Even as gas prices were already skyrocketing, putting a bigger burden on Americans, President Joe Biden is now ramping up his war against oil by instituting an increase of 33 percent on gasoline production by raising government fees and other obligations, some for the first time in more than 60 years.
As Americans suffer through one of the worst economies in decades, they are finding the costs of everything soaring. Gasoline has been a particular burden this year as prices have skyrocketed more than 14 percent over the last few months, ABC News reported.
While many areas have far higher prices (it is $4.10 in Chicago where I live), the average national per gallon price is $3.63, according to CBS News.
That compares with $2.26 a gallon when Trump left office. Indeed, according to Forbes, the prices when Trump was in office were mostly lower than Obama’s years and fully lower than Biden’s tenure and even lower than the last year of George W. Bush’s last term.
Forbes added that Trump’s per-gallon cost average was $2.57 a gallon, Obama’s was $3.12 in term one and $2.95 in his second. Biden’s average thus far was $3.60 as of early March.
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration noted that prices began to soar in April of 2020. They started to fall in June of 2022, but started climbing again in January of 2023.
While it is clear that there are a lot of pressures on gas prices that are not in Biden’s control — most especially the war between Russia and Ukraine and Iran’s attacks on shipping in the Gulf — Biden is far from blameless for the hefty price hikes.
For instance, last week, Biden’s Interior Department raised royalty rates for oil drilling by more than one-third, to 16.67 percent, the Associated Press reported. The previous fee oil drillers paid for federal drilling rights was 12.5 percent. This and other fees amount to a 33 percent increase for the industry, Fortune added.
This is the first time the royalty rates have been raised for more than 100 years — and it comes just when it will have the worst impact on Americans.
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But the royalty fee is not the only fee Biden and his regime are hiking as gas prices soar.
Biden is also hiking the minimum leasing bond paid by energy companies to the feds. It is the first time this fee has been raised in more than 60 years.
The fee hike is steep, too, going from $10,000 to $150,000 per well, a fee meant to make sure that drillers meet regulatory obligations to clean up drilling sites and properly cap wells when they are abandoned. This fee, though, is returned if the companies follow the rules.
Biden is also exploring further limiting the places that oil companies can drill.
“These are the most significant reforms to the federal oil and gas leasing program in decades, and they will cut wasteful speculation, increase returns for the public and protect taxpayers from being saddled with the costs of environmental cleanups,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said last week.
Naturally, all this is being foisted on the energy industry to satisfy Joe Biden’s obsession over climate change and his hatred for cheap American oil.
Arizona Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva celebrated the rules changes with a broadside on oil companies.
“When Big Oil uses our public lands, it stands to reason they should be giving American taxpayers a fair return for the privilege,” he said. “That’s why Democrats worked so hard to pass reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act to return some balance to a leasing system that has favored polluters for far too long.”
Republican Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, though, pointed out that this is all just part of Biden’s war on the American energy sector.
“As a candidate, Joe Biden recklessly threatened to end oil and natural gas production on federal lands,” Barrasso exclaimed. “As president, he is doing all he can to make it economically impossible to produce energy on federal lands.”
Barrasso is closer to the point than Grijalva, of course. Since the day Biden took office, he has been trying to shut down American energy independence and costing all of us more to heat our homes, run our air conditioners, drive our cars and move our goods across the nation. But when is enough enough? Will he only be satisfied when he has utterly destroyed the entire U.S. energy industry and destroyed millions of jobs?
