Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

TURNER: Biden Admin Seems To Think The Diesel Crisis Will Magically Fix Itself

No featured image available

Critics of the previous administration were never shy about lobbing accusations involving “Big Oil.” Donald Trump was their puppet, according to the narrative.

Yet, nearly two years after he left office, the news headlines are dominated by the energy crisis. High costs. Persistent shortages. OPEC muscle flexing. Russian invasions. You would be forgiven for thinking America and the world were doing much better when there was an “American Energy First” proponent in the Oval Office.

The latest warning sign is the diesel shortage. If you think you are immune, you’re mistaken. Exacerbating this major national security and economic crisis is the general cluelessness of the Biden administration. Unaware of its seriousness, ignorant of its root causes, and unwilling to reverse it.

The national economy is a diesel driven economy. A generation ago people bought diesel cars because diesel was cheaper than regular gas, but that has changed. Why? A generation ago goods were made in American factories.

Now, thanks to globalist trade policies which have greatly favored outsourcing and moved factories to other nations, goods are made in Mexico and loaded on diesel trucks and diesel rail cars. Or they are made in China and sent across the Pacific Ocean on diesel tankers, which require hundreds of thousands of gallons.

The need for diesel is a result of our economic policies.

Ironic that the Biden administration is incentivizing electric vehicles with a goal of using less gas. Yet, here again, policies are pro-diesel. The metals, minerals and rare earth elements required for an EV are mined using diesel machines. So fossil fuel heavy is EV production that a 2019 German Study determined they produce more CO2 than conventional combustion engines and have no carbon offsetting value.

Why do we pursue it? Why does the Biden administration push electric vehicles (EV) to “stop using gas” when in reality it means “use more diesel”? This policy is insanity.

Team Biden is watching this happen in real time and hoping it resolves itself, but it will not. Government actions have market consequences. A serious government would acknowledge the situation.

Even a child with no business or economic experience opening a lemon stand for the very first time intrinsically, innately understands the need for lemons. Nonetheless, here is a Biden administration saying we want EVs, we want wind and solar manufactured in China and shipped on tankers, all of which requires a greater need for diesel, and instead we are doing the opposite.

The amount of diesel produced from a barrel of crude is fixed. The Biden team have asked refiners to produce more, as if you can squeeze any more juice from a lemon.

To get more juice you need more lemons, a greater supply, but supply is under attack by this administration.

We have the fewest oil and gas permits since World War II. Biden has proudly and prominently canceled permits from in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, Alaska and federal lands. Our supply is dwindling. The logical consequence is that the refined diesel product is dwindling.

As a result, diesel is in short supply and expensive. Today, diesel averages $5.30 a gallon. Last year, diesel averaged $3.22 a gallon. That’s an increase of 66%. If you consider what diesel powers (trucks, trains, tankers, farm equipment) you quickly realize all those costs will be passed onto consumers.

All of this was foreseeable and preventable, but it was very deliberate. The green agenda — the EV, wind and solar agenda demands economic destruction because it demands fossil fuel destruction.

The leaders of this movement are just getting started. Just the other day John Kerry, the White House Climate Czar, called for the United States to spend trillions on the worldwide green agenda. Trillions! Such stupidity should get Mr. Kerry laughed out of the country.

The fossil fuel industry needs government cooperation to operate. As we saw in the previous administration, when the government cooperates and lets us do our job, we do great things.

We can remember low costs, low inflation and less worldwide saber rattling. It was 2019. America can return to that, but only if the government does it part.

Under the Biden administration, that seems impossible.

Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He raises heritage breeds on a farm in rural Virginia. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF. Power the Future has donated to the DCNF.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.