Energy

VIDEO: What’s REALLY Driving Inflation? Biden’s War on Energy

ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Director Joe Trotter explains why President Biden's no-energy policies are driving up costs for fuel, food, and just about everything else.

By Joe Trotter

One year ago the price of regular gas was three dollars and four cents. Today price hit a new all-time record high of four dollars and seventy two cents.

One year ago the price of diesel was three dollars and nineteen cents. This week the price of diesel is five dollars and fifty eight cents.

Commuters facing sticker shock at the pump may decide to drive less, but our country’s shipping and agriculture industries cannot simple pause their operations. Diesel powers the vast majority of the country’s commercial trucking fleet, railways, and heavy agriculture equipment such as tractors and combines.

The price of diesel begins impacting food costs before seeds are even planted and continues to impact prices up until the moment food is unloaded at markets across the country. Diesel is the single most important agricultural fuel.

Diesel prices are high primarily because of the cost of crude oil and refining, as well as consumer demand. Crude costs are still high due to poor resource management, international instability, and a hostile presidential administration.

America’s refining capacity is the lowest it has been in decades. As the pandemic drove down the demand for petroleum products, refineries shut down their operations, taking 4.5% of refining production offline in the United States alone. Other countries were not immune, and some countries shut down more than 10% of their refining capacity.

Consumer demand increased just as a new presidential administration and congressional leaders took the seat of government. Our federal leaders promised to upend the fuel industry and made good on that promise by blocking future crude oil development. The administration continues to do that to this day.

The refining industry listened to our leaders threats and watched the administration act on them. In a lot of cases, the industry did not re-open closed refineries.

Now our gas is more expensive. Shipping is significantly more expensive. Food is more expensive. There are supply shortages, and we may see rationing this summer.

It is time to end this insanity.

Our state leaders can take on Washington by voting for policies that prohibit top-down fuel madates. Free market solutions without government intervention could have helped prevent this burgeoning fuel crisis.


In Depth: Energy

It is difficult – and perhaps even impossible – to overstate the relationship between readily available access to safe, affordable and reliable energy and individual prosperity and economic wellbeing. This is because energy is an input to virtually everything we produce, consume and enjoy in society. Think for a minute…

+ Energy In Depth