The Biden Administration Got Absolutely Played After Release of Oil From the Strategic Reserves

Bonchie reporting for RedState

Over the last few days, the mainstream media have expressed jubilation at Joe Biden’s decision to release oil from the strategic reserves. The largely symbolic, wholly temporary move was made to try to relieve gas prices as people gear up to travel for the holiday season. After months of the press insisting that Biden had no control over gas prices, they are now praising him for supposedly lowering gas prices.

Except, it looks like that’s not actually going to happen, at least not at the level hoped. Per a new report, Russia and Saudi Arabia are gearing up to undercut Biden’s political ploy, which was obviously done in response to his cratering approval numbers.

In short, the Biden administration got absolutely played here. Russia and OPEC waited for us to make a move to deplete our oil reserves before announcing that they would look to cancel production increases and offset any benefit. Worse, because the law requires refilling the strategic reserves when a release is made, the government will likely have to pay an inflated cost to replenish the stockpile. This country is being run by absolute imbeciles.

Anyone with half a brain could have seen this coming. As long as Biden continues to choke off domestic production, we do not have control over what foreign producers do. No amount of whining and complaining about what OPEC is or isn’t doing is going to change that. The way to beat them is to up domestic production and green-light Keystone XL so that the United States can import more oil from Canada. The president refuses to do that, though, because he’s under the impression that crushing domestic production helps fight “climate change.”

That makes no sense at all. The oil that the United States demands is going to come from somewhere. If it comes from Russia and the OPEC nations, it still gets burned and turned into carbon emissions — just the same as if it were pumped up in Alaska. There is no logical reason to crush American jobs and energy independence. Even if you are a big believer in “climate change,” the president’s strategy is asinine.

But nothing Biden is doing is about providing logical solutions. Rather, everything is about virtue signaling to his far-left base while putting middle-class Americans into the blender. So you get to pay higher prices, while Jen Psaki blames Saudi Arabia for not doing our bidding when we have the ability to do our own bidding and fix this situation. It’s all one big game to the White House, meant to accelerate the transition to “clean” energy — even as we clearly do not have the technology or capacity to do so.