Would you pay $8/gallon for gasoline if it were the price of saving democracy?
Joe Biden has a job to do. Tell us what we need to do, and why.
Wearing blue and yellow isn't enough.
We are in an emergency. A nuclear power is invading a democratic country for the naked purpose of changing national borders.
There is hypocrisy and sleight of hand in the West's policy toward fossil fuels. We stopped pipeline approval and limited drilling leases on federal land in North America. That pleases the environmental community. The net result worldwide, though, is that countries trying to be "green" moved fossil fuel extraction offshore. Out of sight, out of guilty conscience. There was a geopolitical corollary: Western democracies became more dependent on Russian oil and natural gas.
The most visible source of American voter unhappiness with inflation comes from the price of gasoline at the pump. There are 42 gallons of oil in a barrel, of which 19 or 20 become gasoline. Crude oil prices and gasoline prices generally move together.
Oil prices are up amid this crisis in Ukraine. Benchmark prices are at $118/barrel as I type this. They briefly hit $130 in an overnight futures price. The benchmark for U.S. oil has doubled. People are complaining about high gasoline prices.
President Joe Biden has an opportunity to appeal to Americans' patriotism. Tell us the tough news, Joe.
Biden needs to tell the American people that there is a price to pay for democracy and peace, and we are going to pay it. Say we are going to try to protect Ukraine without engaging Russia in a war of mutual destruction. We are going to export as much U.S. oil as we can manage, so Europe has a substitute source. The price of gasoline will go up in the USA. It will be painful and the pain is worth it.
He can say he will try to mitigate the pain. Relax some fracking rules temporarily to increase American production, and admit that it comes at a cost to the environment and our long term climate goals. Say it is temporary but necessary. Expect criticism. Announce some restrictions on federal travel and use of fuel, especially Air Force One. Say we need to save fuel for practice missions to keep military pilots at top training.
Biden can put this it into a context of peace. It is war--without missiles. Acknowledge there is suffering and sacrifice for Americans who must drive. Don't underplay it. Embrace it and say it is worth it. Tough messages of national purpose are what we expect from a president of integrity.
If Biden fails to do this, he can be certain another narrative will take hold. Republicans will say that the $$6 or $8 a gallon gasoline prices are Biden's failure. A Republican only needs to say that something should have been done better and by someone else.
Americans are ready to sacrifice if we know that it is necessary, for a good cause, and that it won't last forever.
Let's go, Joe.
17 comments:
Republicans have criticized Biden for not imposing more drastic sanctions on Russia sooner. The problem is that it’s pollical posturing and when the sanctions inevitably raise gas prices, they’ll be criticizing Biden for that. If they really cared about a democracy under attack, they'd show more concern for our own.
Biden screwed up massively on energy right at the beginning if his administration when he canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline and made moves against fracking/drilling. We were on the road to energy independence before Biden came in and changed course.
Peter‘s suggestion might work for Biden if he simultaneously restarted the Keystone XL pipeline and reversed policy on fracking and drilling. Otherwise, Biden’s going to be quite justifiably vulnerable to charges that he contributed to higher gas prices in ways that had nothing to do with the war in Ukraine.
Regardless of the fact that rethuglicans will find maximum fault with most anything Biden does-even things originally proposed by repubs themselves, Biden should be continuing whatever he can, in the way of solutions to the disaster in Ukraine.
Getting to the meat of the matter, and this is only brainstorming, not criticism, I’m worried about what happens if we acquiesce to Putin’s threat that closing Ukraine’s air space “amounts to war”
Excuse me, but we ARE at war. And if Putin is not stopped before he “wins” the war (as though there’s ever really a winner), isn’t it almost certain that his future plans are to use the same, or similar, threats when he begins his attempt to bring ALL former members of the USSR (and others) back into his loving embrace?
What? You would dare declare Polish air space closed to us”? Warning: that would be the beginning of WWIII!
So, would it not make sense to stop Putin NOW, before he destroys Ukraine, and kills its citizens, thus preventing repeat after repeat after repeat?
I hate war, and used to be a radical pacifist when I was younger. But this whole situation sounds way to similar to the appeasement of Hitler, leading up to WW II.
There may be no good way to settle this, I don’t know. I will say that the solution to higher gas prices is simple for most of us. Drive less. Vacation closer to home, or do a staycation. Consolidate trips to town. Put some oil on your bike chain. Work from home, if possible.
Hell, we survived higher (much higher if you count inflation) gas prices than $4/gallon a while back, and the world didn’t come to an end.
Tell me again how letting a Canadian Corporation with an amazing record of pipeline failures build a pipeline across the Oglalla Aquifer in order to transport the filthiest poisonous oil on the Planet to Houston to be refined for transshipment to Asian Markets makes this Country energy independent. Your already thin credibility is strained to the breaking point every time you make this ridiculous claim about the XL Death Funnel.
edc,
Pipelines can be built and run competently. Gas refined in Houston does not necessarily have to be shipped out of the country.
