Biden Administration's Energy Hypocrisy Exposed

The title of the Bloomberg News article, "Biden Officials Urge OPEC Members to Find Output Compromise," doesn't grab the attention that World Oil, a publication of Gulf Energy Information, assigned it:  "Drill baby drill? Biden administration wants more OPEC oil." 

The substance of the article is a disagreement with two of the world's largest oil producers, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the Biden administration's desire to see it resolved, reports Jennifer Jacobs on July 6.

Several days of tense talks among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies failed to resolve a bitter dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates...The group didn’t agree on a date for its next meeting...

Oil Demand and Production

The dispute centers on the ability of OPEC to boost oil production to meet increasing demand, reports Trevor Filseth for The National Interest on July 12.

As the COVID-19 pandemic draws to a close with increasing vaccination rates, many people around the world have resumed travel, increasing demand for gasoline. Because OPEC+ has not reached an agreement, though, oil supply has remained stable, leading to price increases. Brent crude has increased by roughly one percent over the past week, trading at roughly $75 per barrel; these prices are the highest since 2018.

Oil prices a Biden concern

"Even though the U.S. isn’t a party to the talks, it’s 'closely monitoring the OPEC+ negotiations and their impact on the global economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic,' a White House spokesperson said Monday [July 5]," added Jacobs.

Biden wants Americans to have access to affordable and reliable energy, including at the pump, the White House officials said. As the U.S. economy recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s critical that energy supplies keep pace, which requires stable oil market conditions, they said.

World Oil's annotation

World Oil, whose mission is “defining conventional, shale and offshore technology for oil and gas,” added one sentence to Jacobs' piece.

The administration’s interest in increasing foreign oil production stands in stark contrast to its opposition to domestic output, kicked off on Biden’s first day in office with a moratorium on oil and gas exploration on Federal lands.

"In an effort to slow the nation's contribution to climate change, President Biden has signed an executive order to begin halting oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters," reported NPR on Jan. 27, a week after the new president's inauguration. Apparently keeping oil prices low by boosting oil production abroad doesn't factor into the administration's climate mitigation goals.

Not the first energy/climate contradiction

Two related posts point to Biden's priority of cheap gasoline prices, even at the expense of maintaining and improving transportation infrastructure by opposing the indexing of the federal gas tax as well as hiking the gas tax, the closest measure the U.S. has to a carbon tax.

• The Big Taboo of the Senate's Bipartisan Infrastructure Proposal, June 17, 2021
• Biden Administration Rules Out Gas Tax Hike, February 1, 2021

It's also not the first time that the administration has looked abroad to increase natural resources rather than increase their production at home which would likely encounter opposition from the environmental community.

• American Jobs to Build Electric Vehicles Excludes Miners, Jun 2, 2021

Correspondent's note: The source article is the Bloomberg News article via BloombergQuint – an India-based Bloomberg outlet that doesn't have a paywall.