It’s the cackle heard ’round the supply chain.
Last Friday, in an interview with Bloomberg TV, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was asked what her plan was to lower gas prices. Her first response: a hearty laugh.
“That is hilarious. Would that I had the magic wand on this,” she said, adding, “oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC, and they made a decision yesterday that they were not going to increase beyond what they were already planning.”
LAUGHING AT AMERICANS PAYING MORE FOR GAS?
BIDEN AND THE DEMOCRATS ARE OUT-OF-TOUCH WITH HOW THEIR FAILED POLICIES HURT WORKING FAMILIES.PIC.TWITTER.COM/9LBI2NZX5I
— GOP (@GOP) NOVEMBER 5, 2021
Stop the censors, sign up to get today’s top stories delivered right to your inbox
This didn’t go over so well, particularly given inflation, the cost of a gallon of gas at the pump and the fact President Joe Biden’s administration is monomaniacally focused on going green to the detriment of America’s energy independence.
This tendency manifested itself again last week, GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said, in Biden’s attendance at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland — where the president “pledged allegiance to the flag of the United Nations” at the expense of the United States.
In an appearance on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News Sunday, Barrasso didn’t find the question as uproarious as Granholm did.
“It’s no laughing matter when people are suffering and some have to decide whether this winter they’re going to be able to eat or heat their homes, with natural gas prices at a seven-year high, gas at the pump at a seven-year high,” Barrasso said.
“Then, Joe Biden, [a] large entourage of Democrats from the House and the Senate and his cabinet — all jetting off to Europe to a climate conference.
“And for what purpose? What did he do there?” Barrasso continued. “He pledged allegiance to the flag of the United Nations instead of to the flag of the United States. He basically apologized for America. He begged OPEC and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to create more energy, to make more energy. And he promised to raise energy prices in America.”
Barrasso laid out key reasons why gas prices are going to remain high for the foreseeable future in the United States: Biden stopped the Keystone XL pipeline on day one of his administration, he blocked new oil and gas leases on federal land and canceled leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Barrasso said that the United States is at “the point today we’re using more oil from Russia than we are from Alaska.
“And these guys are climate hypocrites,” Barrasso added. “I mean, their carbon footprint for going to this conference was so much larger than Vladimir Putin’s or President Xi’s of China — because they stayed home.”
That was, indeed, one of the headlines from the COP26 conference in Glasgow. During a speech last Tuesday, President Biden said Earth’s climate was “a gigantic issue,” according to the BBC, and that China had “walked away … same thing with Russia and Putin.”
Moreover, China’s Xi had made no written pledges on carbon emissions in a written statement he sent along with his delegation to COP26, according to the U.K. Guardian. The nation is by far the world’s worst polluter, emitting over double the amount the United States does each year.
As for Russia, along with OPEC, the Biden administration has been trying to get Moscow to increase its oil output to stop the price of energy from going higher. According to The Wall Street Journal, however, both were sticking with a gradual increase in production as of last week.
Meanwhile, while he wasn’t lambasting China and Russia (while simultaneously trying to woo the latter), Biden was apologizing on behalf of the United States for withdrawing from the Paris accords.
“I guess I shouldn’t apologize, but I do apologize for the fact the United States, in the last administration, pulled out of the Paris Accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball,” Biden told world leaders at the meeting Monday, according to The New York Times. Former President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the climate change agreement in 2017.
The Financial Times also reported that much hinged on whether the Biden administration and Democrats could pass the president’s $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” spending package, which they had hoped to tout at the summit. It runs through Friday, so hope remains — but whatever comes out of COP26, though, rest assured the Biden administration will follow it through to the letter.
It’ll cost Americans more — even as we’re already being hit with inflation. It’s part of a supranational agreement that’s loosely followed and where the world’s biggest polluter is making no promises. And it’s happening as our president apologizes to the world because the former president withdrew from an equally ineffectual climate change accord.
Joe Biden “pledged allegiance to the flag of the United Nations instead of the flag of the United States,” and this was the deal he got? And Secretary Granholm laughs at the idea of lower gas prices. Meanwhile, China, Russia and OPEC laugh at us.
