Can we finally talk about freeing ourselves from fossil fuel tyranny?

Can we finally talk about freeing ourselves from fossil fuel tyranny?

Paul Waldman — Read time: 4 minutes

After resisting the move for a period of days in the face of increasing political pressure, on Tuesday President Biden announced that the United States will block all imports of oil from Russia.

So can we finally talk about moving toward real energy independence?

I don’t mean by drilling domestically for more oil. I’m talking about moving away from our dependence on fossil fuels that are sold on global markets and will always leave us at the mercy of dictatorial regimes and overseas crises.

While we’re consumed with the rising price of gasoline and the effects Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will have on our economy, it’s shocking how little the idea of an energy transition has figured into the discussion. Even if reducing the catastrophic effects of climate change wasn’t a good enough reason for you, we’re getting yet another lesson in the economic vulnerability that fossil fuels impose.

Fortunately, Biden did mention the issue in his statement announcing the Russian oil ban. “This crisis is a stark reminder that to protect our economy over the long term, we have to become energy independent,” he said, adding: “It should motivate us to accelerate the transition to clean energy.”

Unfortunately, though he came into office with ambitious plans to address climate change, most of them — particularly those contained in the Build Back Better bill — have stalled in Congress.

Instead, we’re caught in a cycle that prevents us from thinking in a sane manner about the problems we face. The news is saturated in stories about rising gas prices, and Republicans know exactly how to use that to their advantage.

To no one’s surprise, they have been quite open about their plan, which was to call Biden weak for not banning Russian oil imports, then when he decided to go ahead and ban those imports, blame him for any increase in gas prices that followed.

Along the way, Republicans have propagated another lie, that the Biden administration has somehow choked off oil production here in the United States, and if only it would allow more drilling on public lands, then production would skyrocket and gas prices would plunge.

This is simply false. Though Biden did issue an executive order suspending new drilling permits on public lands soon after taking office, that order was halted by a federal judge soon after. Furthermore, there are thousands of such permits that oil companies hold but aren’t using, and the vast majority of drilling doesn’t take place on public lands anyway. In fact, the Biden administration issued more drilling permits on public lands in its first year than the Trump administration did.

And it’s not as though the oil companies are itching to drill more but are being held back by the government. They’re focused on things like cutting costs to fund stock buybacks. As the CEO of ExxonMobil said during a recent earnings call: “The primary objectives we’ve had in looking at the portfolio is less about volume and volume targets and more about the quality and profitability of the barrels that we’re producing.”

But all that will be ignored as every Republican unites to cry that we need to produce more oil domestically, even though that doesn’t give us “energy independence” when we’re filling our cars with a substance traded on global markets.

Now imagine you drove an electric car, or even just a hybrid that gets 40 or 50 miles to the gallon. (You probably don’t — though sales of electric and hybrid cars are increasing rapidly, together they still made up only 8 percent of new vehicle sales in 2021.) You’d be feeling pretty smart right now, as you zipped past gas stations whose prices are going up every day. That doesn’t mean you’d be completely immune to the broader inflation that increases when gas prices rise. But the more electric and hybrid vehicles we buy, and the more our power plants run on fuel from renewable sources, the more insulated we’ll be from disruptions to global energy markets.

At least some climate hawks in the Democratic Party are trying to get people to see that this crisis only highlights the urgency of addressing fossil fuels and climate change. “Instead of ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ voters should hear: ‘Plug in, baby, plug in,’ ” says Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).

And it’s possible that high gas prices could give a boost to state-level efforts on climate being pushed by Democratic governors and legislatures. For instance, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is pushing an ambitious plan to ban oil and natural gas from new building construction. Just like every effort to address climate change, it will face intense lobbying in the state legislature from the fossil fuel industry.

Back in Washington, even Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), the coal industry’s most effective advocate, says he wants to revive the parts of BBB that confront climate change. We have to make that part of every discussion we have about gas prices. No one should drive by a gas station without thinking “I wish we didn’t even have to worry about the price of gas.”

There are powerful forces and cynical politicians who want to keep us from ever reaching that future. And if we don’t focus on what it would take to get there, they’ll keep winning, and we’ll all keep paying the price.