His Imperial Wisdom Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. threatened Big Oil in a nasty letter last week. Geriatric Joe is going frantic over gas prices because no matter how much he screams and stomps his foot, they aren’t coming down. He warned execs that all kinds of bad things will happen if they don’t take a hit in the bank account and lower the price at the pump. Energy conglomerates were quick to shoot back that production problems are all his fault in the first place.
Oil executives fight back
Joe Biden made a big deal about the letter he wrote to oil executives on Wednesday, June 15 “warning them he would take action if they don’t boost refining output,” DailyCaller reports.
Leaders of the seven biggest American producers and refiners, namely ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP America, Shell USA, Phillips 66, Marathon and Valero, wrote back to call his bluff. They told him what he could do with his threats. Bring it on, they invite. The ball is back in his court, America is waiting to see if he’ll follow through.
In the heat of anger, Joe wrote he’s fully “prepared to use all reasonable and appropriate Federal Government tools and emergency authorities” to increase “petroleum refinery capacity and output.” Oh really? Oil execs ask. Like what? Didn’t Ayn Rand point out that waving a gun around won’t increase production.
“I understand that many factors contributed to the business decisions to reduce refinery capacity,” Biden admits. He falsely accuses Trump for it though. He points out the decisions were made before he took office. He doesn’t admit that it was the green-dream which killed production, along with all the Democrat-passed liberal regulations. Democrats asked for it and now they’ve got it.
Things are getting serious now, Biden writes. Democrats will probably lose the majority in the mid-terms over it. That means war. “But at a time of war, refinery profit margins well above normal being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable.” It’s all the fault of the greedy fat-cats, he insists. “With prices for your product where they are today, you have ample market incentive to take these actions, and I recognize that some of you have already begun to do so.”
He thinks the oil execs can wave a magic wand and get the diesel flowing, instantly. Mike Sommers, the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, weighed in with a statement that the “administration’s misguided policy agenda shifting away from domestic oil and natural gas has compounded inflationary pressures and added headwinds to companies’ daily efforts to meet growing energy.”
Not that simple
Joe can kick, scream, and threaten all he wants but it won’t intimidate the oil companies into undoing years of Democrat handiwork. America’s refining capacity is already at 94.2% and it’s expected to stay there. No more fuel can be produced without building a new refinery and those have been regulated into the dust of history by environmental activists.
They wanted pain at the pump to help ease the “transition” to “renewable energy” and they got the pain. The problem is that all the clean electricity never turned up. President of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers points out that they “would encourage the Administration to look inward to better understand the role their policies and hostile rhetoric have played in the current environment.”
According to the Energy Information Administration, “total output will remain relatively low since total domestic capacity has dropped since 2019.” They’re running at 17.9 million barrels per day and that’s all we’re going to get. “Though our refinery footprint in the U.S. is relatively small today, we are producing at capacity,” Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith responds back.
They have such a small footprint because oil companies are treated worse than baby killers. Chevron said it best. “Unfortunately, what we have seen since January 2021 are policies that send a message that the Administration aims to impose obstacles to our industry delivering energy resources the world needs.”
ExxonMobil suggests that maybe Joe might consider promoting investment through “clear and consistent policy,” for a change. They note “streamlining the regulatory approval process for fossil fuel infrastructure and holding regular oil and gas lease sales” would help a lot.
“We’ve been investing through the downturn to increase refining capacity to process U.S. light crude by about 250,000 barrels per day – the equivalent of adding a new medium-sized refinery. We kept investing even during the pandemic, when we lost more than $20 billion and had to borrow more than $30 billion to maintain investment to increase capacity to be ready for post-pandemic demand.“
