Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that “the only way” for the United States to avoid high gas prices is to produce more green energy.
The national average gas price is currently $4.94 per gallon, according to AAA. Earlier this month, gas prices surpassed $5.00 per gallon — more than double the $2.39 per gallon witnessed when President Joe Biden took office.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, Granholm affirmed that the “only way out” of “boom-and-bust cycles” in energy prices is “deploying clean energy.”
“The real truth is that as long as our nation remains overly reliant on oil and fossil fuels, we will feel these price shocks again,” Granholm said. “This is not going to be the last time. The next time there’s a war, the next time there’s a pandemic or another hurricane, these extreme weather events we are experiencing — they will impact the access that we have to fossil fuels.”
Indeed, Biden favors policies meant to promote green energy, such as emphasizing public transportation and electric vehicles, even as his administration canceled an enormous sale in Alaska of oil and gas lease location. He also refused to green light the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
“We are looking at some significant challenges in the way of ensuring that American people have access to affordable clean energy,” Granholm continued, “but we’re going to use every lever that we have across the federal government to overcome these challenges.”
Earlier this week, Biden called for a three-month pause to the federal gas tax — which sits at $0.184 per gallon of gasoline and $0.244 per gallon of diesel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration — to contend with “Putin’s Price Hike.”
“President Biden understands that high gas prices pose a significant challenge for working families,” the White House said in a statement. “Today, he is calling on Congress and states to take additional legislative action to provide direct relief to American consumers who have been hit with Putin’s Price Hike.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has already indicated that he would not approve the federal gas tax suspension, as the policy would not guarantee that the amount would not “penny-for-penny come off of that price.” Other critics argue that the move will only fail to address the administration’s policies that are preventing further production.
“President Biden’s proposed temporary gas tax suspension is a band-aid solution to runaway gas prices,” Job Creators Network President Alfredo Ortiz said in a statement provided to The Daily Wire. “To truly show leadership and meaningfully reduce Americans’ pain at the pump, Biden must fundamentally reshape his party’s environmental policy, strongly backing the production and distribution of traditional energy. Only with vastly increased supply can gas prices significantly fall.”
The Job Creators Network’s most recent Small Business IQ monthly poll revealed that 76% of business owners would prefer that the United States increase domestic oil and natural gas production. Indeed, the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 10.8% from May 2021 to May 2022, with over 70% of the month-to-month rise attributable to an increase in prices for final demand energy, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Source: Dailywire
