Dan Schnieders
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
A recent LTE suggested being unhappy with U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer for supporting former President Trump's energy policy because "between the first week of May 2020 and the last week of December 2020, oil prices had tripled." The writer then provides a link to that quote to a Forbes magazine article. What the writer doesn't provide are literally the very next 28 words that follow in that very article: "Was President Trump to blame for this? No, the reason oil and gasoline prices rose is that the economy started to open back up from the COVID-19 shutdowns." The article explains why the connection between crude and gas prices are not always entirely linear. My mother would call the LTE's gross misappropriation of that Forbes article a lie I won't.
Context means everything. Some elements are true, as price per barrel of crude did rise from $18.38 to $49.99 during the May-Dec. 20 timeframe. So, wouldn't you expect USA gas prices at the pump to soar during that period too? They didn't! Gas prices only rose from an average of $1.96 to $2.20 during that timeframe. So, while global output decreased from 83 million barrels a day to 75 in that time, U.S. production stepped up over 14 percent in order to keep prices from skyrocketing, proving that it's not always how much oil is produced, but where it's produced that also makes a difference.
So, let's play this out. Joe Biden enters office in January 2021 and turns energy policy upside down (kills the XL Pipeline, may kill Michigan Pipeline #5, Colonial Pipeline gets cyberattacked, oil project financing is frozen) and we become a net-importer of oil once again. Gas prices jump to an average of $3.49 with anecdotal experiences as high as $7 in some markets. We hypocritically beat the drum of alternative fuel possibilities while begging OPEC to produce more oil. Is the suggestion that fossil fuels from Saudi don't damage the climate the same as much as oil from our soil..bull. You couldn't get energy policy in this country more screwed up unless you threw it in a blender.
Winter is here. Projections are energy will cost a lot more. People will suffer; all while our secretary of energy (Jennifer Granholm) laughs like a buffoon when asked how to increase oil production domestically. Had enough?