Tornado Alley (PROG)

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hap0206, Lazy partisan ignorance. All you have to do is google, or search - The Real Reasons for High Oil and Gas Prices

"Four Ways Trump Plans to Raise Energy Costs for American Consumers" .
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Myth: Drilling for more oil in the United States would lower high gas prices.

Fact-check: Drilling for more oil in the United States will not lower gas prices because the production of U.S. oil does not set the price of gas—the global price of oil does. Oil and gas are global commodities, subject to the whims of notoriously volatile global markets .. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/whos-blame-higher-heating-costs-winter#real-story . Their prices are particularly sensitive to geopolitical events and investor sentiment. So everything from war to pandemics to elections can and regularly do cause rapid price swings. That’s why, even though Russian oil made up less than 2 percent of the U.S. supply, ending Russian oil imports still hit U.S. consumers hard. In other words, this is not simply about balancing supply and demand.
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Myth: Gas prices are rising because Biden banned oil drilling.

Fact-check: President Biden did not ban oil drilling. In fact, his administration issued more than 3,500 new permits to drill on federal lands in its first year. That’s 34 percent more than the Trump administration did in its first year.
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What U.S. oil companies and their allies did not suggest was an increase in their current output, which remains at pre-COVID levels. That’s because internally, many of these companies have already said their production is likely to remain flat .. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/energy/gas-prices-oil-production-wall-street/index.html .. for reasons that include prioritizing shareholders. Basically, high prices are good for the bottom line.

One step that Biden did take as part of a flurry of climate actions upon taking office last January was to temporarily pause new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters in order to review the Trump-era leasing program. But that decision was thrown out by a federal judge last June and had no impact on current gasoline prices.

Myth: The cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline caused high gas prices.
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Myth: Increasing oil and gas production will help secure U.S. energy independence.

Fact-check: Again, oil and gas are global commodities, and there is no way for the United States to wall itself off from swings in global price and supply. As long as we rely on fossil fuels, violent petro-states like Russia .. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/its-time-defuse-oil-weapon-war .. will use fossil fuel production as political and financial leverage. Consumers, many of whom were already struggling because of the pandemic, will face continued pain at the pump.

So if you thought that more production would result in energy independence and that meant gas prices would go down, you would be very disappointed.

The only way to permanently protect ourselves from the volatility of the global oil market—and soaring gas prices—is to opt out entirely and transition to both clean energy sources and the electric vehicles that run on that clean energy. Steep federal investments that build out renewable energy infrastructure and make EVs the norm will ultimately provide a far more stable energy market for all and help protect the only planet we’ve got.