Winter is coming – and record inflation is rising, on consumer goods including the price of gasoline.
American consumers are suffering as the 8.2 percent ANNUAL INFLATION RATE eats away at paychecks with higher energy prices at the pump, and temperatures plummet.
Yet, despite this harsh reality, President JOE BIDEN continues the administration’s assault on the American energy sector, started on his FIRST DAY IN OFFICE with the cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and continuing through the 2022 midterms by advocating a “windfall tax” on oil and gas companies. Instead of unleashing the bountiful supply of oil and natural gas reserves in the United States, more taxes and regulations are being proposed.
In a WHITE HOUSE SPEECH on Oct. 31, Biden kept up the pressure on oil and natural gas producers, like ExxonMobil and Chevron, stating that “they’re going to pay a higher tax on their excess profits and face other restrictions.” He boldly stated that “their profits are a windfall of war.” Except, gas stations are not racking in strong profits in 2022, according to a study in Barron’s.
Top Democratic Economist LARRY SUMMERS HAS SPOKEN OUT against a windfall profits tax stating, “If you reduce profitability, you will discourage investment which is the opposite of our objective.” And we agree. This potential move will undoubtedly drive up annual inflation and consumer prices.
In a NEW TIPP SURVEY for October of 2022, most Americans expressed serious dissatisfaction with the current administration’s energy policies. Of the 1,376 adults, 76 percent agreed “strongly” or “somewhat” that the U.S. should pursue energy independence even with fossil fuels.
Further, most Americans rated Biden’s energy policy with below-average scores, with more than half giving him a “C,” “D,” or “F.” (The TIPP survey was conducted via an online survey from Oct. 5 through Oct. 7, 2022. The results have a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percent.)
Despite Biden’s PRIOR ASSERTION that the U.S. today is the “largest producer of oil and petroleum products in the world,” 69 percent of surveyed Americans believe the U.S. is not producing enough domestically.
And, that is the truth, as the current refinery capacity cannot keep up with demand. Moreover, pulling from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for NOW THE FOURTH TIME SINCE NOVEMBER 23, 2021, will not boost capacity but artificially manipulate the markets for a short-term fix.
Instead of more government, less government is a solution, especially with the arduous process of permitting in the energy sector, which can take 10 to 15 years. Decades of overbearing regulations, which Biden has exacerbated, have slashed U.S. refining capacity to its lowest benchmark in eight years of 17.9 MILLION BARRELS PER CALENDAR DAY (B/CD) as of Jan. 1, 2022, with five of these refineries being shut down in the past two years.
Reimaging the permitting process to eliminate regulatory barriers and not submit to extreme environmentalists will help boost energy capacity, production, and development. According to a STUDY IN THE PROJECT NO PROJECT INITIATIVE by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 351 proposed projects, both fossil fuel and renewables, could generate approximately $3.4 trillion in GDP, which includes $1.4 billion for employment earnings and over a million jobs annually if constructed and operated for two decades.
The expedited approval for energy projects of merit, which range from solar, wind, wave, bio-fuel, coal, gas, nuclear, to energy transmission projects, would not only create sustainable economic development and job creation, but would unleash American energy in a bipartisan, above-all approach which 70 percent of Americans support according to a TIPP SURVEY LAST YEAR.
The OCTOBER OF 2022 TIPP SURVEY strongly corroborates with prioritizing a diverse energy portfolio. Seventy-four percent of Americans believe in the coming decade the U.S. will depend “a lot” and “quite a bit” on natural gas. Of those surveyed, 72 percent said the same for oil, 62 percent for solar power, 53 percent for both wind and nuclear power. And, finally, 48 percent believed the U.S. would need to depend on coal.
With more than half of surveyed Americans believing in the dependence on nuclear energy, the Biden administration should invest in this sector, which is also green. Our allies in Europe like POLAND, FRANCE, and GERMANY have ramped up nuclear power ahead of freezing temperatures, as they seek to fully withdraw from Russian gas. While on our side of the pond, CANADA committed $970 million to develop its first grid-scale small modular reactor (SMR).
Other countries like the U.K. (before Prime Minister Rishi Sunak) have lifted fracking bans. GERMANY has also floated hydraulic fracking, which is still a divided idea in government.
The U.S. should follow suit to discuss and explore all necessary options for energy production of both fossil fuels and renewable, especially now as the U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION recorded in their Oct. 21 weekly report that the U.S. has only 25.9 days of supply left for diesel, its lowest since 2008. Although this number should be taken into context if the U.S. stops production and imports, there is still a fossil fuel problem.
This fossil fuel drought will subsequently hit farmers, the backbone of American society. Production costs will only go up and the same with transportation costs for trucks and trains. Thanksgiving will be costly for American consumers.
The U.S. has an opportunity to listen to American voters by investing in domestic energy to make the nation self-sufficient, rather than relying on our own emergency reserve and the Saudis that control OPEC+. Accelerating permitting of worthy energy projects and implementing an all-of-the-above energy approach is critical to reverse pain at the pump, at the heater, and overall, in our wallets.
Steve Pociask is the president and CEO of The American Consumer Institute, a non-partisan, public policy think tank.
Editor’s note: The article first appeared on THE HILL website on Thursday, November 3, 2022. Reprinted with the author’s permission.
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In what will be seen by many as a nightmare “out of the fire, into the frying pan” scenario, it appears that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is positioning himself to make a dash for Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) job should the 82-year-old step down as the House Democratic leader after the midterm elections.
