President Joe Biden lacks energy — and no, this isn’t another hit piece about his age.
The president has yet to produce a clear, comprehensive vision or reasonable strategy for energy development, security, or grid reliability. Biden’s lack of leadership threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of American energy workers, the financial wellbeing of anyone who pays for utilities, the stability of our electric grid, and the security of our nation in an increasingly chaotic world.
As was evident in the president’s most recent State of the Union address, Biden struggles to provide any substantive discussion of energy policy.
Sure, there were a couple of cobbled-together platitudes about “clean energy.” Biden mentioned creating tens of thousands of “clean-energy jobs” — a paltry figure compared to the national workforce dedicated to extraction and development.
In Pennsylvania alone, 93,000 residents directly work in the oil and gas industries. If you count the indirect jobs supported by these industries, the number spikes to about 424,000 jobs.
Biden’s energy strategy is, at best, a hapless smattering of subpar initiatives, excessive regulations, and virtue signaling. His plan, thus far, consists of developing hydrogen hubs (which produce neither clean energy nor jobs), shuttering power plants nationwide, funding faulty electric buses for mass transit systems, and investing heavily in “environmental justice” programming — all while tilting at the windmills of climate alarmism.
While vainly claiming credit for cutting emissions, Biden has also ignored the biggest driver for reduced atmospheric carbon: natural gas.
Gas generation between 2001 and 2022 “more than doubled” while emissions from the U.S. grid fell 38 percent, according to the International Energy Agency. Carbon Brief, an investigative website funded by the European Climate Foundation (not exactly in the pockets of “Big Oil”), called our country’s massive shift to natural gas “the largest driver” for carbon reduction.
Despite these successes, Biden threatens this carbon-reducing endeavor with shortsighted policies, such as banning liquified natural gas (LNG) exports or canceling the Keystone XL pipeline.
Even Biden allies have turned on their incumbent leader for his job-killing efforts. Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, both party-loyal Democrats from Pennsylvania, have pushed back on the LNG ban.
“If this decision puts Pennsylvania energy jobs at risk, we will push the Biden Administration to reverse this decision,” they said in a joint statement.
The Washington Post, sounding more like Fox News, described Biden’s recent energy bungles as wins for “political symbolism, not the climate.”
Biden’s energy strategy — or lack thereof — has real-world consequences.
For starters, his efforts undermine his own agenda. About 64 percent of American LNG exports went to the European Union and the United Kingdom. Removing American exports from this market hinders our allies and pushes them into the hands of autocratic countries and our geopolitical rivals like Russia, one of the U.S.’s biggest competitors in LNG exports. Considering Biden’s ambitions and investment in Ukraine, this counterintuitive move only further empowers and emboldens the Putin regime.
Moreover, American LNG burns cleaner. One study found American LNG produced 56 percent lower emissions than EU coal. Biden’s LNG ban will likely produce more emissions, not fewer. Meanwhile, American voters feel the economic pinch of Biden’s energy policies. In 2022, consumers spent 14 percent more on electricity than in 2021 — more than double the six percent increase in prices during the same period. One survey found that 62 percent of American households reported increased year-over-year electricity costs.
Ignoring how energy policies impact consumers could be a political liability for Biden. In recent polling conducted by the Commonwealth Foundation, 81 percent of Pennsylvania voters listed energy affordability among their top concerns, and 67 percent were unwilling to pay more to combat climate change. If he wishes to win his reelection bid, Biden cannot afford to lose a vital swing state like Pennsylvania, where the energy extraction industry reigns supreme.
Voters haven’t responded well to Biden’s oft-touted Inflation Reduction Act — which The New York Times called “Mr. Biden’s signature climate law.” According to one Washington Post poll, 71 percent of voters said they knew “very little” or “nothing at all” about the legislation.
If Biden hopes to remain in the White House, he’d better find some energy — and fast.
André Béliveau is the Senior Manager of Energy Policy at the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank. Follow him on Twitter @TheRealBeliveau.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.