RE Re Fuel prices are to Bidens credit

Meridian ID

Description

Ole stupid on purpose Animals is at it again. Despite claims of Trump-era 'energy independence,' the US never stopped importing foreign oil. Both before and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine contributed to a spike in US gas prices, various Republicans bashed President Joe Biden for supposedly abandoning Trump-era "energy independence." These Republicans have fostered the impression that the "energy independent" US did not need energy from Russia and elsewhere under Trump, but then, under Biden, has been forced to buy this foreign energy once more. The truth is that the US was never close to genuine independence from foreign energy in the Trump era. "Energy independence" is a political phrase, not a literal phrase. Despite how Trump and others have made it sound, it does not mean the US was ever going it alone. From the beginning of Trump's term to the end, the US very much relied on oil and gas from abroad. In 2020, Trump's last full year in office, the US imported about 7.9 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products. Contrary to claims from Trump and other Republicans, Biden has not "shut down" American energy: US crude oil production in Biden's first year was higher than in each of Trump's first two years and just narrowly shy of production in Trump's last year, though substantially lower than production in Trump's record-setting third year. And experts say it is economic factors and cautionary pressures from Wall Street, not anything Biden has done, that has made US oil companies reluctant to dramatically ramp up production from current levels. But there are numerous reasons why the US doesn't just stop importing entirely. One key reason is that there is a mismatch between many of the refineries in the US, which were designed to handle heavy crude oil, and the lighter crude that is produced in the US through fracking. Another reason is that domestic energy production isn't sufficient to fulfill the needs of all US refineries -- for which it can be profitable to buy low-cost unfinished energy from abroad, turn it into higher-value petroleum products, and then export some of those products. Colgan noted in an email that even at moments when the US is a net exporter of oil, "it remains tightly integrated into the world market for oil, constantly exporting some grades of oil to foreign customers while importing other grades of oil into the United States. Same for oil products like gasoline and diesel." The truth is that the US was importing a significant quantity of oil and petroleum products from Russia under Trump: over 137 million barrels in 2018, then 189.8 million barrels in 2019 and 197.7 million barrels in 2020.