With less than a week to go before the fate of the nation is decided, most poll analysts predict that Democrats will lose their majority in the House of Representatives.
My FINAL projection of the 2022 midterms one week from today for the U.S. Senate.
NOT PICTURED: I project the House to finish 255 Republican, 182 Democrat (R +42) pic.twitter.com/r36FgVPCYF
While Speaker Pelosi has yet to confirm publicly whether or not she will continue in the role as House Dem leader that she has held for two full decades, Fox News Digital is reporting that “an increasingly progressive caucus appears hungry for new blood at the top.”
R Street Institute senior fellow for governance James Wallner spoke to the outlet and noted the age of the party’s current leaders.
“The top three Democratic leaders are all quite old,” he said. “I think there’s a real demand inside the Democratic Party and the Democratic Caucus there in the House… for a new generation of leadership.”
Schiff isn’t the only one eyeing a potential top vacancy. In fact, according to Fox News, he isn’t even the one receiving the most support for the gig. That distinction, thus far, belongs to Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Having said that, Schiff, 62, has joined Jeffries, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) on the emerging list of contenders should Pelosi finally step aside.
If she does so, it will trigger the first open election for the top spot in twenty years.
According to Wallner, Schiff, who currently serves as the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, appeals to both Democratic moderates and progressives.
“I think having experience certainly helps with [moderates],” he said. “But the nature of that experience being an impeachment manager probably helps with the [progressives].”
In recent years, Schiff has been relentless in his rabid pursuit of former President Donald Trump, a mission that would see him abandon all scruples and repeatedly push debunked, “fake news” theories to whoever would listen.
Most recently, the loathsome lawmaker has been front and center as an outspoken member of the sham Jan. 6 Committee.
But Schiff does face some stiff competition should Pelosi step aside.
As a 52-year-old black man with four years of experience under his belt, Jeffries would be, according to Fox, “a historic choice for Democrats.”
If age is an issue, Schiff may have a leg up on Clyburn and Hoyer, who are 82 and 83, respectively. However, Clyburn, who is also black, has been actively hitting the campaign trail for his fellow Democrats, and Hoyer has managed to rake in $14.2 million for House Dems in the midterms.
Neither Clyburn nor Hoyer have commented on their future plans, but Wallner says, “They both have their own bases of support.”
“This is something Hoyer has wanted for a very long time,” he said. “It’s just, has the moment passed them by?”
Also on the short list of potential challengers is Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark (D-N.Y.), House Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), and House Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
According to Wallner, with the current state of the party, a progressive run wouldn’t surprise him.
“I think your fire-breathing progressive, I’m not sure who that is, but it wouldn’t surprise me to have a candidate come out and make a run,” he said. “That impacts the race’s dynamic in and of itself.”
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While President Joe Biden and the insidious powers that direct him think it’s a boon for the Democrat power structure, people with functioning minds know that unfettered illegal immigration places criminals first and American citizens last, leading Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to declare that illegal border crossing is the “Greatest crime ever committed against the United States.”
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin joined “Tucker Carson Tonight” on Thursday and has been reporting live from Eagle Pass, Texas, where the deluge of illegal aliens flooding the country can be seen firsthand.
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“We had an absolutely enormous group cross illegally this morning,” Melugin said, alongside drone footage of “several hundred migrants crossing illegally into Normandy, Texas.”
“You see them just walking in this single file line, willing to give themselves up and surrender to Border Patrol,” he continued. “They’re doing that because they know once they step foot in the United States, under the Biden administration’s policies, they’re likely just going to be released into the United States rather than removed from the country.”
“One of the reasons it looks like the people that currently run the government are about to be repudiated in a historic way next Tuesday is that they have completely opened the southern border,” Carlson opined. “The situation at the border’s not getting better. You’d think it would since there’s an election coming up. It’s getting worse.”
Melugin agreed and reiterated that the illegals have come from Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Uruguay, to say nothing of the thousands upon thousands of them who aren’t wrangled up and spoken to. In other words, they are now here in the U.S., never to be heard from again until they appear on a police blotter as a previously-undiscovered “got-away.”
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“A CBP source tells us just since Oct. 1, just in this Del Rio Sector, there have already been more than 46,000 illegal crossings,” he said. “And that does not count the thousands of known got-always.”
“Greatest crime ever committed against the United States – by far,” Carlson concluded. “Nothing ever has come close to what we’re seeing now. And no one has reported on it more assiduously than you have,” he told Melugin.
The host also played a teaser of a new documentary on the matter of the southern border, focusing on the predations of drug smugglers and their wares killing untold sums of Americans. Naturally, none of this came up in Biden’s last-ditch demonization of all who oppose him during his Wednesday night rant in which he tried unsuccessfully to distract real Americans from Game 4 of the World Series between the Astros and Phillies.
“Resources are already stretched thin. Customs and Border Protection and the Texas Department of Public Safety have scattered cameras through the desert to identify illegal crossers, but the technology isn’t enough. The only way to stop deadly drugs from entering this country is by hunting smugglers in person. On the ground. In the field,” Carlson’s voiceover stated.
“Abandoned drug bundles litter the desert floor. They’ve been ditched by smugglers who hear approaching law enforcement helicopters overhead. After hiding the drugs, the smugglers blend in with immigrant groups to get away scot-free.”
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