The voters are going to hold Biden responsible for his contribution to gasoline price inflation.
What’s your suggestion for how Biden can avoid political damage resulting from the increase in gas prices? You’re going to need something better than extreme rhetoric that only the far left (approximately 8% of the US population, according to surveys) responds to.
The Ukraine is basically Russian-they are having a civil war and we should
stay the hell out of it!
More importantly why has no one proposed a solution to the problem caused by the insane escalation in price for a lousy barrel of crude oil?
Why has no one mentioned something as sensible and effective as
gasoline rationing, which worked so well during World War II? Why do we insist on paying out obscene amounts of money to further damage the planet with our senseless meandering about the country in gas guzzling RV's? Stupidity is running rampant because the average American is selfish, ignorant and uninformed. To quote a realist I say "Bah, humbug" to this nonsense.
Bob Warren
Pipelines leak, it's what they do, and how is Canadian Oil, moved through a Canadian Pipeline going to be processed into gasoline for U.S. consumption in 4 or 5 years, if Nebraska ever consents to letting that death funnel cross their lands, going to reduce prices at the pumps between now and November. And if Big Oil wants to increase production, there are currently approximately 9,000 leases, going unexploited. Your parroting conservative talking points, which have very little basis in reality. And if President Biden did everything you are proposing, the price of fuel at the pumps wouldnt drop One red cent, while Oil Companies are vacuuming up profits to make up for the drop in sales because people weren't using as much during the worst of the Pandemic.
Sure, let’s keep fracking and pumping tar sands oil so my lumbering behemoth of an RV can keep towing my SUV around the country. Who cares about the ever-increasing heat, fires, smoke, melting ice caps and rising sea levels, or about future generations? What about my freedoms?
If the republicans hadn't stood in the way of progress for decades the US wouldn't be so dependent on fossil fuels and the dictators who profit from them (whether in Russia, Saudi Arabia or Texas).
The US needs a 21st century energy policy.
Raise taxes on fossil fuels to curb consumption, just like we've done with cigarettes.
The problem with increasing gas prices now is that us consumers are showing the oil companies that we're OK with paying that much.
Prices won't come down. Blame corporate greed.
Don't you wish you bought an electric car years ago?
Mc, I don't lose any sleep over not buying an Electric car years ago. For one thing they were very expensive forwhat you got, highly experimental and their range was very limited. If I could afford it, the new Ford E150 would meet all my needs, but I'm a disabled Vet who lives on Social Security and a VA Disability pension. A vehicle with a near 6 figure pricetag is nowhere in my future, as much as I might wish it so.
Democrats are either indulging the wildest mental gymnastics or mired in the deepest denial when it comes to domestic energy costs and the consequences of the bass-ackwards, ersatz-Green policies of the Biden administration. Voters will punish them roundly in November for this alternating delusion and denial.
Start with Mr. Sage’s first chart. Does anyone else attach any significance—politically, policy-wise, party-in-power-wise—to the period between 2016 and 2020, signifying the lowest energy prices of recent years? The “I Did That!” Biden gas-pump stickers became common long before Putin invaded Ukraine.
Speaking of Putin, Trump refused to greenlight the Nord Stream II, and warned Europe of the umbilical cord it ensured to Russian energy. Biden greenlighted Nord Stream II and is now playing catch-up in response to the re-empowered, newly-enriched Putin, even as Biden seeks Iranian (!) oil, while STILL buying Putin’s.
I like the Power Line blog, maintained by National conservative public interest attorneys and professors. Today they feature the following summaries: “Biden is frantically searching the globe to see if anyone besides Texas might have sone spare oil”. Biden began by vigorously suppressing our own fossil-fuel industries.
Next the Power Line folks quote the Babylon Bee, a right-wing satire adjunct to The Onion. “Biden Sells Alaska Back To Russia So We Can Start Drilling For Oil There Again”. Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg urge electric car purchases as the transition from $8 a gallon a the pump. Best wishes at the polls. Democrats.
Here we have another conversation demonstrating that we inhabit alternate realities. So-called conservatives maintain the delusions and denial that ensure climate change becomes an ever-worsening disaster: Drill, baby, drill. Perhaps they figure Jesus is coming so it doesn't matter. Progressives would like to leave an inhabitable planet for their offspring.
Seriously, LD?
You're bringing up Trump as having foresight to the Russia issue?
Hahaha
I hear you on the prices of EV. But let's not forget the price tag also includes the corporate greed element.
There are many many ways to stop funding terrorism- and planet-ruining fossil fuel consumption - support candidates who encourage alternative energy, use less oil (including gas and plastic).
Those are all very real things one can do.
We are being held hostage by oil producers, foreign and domestic.
Yep, and they claim to be pro life.
Mc--
Compared to the abject disaster that is Biden, on Putin and energy policy? Absolutely. That tells those not in wishful or uninformed denial about Biden just how low that floor really is.
Post a Comment