Dear editor:
With mid-term elections some six months away, the consensus of opinion suggests the Democrats slender margins in the House and Senate are in jeopardy. President Biden’s low approval ratings are seen as a contributing factor.
Some feel Biden encountered a perfect storm of events contributing to economic adversity. Others believe current economic calamity is the result of his own doing. Certainly he made history on day one of his presidency by signing 17 executive orders, many of which reversed policy enacted during the Trump administration.
On the world stage, the US is still trying to recover form a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left our allies skeptical of US commitment and our enemies feeling emboldened. During the month of April, US Border Patrol encountered more than 234,000 migrants at our southern land border, up from 154,000 in January, numbers indicative of the progressing loss of immigration control. After the president’s initial pledge to defeat the coronavirus in 2021, after administration of 580 million vaccine doses across the country and after a million deaths of US citizens, we have now adopted a learn to “live with” approach to Covid.
In response to the economic slowdown attributed to Covid-related restrictions and a corresponding reduced production of goods, in March the Biden administration initiated it’s $1.9 trillion rescue plan to stimulate the economy. Now, with too much money chasing too few goods, an increased demand has stretched supply chains beyond capacity leading to higher prices on gas, food, medicines, housing and other essentials. It is inflation that has been stimulated.
From his first day in office, Joe Biden has envisioned himself as the climate change president shifting US energy dependence away from fossil fuels and toward investment in new energy technology, expediting the use of alternative and renewable energy, and transitioning federal infrastructure to carbon pollution-free electric power. His executive order revoking the permit for the 1200-mile-long Keystone XL Pipeline, that could move 30,000 barrels of oil daily from Alberta to Nebraska, was emblematic of those intentions.
Mr. Biden wants to meet targets set in the Paris Agreement by reducing carbon emissions to a net-zero level by 2050 and thus limiting global temperature rise. Governments of the world’s biggest polluters have made commitments to increase clean energy while reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Even Russia’s war in Ukraine has contributed to European counties forfeiting their reliance on Russian oil and gas and converting their thinking toward decarbonization strategies and eventual investment in green technologies.
Such forward thinking is necessarily tempered by economic realities. As oil and gas are in high demand and their supply is tight, prices increase along with manufacturers’ profits. We exist in a free market system where the oil and gas industry is ruled by profits. Manufacturers resist voluntarily reducing product production when it makes a profit for stockholders.
A rise in oil prices contributes to inflation, which set a 40 year high in March amid supply disruptions. With oil being used in the production of a host of products, as well as in their transportation, and with diesel prices rising $2 per gallon from a year ago, all related costs inflate. Higher oil prices add to the cost of doing business which is then passed on to retailers and consumers.
When oil and gas prices rise, consumers are forced to cut back on other forms of spending. Nevertheless, the administration seems to be embracing the rise in price as a strategy to drive consumers toward purchasing electric power vehicles. Only last week, the president called high gas prices a part of an “incredible transition” that is good for the country. These remarks were made on the heels of a Wall Street Journal op ed entitled “President Costanza Takes on Inflation” that suggested Biden should follow Jerry Seinfeld’s advice to George that if he does the opposite regarding his policy instincts, he would achieve better results.
Perhaps the coming mid-term elections can serve as a tipping point whereby we recognize the merits of developing an attitude of compromise toward energy production that incorporates both eye and ear for climate concerns as well as consideration of economic, social and environmental findings. With the identifiable effects of global warming - rising oceans, violent storms, drought - governments and private sector organizations need to work cooperatively to develop climate adaptation strategies with the goal of green energy technologies becoming more effective and affordable.
This can be done in conjunction with increasing the use of new shale drilling technologies that allow for expanded cleaner crude oil and natural gas production. Such an approach may provide consumers preliminary relief from their pain at the pump. An overall shift from less oil to more natural gas production would represent transitioning toward energy products with fewer harmful emissions. Such an approach could be considered a first step in a process of reduced dependence on fossil fuels. An increase of domestic natural gas production becomes a net positive for the US economy.
If Mr. Biden can recognize that his current formula for achieving an environmentally heathier world via his fast-paced exit from reliance on fossil fuel energy is unrealistic, and a cooperative compromise with Big Oil to reduce carbon emissions while developing clean energy technologies is the most expedient means to revitalizing our economy, then he may yet warrant the mantle of climate change president.
Peter Wibell
Rutledge