On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order that revoked the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Now, in th...
On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order that revoked the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Now, in the midst of the Ukraine-Russia war, the U.S. finds itself in the midst of an energy crisis with soaring gas prices and one barrel of oil costing $117, Market Insider reported.
The national gas price average is now $4.25, AAA reported.
Biden also announced that the U.S. would be banning Russian oil imports, CNBC News reported.
“That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine,” Biden said. “This is a step we’re taking to inflict further pain on Putin.”
But it’s also hurting Americans’ pockets as prices rise.
In light of this crisis, one former Keystone XL worker told Fox News that the energy industry had “tried to warn” the Biden administration against policies that would stop U.S. oil and gas production.
“We tried to warn this administration back when they canceled the Keystone Pipeline” that it was also “canceling national security, foreign policy and energy,” Neal Crabtree, a former Keystone worker said. “They all kinda go hand-in-hand.”
If Keystone had been completed, it would have stretched about 1,200 miles and carried oil from Canada all the way to the Gulf Coast, CBS News reported.
Since the spike of oil prices, many are scrambling to try to find ways to alleviate this energy crisis. But the Biden administration has given no indication of resuming work on Keystone.
Even the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, indicated that Canada would be open to the revival of the pipeline project.
“If the United States is serious about this, they could come back to the table and help us build Keystone XL,” Kenney said, Insider reported.
Kenney added that if the Biden administration had not shut down the pipeline in the first place, the “democratic energy” from the pipeline could have displaced the “Russian conflict oil that’s filled with the blood of Ukrainians.”
Crabtree also pointed out that, though the current Ukraine-Russia war is largely contributing to the price spikes, prices were bound to go up anyway if the U.S. kept neglecting to use domestic oil.
“Even if we can fix the Ukrainian problem, the prices are still going up,” he said.
Biden’s “policies have everything to do with the rising fuel prices in this country today.”
“It has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine,” Crabtree added.
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that it is not federal policies that are limiting oil and gas supplies.
“There are 9,000 approved drilling permits that are not being used, so the suggestion that we are not allowing companies to drill is inaccurate,” she said, Fox News reported. “I would suggest you ask the oil companies why they’re not using those if there’s a desire to drill more.”
Regarding that comment, Crabtree pointed out that oil companies are going to be hesitant to start drilling if there is no pipeline to go along with new oil leases.
“There’s no energy company [that’s] gonna spend the money to develop a new lease if they can’t build a pipeline to move the project,” Crabtree said.
As long as Biden continues with policies to buy oil everywhere and anywhere instead of investing in domestic oil and pipelines, Americans are going to keep paying top dollar for every gallon of gas.
The war between Russia and Ukraine could end tonight. Everyone could start buying from Russia again and gas and oil prices could fall.
But in the long run, without a pipeline and domestic drilling, prices will eventually rise again in the U.S.
As Crabtree pointed out, prices will rise “as long as Biden is using this ‘any way but an American way’ when it comes to fossil fuels.”
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