Here’s How To Secure America’s Energy Future

We live in a dangerous world starved for energy.

Americans are grappling with sky-high inflation and high energy prices and yet the Biden administration and the Democrats in Congress continue to spend money we don’t have, driving inflation higher and making us all poorer.

Should the Republicans take over Congress this November they have a tough, but straightforward task ahead of them. They need to improve our economy, our energy security and that of the whole world by limiting spending and promoting energy abundance.

The new Congress can help rein in inflation by reducing federal spending. The first order of business should be to pass a federal budget on time and within our means. Congress has failed to do that for a number of years, including when Republicans were in charge of the House and Senate because of the political expediency of appropriating federal dollars for partisan priorities.

Instead of tinkering with budget line items, it would be far better to pass a budget that reduces spending by ten percent across the board.

Beyond cutting the budget, Congress needs to take back most of the insane amounts of money this Democrat led Congress has given the Biden administration to spend through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.

Congress should rescind these laws and recover and repurpose the hundreds of dollars these bills have authorized but the Biden administration has not been able to spend.

While working to restore its role as a co-equal branch of the federal government, Congress needs to expand our energy abundance and improve our energy security. Europe’s energy starvation shows us what happens when countries put climate concerns ahead of energy security. Prices in the European Union are sky high, businesses are closing and consumers are suffering.

Unlike Europe, the United States is the world’s energy superpower. We are the world’s largest producer of oil, the largest producer of natural gas and we have the largest coal reserves.

We are also the largest producer of geothermal energy, the second largest solar energy producer, the second largest in wind production, and the second largest producer of energy from biomass and waste.

We have vast energy resources, but the Biden administration has worked to throttle natural gas, oil and coal production as much as possible.

Over the past 10 years, the vast majority of new oil on the market came from the United States — not from Saudi Arabia, or Russia, or OPEC. According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, from 2011 through 2021, global oil production increased by 5.8 million barrels a day, but the U.S. alone increased production by 9.6 million barrels a day.

Oil production fell in some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Norway, United Kingdom, Nigeria, but the United States more than made up the difference.

We have vast energy resources, but only if American companies can access them. To improve our energy abundance and grow our economy, Congress must require the Biden administration to issue leases for natural gas, oil and coal production on federal lands and waters.

The Biden administration is not just throttling back natural gas, oil, and coal, but also minerals and mining. The Biden administration has not allowed any new mines, despite wishing to have mineral-intensive technologies such as electric vehicles, stationary batteries, as well as wind and solar power.

Congress needs to make it possible to start new mines in the United States.

Broadly, the next Congress also needs to reform the permitting processes for energy projects. There is a wide consensus from the left and right that we need real permitting reform. The rules of the road need to be clear with definite timelines. Congress needs to mandate real streamlining and firm deadlines. The Manchin permitting reform effort fell way short of what is needed because it did not amend the laws which slow down permitting.

Congress should also vote up or down on every new major regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency. Congress should also repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). This year is the last year Congress mandated biofuel volumes in the RFS, so it makes sense to sunset the law instead of allowing EPA to set mandates going forward.

Unelected bureaucrats shouldn’t be choosing which fuels and which cars Americans can have. The American people should decide for themselves.

Another thing the new Congress should do is immediately prevent future presidents from tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to solve a political problem, in this case high gas prices.

In short, the new Congress must focus on economic growth and energy abundance. They must rein in inflation by limiting federal spending and work to improve our energy security and tap our abundant energy reserves.

It’s a simple recipe, but if they fail in either direction we will end up with high energy prices and businesses that are closing like what is happening right now in Europe.

Thomas Pyle is the president of the American Energy Alliance and co-host of The Unregulated Podcast. 

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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