Cheney Alleges Biden Energy Policies Empowered Russia to Invade Ukraine
In the midst of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Liz Cheney and several of her colleagues in the House Energy Action Team (HEAT) have sent a letter to President Biden, urging him to 'unleash American Energy.'
The letter outlines many of the decisions President Biden has made when it comes to energy production in the United States, and it pleads with the President to reverse some of those decisions to "help counter Vladimir Putin by making America less reliant on Russian oil."
Cheney and 82 other members of Congress signed a letter that would urge President Biden to "end your anti-American energy agenda."
The letter laid out plans of action that, Cheney said, would ensure that the U.S. and its allies have access to affordable and secure energy, "while taking away a critical source of leverage and funding Vladimir Putin is using to carry out his unprovoked and barbaric attack on Ukraine."
In a surprising move, Cheney stated that America became an energy superpower and a net energy exporter during the Trump Administration. It's one of the few times Cheney had something nice to say about the former president.
The letter stated that this move gave America economic strength and geopolitical leverage over Russia, China, Iran, and other dictatorships around the world.
"But your Administration reversed course and is undermining America’s energy dominance with disastrous policies, quickly reversing the attainment of a five-decades-long goal of achieving energy independence," the letter alleged. "Your Administration now routinely begs OPEC and Russia for oil while enacting policies that increase our energy and economic dependence on them, leading to higher prices at the pump for hard-working families."
The letter then laid out the consequences of Biden's decisions.
"The results of your economic and energy policies speak for themselves: record inflation; soaring gasoline prices; high home energy costs; Russia empowered to invade Ukraine; ever growing obstacles to building energy infrastructure; so-called environmental and social governance (ESG) policies inhibiting investment in oil and gas; and more dependence on foreign sources of energy," the letter stated.
The letter then pointed out examples of what they believe amount to policy failures in regards to energy, including:
- Instituting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) leasing moratorium for both onshore and offshore oil and natural gas projects and threatening to raise royalty rates to make projects less economical;
- Rescinding the Trump Administration’s permitting improvements, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reforms, the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) reforms, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) reforms, among others;
- Canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline;
- Creating significant regulatory uncertainty by threatening new, excessive, burdensome regulations on the oil and gas industry, such as the EPA methane rule and the DOI waste prevention rule;
- FERC’s failure to approve new natural gas pipeline applications, leading to a backlog of pending applications that discourages economic growth and new energy development;
- FERC’s recent changes to its certificate policy statement governing interstate natural gas pipeline reviews, which will further exacerbate the backlog;
- FERC and DOE’s failure to expeditiously approve applications for new LNG export facilities;
- So-called ESG policies at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Department of Labor (DOL), Federal Reserve, as well as the nomination of financial regulators like Saule Omarova and Sarah Bloom Raskin, who have advocated for denying capital to the oil and gas industry;
- Killing new, American, critical mineral mining projects such as Twin Metals in Minnesota, which would create American jobs and lessen our reliance on China, or refusing to permit projects such as Resolution Copper in Arizona;
- Stopping lease sales in the coastal plain (1002 area) of Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA).
The letter states that Biden's economic and energy policies "project weakness abroad and hurt American families."
The letter calls on President Biden to reverse his policies and send a message to the rest of the world.
"We have the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, we can produce these energy resources more cleanly and efficiently than anywhere else in the world, and we should produce them," the letter states. "We will make clear that more U.S. production means greater energy security for our allies, lower prices for consumers at home, and more strength abroad as we undermine the Russia-China alliance."
The letter then offers ideas on how President Biden can "remove Russian President Vladimir Putin's leverage [and] promote economic growth and prosperity for citizens at home and our allies abroad."
It urges Biden to "Implement meaningful permitting reform that removes unnecessary delays and bureaucratic obstacles to constructing new, modern energy infrastructure." It states that Biden should reinstitute former president Trump's reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The letter also states that Biden should:
- Increase energy resource production on federal lands.
- Reduce the regulatory uncertainty that prevents construction of new oil and natural gas infrastructure, including pipelines and LNG export terminals.
- Develop a new, robust national rare earth and critical mineral policy that ends our reliance on China and Russia.
- Pause all new discretionary regulatory policy activity and actions that would negatively impact the oil and gas sector until the Russian invasion of Ukraine is over and global oil and natural gas markets have stabilized.
- End climate activism by federal agencies and order financial regulators to keep to their statutory mission.
"Your immediate action on these policies will signal to our allies around the world that the United States is serious about making our energy resources a tool for freedom, while signaling to Putin, and dictators like him, that they can no longer use their resources as a weapon to finance this barbaric aggression," the letter closes. "At the same time, these policy changes will provide all Americans with the reliable and low-cost energy we need and deserve. We stand ready to join you in restoring American energy independence and await your prompt reply."
To read the full letter, you can visit this link.