Joe Biden Waves the White Flag on Gas Prices

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Gas prices have been rising dramatically since Joe Biden took office, with the average cost rising about $1 per gallon before Russia invaded Ukraine. Following that, the nation saw an even larger spike as sanctions took effect, though recent prices have settled down somewhat.

And while the White House has been diligently trying to blame everything on “Putin’s price hike,” polling consistently shows that Americans blame Biden’s policies for the current price hikes, not just on fuel, but across the board. Policies such as freezing federal oil and gas leases while canceling pipelines that could increase supply while cheapening refining costs have certainly had an impact.

In response, the Biden administration has bent the knee to climate change hysterics, refusing to lift a finger to help working-class individuals. That’s about to change, though.

According to multiple reports, the White House is going to finally reopen the leasing process to help increase production. Of course, there’s always a catch with this incompetent administration, which we’ll get to.

As pressure increases on the Biden administration to lower the price of fuel, the Interior Department announced on Friday plans to hold its first onshore oil and gas lease sales since President Biden took office.

The department said it plans to open roughly 144,000 acres up for lease next week and will charge oil and gas companies higher royalties to drill on federal land, raising the fees for the first time. Under the plans unveiled Friday, royalty rates would increase to 18.75 percent from 12.5 percent for oil and gas lease sales.

This move should relieve some pressure on the global oil market and help provide more natural gas to Europe, which is finally trying to ween itself off the Russian supply. And though it will take months (or possibly years) for production to ramp up, energy markets are speculatory, so any announcement of future production will have some effect.

Yet, just how much of a positive this will be will depend on how profitable the leases on the market are to drill. Because the White House is run by far-left loons who believe oil from Venezuela is somehow preferable to drilling domestically, they are raising the royalty rates fairly dramatically–from 12.5 percent to 18.75 percent. So while some leases will still make sense to drill on, others that would have otherwise been profitable may no longer be. Of all the times to raise rates, why now? We know why, and it’s ridiculous that politics continues to play such a large role while Americans watch their bank accounts dwindle.

Speaking of politics, it’s also worth noting that the Biden administration insisted in March that more federal leases would make no difference.

If Jen Psaki is breathing, she’s lying. The assertion that more domestic production wouldn’t help lower the cost of energy was a ridiculous contention. Further, the claim that 9,000 leases are currently going unused is highly misleading. Oil and gas companies don’t sit on leases for fun. They sit on them when it’s too expensive to drill. The solution was always to open up leases that are profitable, which is what the White House is now looking to do despite its previous protestations and snark.

In summary, it’s good to see the federal leasing process open back up, even if it meant dragging Biden to this position as he kicked and screamed. But the introduction of a poison pill via increased royalties will limit the impact, knee-capping results for the American people. So yeah, it’s your typical Biden boondoggle.