White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and President Joe Biden have tried to put the furious push to increase domestic oil production from the government onto the private sector.
But at Thursday’s press conference, Psaki admitted that there is no current plan for oil executives to meet with Biden.
“President Biden has hosted electric vehicle stakeholders here at the White House. Would he host oil and gas producers — the people who are the most affected by the Putin price hike?” a reporter asked, according to a White House transcript.
“Well, the oil and gas — I have nothing to preview or predict for you in terms of him hosting oil company executives,” she replied.
“Is he open to that?”
“I don’t have anything planned on the schedule for that front. But I will tell you that the president has been clear that he believes they have the tools they need — 9,000 unused permits,” Psaki added. “They have the capacity they need to go get more oil here in the United States, and he’d encourage them to do that.”
The fact that there is no mention of outreach to oil executives, along with the continued peddling of the narrative that there are 9,000 permits magically not in use, is deeply concerning.
I reported earlier this week that that was debunked by the American Petroleum Institute, which explained that excessive regulations and roadblocks have prevented drilling in the areas the administration is referring to.
According to World Oil, it’s true that oil executives including those from Exxon Mobil and Shell met with Biden officials such as Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to discuss crude oil prices. Since then, there’s been no indication of any policy changes on oil from the White House.
The White House is trying to deflect from the fact that they have no legitimate plan to lower gas prices other than to pontificate on green energy. To be fair, they did release 30 million barrels from the Strategic Oil Reserve too as a bandaid.
They can talk all they want about how the future lies with wind and solar, but right now the only solid solution for fast American energy independence is through oil and gas.
A meeting with executives would be the perfect opportunity for them to collaborate and hopefully deregulate in order to unleash American greatness. If the United States wants to avoid a potentially crippling attack against the energy sector, step one is to stop heavily relying on adversaries to power transportation.
Just like a parent with a disgruntled teenager, whoever holds the purse strings holds the power.
As Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said on the House floor Wednesday, “It’s not good enough to ban Russian oil if we’re not gonna open up American oil and gas. All we’re gonna do is provide more money to Venezuela, more money to Saudi, more money to Iran, but yet that’s being touted as a victory.”
WATCH: @RepChipRoy ERUPTS on the House floor at both Democrats AND Republicans.
"That is a DISGUSTING display by BOTH SIDES of this body…STOP selling the American people a bill of goods, and I'm looking directly at my party when I say that." pic.twitter.com/wuwGRm59tS
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 8, 2022
Gas prices were already on the rise before the U.S. correctly banned Russian oil, except the solutions to mitigate the rise in prices are shortsighted if not non-existent.
Vladimir Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine will probably rage on for months to come, and American consumers cannot foot that bill for long. While Granholm and lower-level staffers can talk with the private sector all day, it will be meaningless if the president himself does not hear from them and enact new policies.
