The biggest lie circulating right now is that high gas prices are unsolvable; that they are collateral damage of a greater geopolitical landscape.
Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to choose between low gas prices and supporting Ukraine in the heinous war started by Russia. It’s a convenient argument used by an administration that has done nothing but signal its anti-natural gas position.
_
Ever since President Biden took office, he signed a series of executive orders halting new oil and natural gas leases, canceling the Keystone Pipeline and generally signaling to the nation that the US is anti-natural gas and oil.
Defenders will tell you that the pipeline wasn’t going to serve people for another few years or cite statistics on the amount of oil we currently produce, but the bottom line is they just don’t understand the market. Every action taken by the most powerful elected official in the world has crushing consequences that shakes the market and affects prices.
Russian oil, Saudi Arabian oil, American oil and more all combine to make the market, and when one sector takes a hit, even if it’s a small portion of our portfolio, everyone takes a hit. A recent Covid lockdown in China was able to immediately drop the prices of oil worldwide. This is all to say that everything has an effect, no matter how hard the President’s people want to explain his actions away.
From Day One, President Biden came out firing his arrows at the industry, and we’ve seen a steady climb in gas prices ever since. Now we are experiencing record prices that have an outsized effect on our poor and middle-class citizens. Say what you want about President Trump, but I can guarantee this wouldn’t be happening under him.
He would’ve pounded the bully pulpit over and over so the industry knew that, come hell or high water, he wasn’t going to be saddled with record-high gas prices. If the news was going after him every day on gas prices, it would’ve been a main focus of his to reverse it and silence his critics.
You don’t see the same tenacity on the part of President Biden when it comes to solving the meat and potatoes issues saddled on the backs of Americans. By the way, have you seen the prices of meat and potatoes?
The pandemic is waning, summer is on the horizon, and Americans deserve some much needed fun. If we want to enjoy a summer of leisure, we need a president willing to flex his muscles on the gas crisis. No one should have to break the bank just to get to their family vacation down the shore.
_
Michael Torrissi Jr. (R-Hammonton) is an Assemblyman representing LD8 and an owner at Samuel Coraluzzo Co. and Torrissi Transport.
