Saturday, November 23, 2024

LTE: CONGRESSMAN JAMES MC GOVERN

Let’s Talk About Gas Prices.

 

JIM MC GOVERN

 

Amid a historically unstable period for global oil and gas prices, many families are experiencing real financial stress and wondering how we can end America’s dependence on foreign energy. It’s a good question.

Sadly, Big Oil companies and their corrupt backers in Congress are asking something different: how can they exploit this moment to drive up profits and build even more dirty infrastructure?

They claim price increases are driven by President Biden’s energy policies, but this is a lie.

The Biden administration is actually outpacing Trump in the approval of new permits to drill, and the U.S. oil industry is already sitting on 9,000 unused permits.

And even though the United States is the number one producer of oil in the world, these companies still aren’t even producing as much crude oil as they did before the pandemic. 

 

They’re choosing instead to meet the resurgence of demand with an artificial shortage to jack up their profits.

Although our country has been a net-exporter of fossil fuel energy since 2019, the volatile nature of a global commodity like oil means that prices can never be fully insulated from geopolitical events.

Adding to corporate America’s deception is the disingenuous insistence that new fossil fuel supplies could be available in time to make a difference.

We can’t just flip a switch to turn on the Keystone XL pipeline, as GOP leadership claims. The reality is Keystone XL was never even built—and experts estimate it would only lower gas prices by a single cent per gallon.

Greedy fossil fuel companies know this, but they want to lock us in to new infrastructure and long-term contracts that keep America dependent on them.

GOP leadership might be content pledging allegiance to fossil fuel talking points, but you shouldn’t be.

President Biden is taking immediate steps to lower gas prices for you and your family and address Big Oil’s price gouging.

But we all need to ask why we should give any thought to new drilling and pipelines at all, when the path to energy independence lies with clean energy.

Ditching fossil fuels once and for all would be much more effective, cheaper, and safer than giving Big Oil their wish list.

  

Why? Because the past decade has brought us lightyears ahead in clean energy and electric vehicle technology. Wind and solar are now among the cheapest forms of energy on the planet, and advances in batteries and other technologies make clean energy an obvious choice.

Renewables are also faster to build, in large part because they can be built in a decentralized fashion, in many places, and scaled up quickly.

And oil and gas already have major problems of their own. American taxpayers subsidize fossil fuels by a staggering $650 billion per year in the form of direct tax breaks for oil and gas companies, cleanup for environmental harms, and health costs associated with the burning of fossil fuels. 

The costs of continued reliance on oil and gas are not merely financial, either. Air pollution from burning fossil fuels leads to as many as 9 million premature deaths every year. And of course, there is the greatest cost of all: climate change.

In fact, if we do not transition away from fossil fuels, the global costs will be a staggering $551 trillion—more than the sum of all wealth on Earth. Clean energy is the bargain of the century.

The claim that our energy independence lies hidden at the bottom of new oil wells or at the end of new pipelines is a lie.

And in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s horrific and unprovoked attack on the people of Ukraine, pushing that lie on Americans—who want to stand up to oil bullies like Putin—amounts to war profiteering.

Putin wants to invade his way into an empire and use his oil to blackmail the world—and the best way to stop him is to make his oil worthless.

So we have a choice. We can believe Big Oil’s lies and resign ourselves to an energy future that is too clumsy to cut the legs out from oil bullies like Putin, too costly to sustain, and too sluggish to stave off irreparable harm to the planet.

Or we can choose one that secures true energy independence, prosperity for our communities, international stability, and a livable world for our children.

I say we pick the latter.

Yours in Service,

James P. McGovern

Member of Congress