The bottom line
To the editor:
When Biden took office in 2021, he shut down the Keystone pipeline and stopped new oil and gas exploration on federal lands. This policy directly resulted in the higher prices we are paying for fuel today. We all should know that when supply is reduced and demand is constant or rises, prices go up.
Gasoline prices across the U.S. as of 1/3/22, according to AAA, were $328.8/gal. The price in January of 2021 was $2.15/gal (AAA)
According to www.eia.gov Homepage – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Data Highlights WTI crude oil futures price. 1/3/2022: $76.08/barrel up $0.51 from week earlier up $28.46 from year earlier. Natural gas futures price. 1/3/2022: $3.815/MMBtu down $0.245 from week earlier up $1.234 from year earlier. Retail gasoline price. 1/3/2022: $3.281/gal up $0.006 from week earlier up $1.032 from year earlier. Retail diesel price
www.eia.gov, the U.S. consumed $123 billion gallons of gas in 2020.
A quick calculation tells us that consumers are paying about $1.13/gal more today than they were at the beginning of 2022. Another quick calculation tells us that we’ll spend about $138 billion more in fuel than we spent in 2020. That is $138 billon dollars that will not buy groceries, pay the rent, or pay your property taxes.
This is a tangible and real number resulting directly from one of Biden’s policies taking place immediately after assuming the office of president.
When he did this, he surely knew or was told what the results would be. He either did not care or did not believe, as several contributors to this publication refuse to accept, that a simple stroke of the pen could cause so much financial pain for all of us.
Well, his shutdown of Keystone made the front pages of all the newspapers as expected, and prices increased, as we all knew they would. The only one surprised was the president. Incredible!
Did you know that on Nov. 17, 2021, Biden reversed his position on new leases and opened 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to the oil and gas industry for new leases? It was not widely publicized as this move clearly was in response to the “transitory” inflation that isn’t transitory and never was. He made a huge mistake that cost every American that buys fuel a lot of money that they can never recover. This is but one example of a Biden policy resulting in direct harm to the citizens he is clearly unable to properly represent.
The new leases he is “allowing” will be too little too late but this pattern of behavior, bowing to the socialists of the Democratic Party, will continue, and so will the reversals when he finally realizes how many polling points his ill-conceived decisions cost him.
The bottom line is that we do not have a leader in the White House but merely a mouthpiece for a political party run amuck.
Max Christian,
St. James City