Democrats are committed “to eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035.” They want banks to stop financing fossil fuel development by 2030, and they want to end the use of fossil fuels completely by 2050. In reaction to Russia’s war with Ukraine, the Biden administration has stopped imports of Russian oil but is negotiating with Iran and Venezuela to make up the shortfall. The Democrat administration is panicking to assure the supply of a commodity that it wants to cancel. Wars have been fought, won, and lost because of oil. The Democrat party needs to reconsider its green energy goals before it damages America’s economy and jeopardizes the nation’s security.
After Japan invaded China, mistreating the Chinese people, the U.S. government embargoed oil and other exports to Japan. To secure oil for its war machine, Japan attacked American and British interests in the Pacific. America’s embargo of oil to Japan led to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Germany, like Japan, had few oil reserves and a Wehrmacht with an insatiable appetite for energy. German scientists developed an industrial process for making synthetic fuels from coal. While this process was successful, it was expensive, and it couldn’t keep up with the demand of the German wartime economy. To accommodate the needs of the Wehrmacht, Adolf Hitler attacked Russia to acquire the oil fields of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Many view the decisions made to begin WWII as the scheming of mad dictators. There is some truth in this assessment, but Japanese and German decisions to obtain oil supplies led them into war and eventual defeat. While Japan and Germany struggled to fuel their war machines, the Allies’ tanks were always full of American energy. Of the 7 billion barrels of oil the allies consumed in WWII, 6 billion were delivered by America and probably the reason the Allies won the war.
In 1973, Arab nations embargoed oil sales to the United States and other Western nations. On October 6, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel to remove the Israelis from territory taken in the Six Day-War in 1967. The Soviet Union supported Egypt and Syria with weapons, while the U.S. supported Israel, which won the war.
Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf oil producers were upset by U.S. support of Israel and implemented the embargo to punish Israel’s allies. They also cut production, restricting oil supplies to the world. Oil prices “quadrupled, causing skyrocketing costs for consumers, and structural challenges to the stability of whole national economies.” Inflation surged in the ’70s and ’80s. Stagnant inflation was finally controlled in the U.S. by aggressive exploration and production of the oil industry and the fiscal discipline of the Reagan administration.
Oil was likely a factor in the Russian risk analysis that led to Russia’s war with Ukraine. Putin understands that NATO’s members are reliant on Russian oil and gas. His analysis has proven correct. Many Western European countries voice their disappointment and consternation at Vladimir Putin and have sanctioned the Russian economy, but they continue to import Russian oil and gas.
The Biden administration stopped Russian oil imports but has turned to the terrorist state of Iran as a potential partner. Biden is also negotiating with the communist government of Venezuela to reinstate oil imports even though it is an illegitimate regime.
Oil is the most important commodity. Instead of encouraging domestic production, the Biden administration and NATO allies would pay for Russian wars, Iranian nukes, and Venezuelan corruption.
Democrats are bent on the destruction of the oil industry. They contend that climate change is an “existential threat” that political and environmental factions describe in millions of pages of mind-numbing documentation. Climate change is a theory. One may accept the theory and reject the prescribed remedies of the Democrat party.
