The MAGA right chants that only oil can or should meet future needs when they cheer Trump's"drill baby drill." Here's an answer to that. The "drill baby" should be replaced by "better energy to power America" because we need to stop being victims of foreign oil cartel price setting, foreign wars, and the disasters of climate change. Those are the challenges in our future, and oil drilling, the answers of the past, will not meet them.
Update: Sept. 1, 2024
Why are the prices at the pump still so high? They are not, per most recent news ). Reality check: prices at the pump now are less than a dollar more per gallon than they were in December 2019, just before COVID struck and Trump was president. The Democrat response so far to "drill baby drill" has been that we are pumping more oil than ever. This is correct, but it sounds evasive and does not seem to be connected to pump prices consumers are experiencing. https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/30/business/gas-prices-labor-day-inflation/index.html
For Trump, " drill, baby, drill" is a chant that appeals to Trump's base supporters. It makes sense to them, but it is nonsense. The "drill baby drill" Trump's answer to prices is a simplistic Our problem is not a supply of crude oil; we already have so much we are exporting. BS that he hopes he can get away with because the answer is complex. No president, Biden, Trump, or Harris can control the price per barrel of oil. The prices are set in worldwide markets by oil cartels and many other factors as the above CNN article describes. However, presidents can cushion the impact on consumers by being smart about it. They are becoming more energy-independent, technology savvy, and innovative while taking temporary measures as needed, including using less environmentally damaging bridges in the future, like natural gas. Yes, it is a matter of supply v demand. The US currently does not have a supply problem that drives prices up. International events and the pandemic have caused wild swings in gas prices at the pump beginning in 2020. Biden deserves credit for releasing the strategic reserves and increasing oil pumping
The goal should be meeting "energy needs " and not "oil" needs. Going greener adds to "energy" production, not subtracts from it., while oil and natural gas serve as a bridge to a greener future. Natural gas, at least, is less polluting than gasoline. Nuclear and hydrogen power are important parts of the future and are green. Thanks to Biden's leadership, wind, solar, and batteries are becoming cheaper more prevalent, and efficient, and more of them are made in America. This greater reliance on "green" will increase in the future. It is in our national and consumer interests that we stop being victims of foreign oil cartels while addressing global warming disasters as we are experiencing now. Note Harris's reversal from opposing fracking for natural gas to supporting it, which shows a pragmatic flexibility to meet immediate needs as they arise.
Demand crashed during COVID as drivers to work and schools sheltered in place, beginning in the US in February 2020, and prices dropped likewise. Two years later, Russia invaded Ukraine and Europe, supply crashed, and the US had to wean itself off of Russian oil, as did Western Europe. Worldwide prices spiked; Biden released oil reserves, increasing the US supply, and now the oil reserves have been replenished, though the rest of the world is still filling theirs.
Strategic oil reserves: Question: Why not fill them with cheaper oil during COVID-19 than now? Answer: the reserve tanks were already almost at legal capacity during Cvoid. The crisis arose when Russia invaded Ukraine two years later, creating a worldwide oil shortage. Biden released our reserves to counter the resulting price spike and pumped more oil, as well.
Strategic oil reserves are where we store extra oil if some unusual demand..like the war in Ukraine and Europe and
America had to wean themselves off of Russian oil. Simultaneously, the oil cartels who determine the price per barrel raised their prices, too. Biden released strategic reserves, pumped more oil in the US, kept gas prices among the lowest in the world, and refilled the strategic reserves. It was a slow process because the capacity of where we store reserves and the ability to accept refills were issues. It would have been great to have filled reserves with COVID-19 cheaply, but the problem was Ukraine, and we answered by pumping more oil.
. Simply:: the US does not have an oil supply problem at this time. More oil supply is not the answer at this moment. In the future, it is not the answer, either.. The issue is not that we lack supply that drives the prices; the cartels do. Elsewhere, the rest of the world is still refilling their reserves while many still weaning themselves off Russian oil. We are now the largest oil producer in the world. We are exporting oil, too. Good timing, too, since a war could break out any time in the Middle East thanks to the Israel-Gaza-Iran issues.
Update 12/15/24: Another reason why drill baby drill will not reduce prices at the pump. Gist of the article: supply and demand are set internationally so that even producing more oil will not affect prices at American pumps..
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/why-trump-s-plan-to-drill-baby-drill-is-unlikely-to-cut-gas-prices-and-fix-inflation/ar-AA1vTbWR?ocid=socialshare&pc=HCTS&cvid=4f3b3ab166db4229a26467654ff223d8&ei=21
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(Souce of retaill gas prices at the pump:.https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W )
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-other-big-shift-in-the-presidential-race/ar-AA1oNm9v?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=2a9d137f33bb45f69834150e005f55c3&ei=15
