Friday, March 4, 2022

WHILE JOE FIDDLES, SEN TED CRUZ TAKES PUTIN ON! - Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) this week introduced the Energy Freedom Act, which aims to bring the U.S. back to a place of energy independence — a status President Joe Biden destroyed upon taking office.

U.S. Rig Count Frozen Despite 14-Year High Oil Prices

$Pump jacks are seen at dawn in an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the verge of a boom on March 24, 2014 near Lost Hills, California. Critics of fracking in California cite concerns over water usage …$

David McNew/Getty Images

JOHN CARNEY

4 Mar 20220

3:05

The number of oil rigs operating in the U.S. was unchanged from a week ago despite the price of oil rising to its highest level since 2008.

Friday’s report from Baker Hughes Co. shows the number of oil rigs in the country held steady at 650. Two weeks ago, the number of rigs climbed by 10, last week it climbed by five, and this week not at all.

The halt of oil rig expansion suggests hesitancy on the part of oil companies to increase production. Many producers say the threat of anti-fossil fuel regulation is holding back expansion. As well, the experience from the last fracking boom, which resulted in many investors suffering losses when overproduction rendered many wells unprofitable, continues to haunt the industry.

The Biden administration has continued to pressure foreign producers, particularly OPEC states, to add more production. That could have also be depressing the willingness of U.S. producers to step up production and investment.

Some U.S. lawmakers have called for more oil domestic oil production but have offered no incentives. They have not offered to hold back on plans to raise taxes on fossil fuels and provide subsidies to renewable energy projects that could sap the future value of U.S. oil production. Instead, Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) claimed, without evidence, that U.S. producers were holding back production to push up prices, an accusation that makes little sense in a market where prices are soaring and oil companies are fiercely competitive with each other.

Two hundred and forty-seven oil rigs have come online over the last twelve months. But the current count is 18 percent lower than February of 2020, before the pandemic hit. The total number of operating rigs in the U.S. fell to 244 by August of 2020 as demand for oil plunged, pushing the price into negative territory at one point.

Demand for oil is expected to keep growing as economies around the globe recover from the pandemic but OPEC+ has put itself on a path of only gradually expanding the production of its members. The conflict over Ukraine has caused concerns that the supply from Russia, which produces around 10 percent of the world’s oil, could be disrupted. That leaves production expansion in the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, Canada as crucial to keeping a lid on oil prices.

On Friday, the national average gas price jumped to $3.837, more than 11 cents higher than the day before. Gasoline prices, which move up when oil prices climb, are up 12 percent compared with a month ago and 39.7 percent compared with a year ago.

The price of WTI crude, the best measure of petroleum produced in the U.S., was at $112.67 a barrel on Friday, up from $92.17 a week ago and $76.08 at the start of this year.

Ted Cruz Introduces Energy Freedom Act to Push American Energy Independence

Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images

HANNAH BLEAU

4 Mar 20220

3:08

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) this week introduced the Energy Freedom Act, which aims to bring the U.S. back to a place of energy independence — a status President Joe Biden destroyed upon taking office.

Specifically, the legislation would work by “accelerating federal permitting for energy projects and pipelines, mandating new onshore and offshore oil and gas lease sales, approving pending LNG export licenses, and generally speeding up solar, wind, and geothermal development,” according to the senator’s office.

Additionally, under the bill, President Biden — or any future president — would no longer be able to unilaterally enact “leasing bans on federal lands.”

“In the past year with Joe Biden as president, the United States has lost its status as a net petroleum exporter, after achieving that goal in 2019 for the first time since 1949,” Cruz said in a statement, pointing to Biden’s decision to issue “illegal and hostile orders aimed at American oil and gas producers, which have increased energy prices and directed profits to other oil exporting countries.”

“These policies have poured billions of dollars into countries such as Russia and Iran, which use those funds to attack our allies and undermine the national security of America,” he said, adding further perspective by pointing out that Biden “has imposed more restrictions on U.S. oil companies than he has on Russian oil.”

“With Iran, he has looked the other way as the regime busted through sanctions and raised their exports to more than one million barrels per day for the first time in almost three years,” he said, summing up the Energy Freedom Act as a way to reverse Biden’s actions.

“This bill won’t cost taxpayers a dime, but it will provide the United States billions in revenue in the coming years by expediting permitting, leasing, safe new pipelines, and exports, and providing much needed regulatory certainty,” he said, emphasizing it would “put a stop to the Biden administration’s sabotage of the American energy industry, and Congress should take it up without delay.”

Biden’s decision to move America away from its status as energy independent has taken greater focus in recent weeks as gas prices soar and the conflict in Ukraine intensifies. Critics have pointed to Biden’s mistake of relying on “rogue” parts of the world for its energy supply.

“Their whole society is hollowed out except for that energy,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said of Russia during a press conference this week. “And so if you want to hit them, hit them at the gas pump. Hit them with energy.”

“[Biden] has stepped on the necks of our domestic energy here in the United States. We should have Keystone reactivated in the United States. He should get rid of the ban on producing in federal lands, and he should welcome more domestic energy production,” he continued. “We were before Biden took office, for the first time in any of our lifetimes, actually energy independent. Putin didn’t matter.”

Dem Rep. Houlahan: Biden Hasn’t Explored All Options to Lower Gas Prices, ‘We Are Complicit’ in Russia’s Actions by Buying Their Oil

IAN HANCHETT

4 Mar 20220

1:48

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) stated that “by our purchasing of Russian oil and gas, we are complicit in what’s happening to the Ukrainian people” and that because the Biden administration hasn’t looked at “all the other options that they have to be able to lower gas prices,” she isn’t “willing to cede that we will see that increase in gas prices.”

Houlahan said, “By funding the war by our purchasing of Russian oil and gas, we are complicit in what’s happening to the Ukrainian people and I know the American people to be an empathetic people who understand that they can participate by understanding that they can contribute possibly with their wallets, frankly. But I also understand that the administration really hasn’t explored, in my opinion, all the other options that they have to be able to lower gas prices, as well and to be able to dual-source other places for us to get that energy supply from. We’ve been increasing our supply from Canada. A lot of the oil rigs that have been dormant for a long time have been increasing their supply. And so, I’m not necessarily willing to cede that we will see that increase in gas prices. But I am very interested, and I know, bipartisanly, we are collectively very interested in asking the president and his administration to reconsider.”

She added, “I think we’ve levied some of the most draconian measures on Russia, at this point in time, to punish them for Putin’s actions, and it sort of is inexplicable that one of those is not separating ourselves from the Russian oil and gas supply.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett