia has nothing left to lose, then he is more likely to order destructive attacks against the United States. These could initially include cyber attacks that would take down critical infrastructure.

Enter the new Russia-China agreement to defend one another:

There’s another critical element the media is avoiding. It should have been breaking news. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was preceded by a long meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on February 4, the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations and the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. Following the meeting, the two men released a 5,400-word document announcing a close partnership between their two countries. They declared China and Russia hold a “no limits” partnership, backing each other over standoffs on Ukraine and Taiwan with a promise to collaborate more against the West.

Without naming the U.S., they criticized attempts by “certain states” to establish global dominion, incite confrontation, and impose their own standards of democracy.

Regarding this Russian-Chinese partnership, the never-to-be-trusted globalist George Soros says this: “We can only hope that Putin and Xi will be removed from power before they can destroy our civilization.”

Removed from power? How? By free and fair elections–ha! Removed by coups? Gimme a break. A War? To do that you’d need the American public willing to back Joe Biden.
However, George Soros seems to be pushing for a war! As a champion of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, Soros surely knows a massive war could bring about a one-world order and a top down socialist economy leaving the rich at very tippy top and the rest of us either dead or simply drones with meager cradle-to-grave benefits including free Netflix, Starbucks, and Uber rides.

So now examine the propaganda coming from the left and their media partners. Let’s start with gas prices. California Congressman Mike Thompson says, “The prices you’re seeing at the pump are the result of two things: rapid shifts in supply and demand caused by COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Likewise, Vice President Kamala Harris blamed Russia on these miserable gas prices, which impact the entire global economy. She contends such pain at the pump is the “price to pay for democracy.”

Is this really about democracy?  No, this is a propaganda ploy. The drumbeat to gin up favor to stop Putin at all costs is rising.

The headlines lecture us of pain at the pump. Inflation. Supply chain breakdowns. Humanitarian desolation in Ukraine. Russia making threats against us. Putin is a madman who needs to be removed from office, even assassinated if necessary, they say.

Listen, I’m no fan of Vlad, but sending our boys to Eastern Europe to fight another war? I believe this is the bloody desire of what the Bible (Ephesians 6:12) refers to as the rulers, the powers, and the world forces of this darkness.

All the while, nothing is being said about Russia’s big boy partner, China.

If this war, or “conflict” as the politicians always prefer to say, becomes a wider conflict in Europe the effects would spread across the globe, stressing the geopolitical, economic, and institutional foundations of the international order the United States has fashioned and underwritten since the end of the Second World War. It would test the resilience of the U.S. global system of alliances, the international financial system, global energy markets, arms control regimes, and global institutions in the face of ever more violent great power competition.

By the way, I have friends in Nigeria who are paying the equivalent of over $10 per gallon and are waiting five hour in line to pump it into their measly little Toyota. A lot like my friends in Nigeria are currently witnessing, no region of the world would be spared, although developments on the Eurasian supercontinent, the other locus of world power and economic might outside North America, would bear the gravest consequences for U.S. interests.

And who would be smiling? The likes of Klaus Schwab at the World Economic Forum, and Soros, and Gates, and the cabal patiently pushing for their Great Global Reset, which includes the Democratic Party and the mainstream media.

A mega-reset in which the population is culled and they become the masters, with the remaining few the peons.

Fortunately, I’ve read the last book of the Bible, Revelation. No matter how hellacious things may become, for those who have bowed their lives to Jesus, it all works out just fine.