What if gasoline prices doubled? In other words, if you had to pay $5.00 per gallon, how much would that hurt your life?
That’s what happened during the 1970s oil crisis. The Middle East-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) weaponized oil by embargoing the United States twice. At that time, America lacked the capacity to make up for the lost oil. In 1978, the average price per gallon was around 60 cents. By 1981, it reached $1.35. The economy went into severe recession and millions lost their jobs.
But more recently, major unrest in the Middle East has not affected Americans as strongly as it used to.
On September 14, 2019, Iranian-backed militias attacked the world’s largest oil refinery, in Saudi Arabia. The attack cut the refinery’s capacity in half.
But despite some expert predictions, oil prices barely flinched. Americans saw no price spike at the pump.
Iran escalated the violence. Its proxies assaulted the American embassy in Baghdad just before New Year’s Day. This attack could have sent fuel prices through the roof, hurting our economy. But even after the United States responded by killing the Iranian terrorist general who orchestrated the attacks, fuel prices rose a little and then dropped back to where they were before the hostilities. If you blinked, you missed it.
The likelihood that Iran or any other bad actor can use violence or weaponize oil to hurt the global economy has dramatically receded. Why?
American energy leadership is why. As the chief regulator of oil and gas production in Texas, I am on the front lines of American energy production. And I am seeing a revolution that helps all Americans.
Our modern economy needs energy. From the smart phone in your hand to the lights in your home to the electric cars more Americans drive, we depend on affordable and reliable energy. We have vast proven oil reserves, we have the technology to extract it, and under the Trump administration we have the freedom to produce it and get it to market. Americans produce oil and gas more affordably and reliably than anyone else.
This affects everything for the better, including the environment. When I was building my business, I visited about half the world’s refineries. No one produces energy more cleanly than Americans do. Some point to flaring natural gas as an issue. Natural gas is a by-product of oil production. No one likes flaring, but producers are flaring just one to three percent of the total natural gas produced in Texas.
The solution to flaring is not to slow down oil production, or ban fossil fuels as some suggest, but to speed development of pipelines and other capacity to get natural gas to market. America has actually reduced emissions faster than any other industrialized country, thanks to the market-driven switch to natural gas. We just need to get more of it to market here and around the world.
The United States was once desperately dependent on foreign oil. In 1973 we imported about 35% of our oil from the Middle East. In 2019, the United States became a net oil exporter. Now, we produce 12 million barrels per day (5 million in Texas alone) and import less than 10% of our oil from the Middle East.
We have diversified our other foreign sources. When we were dependent on Middle Eastern oil, American forces had to stand cop on the beat to keep the oil flowing through chokepoints such as the Straits of Hormuz. This made us more likely to get into wars. Now our energy sources are more stable and reliable than ever.
Energy is one cost that no one in our modern economy can avoid. Unlocking America’s energy makes us safer and richer.
The last time fuel prices spiked, I could not afford to fill my vehicles up. I had the money, but it was difficult to spend that much at one time for a tank of gas or diesel. I usually filled back up at half a tank.
I’m middle class. I imagine those costs his the lower classes far more severely. That’s something liberals, many of whom are wealthy and can easily absorb increased fuel and energy costs, don’t seem to get too concerned with. In their mind, apparently, the solution is to move to large, filthy, crime-ridden liberal cities, live in tenements close to low-paying jobs.
Our energy production, which the left has fought tooth and nail, is a national treasure. Just another insight into liberal loyalty when they fight that which makes this nation stronger and safer.
In Kommieforniastan they want to shut down oil production and import from the beloved Saudi’s. Somebody, either Gov. Hair Gel or his Aunt Nancy P. have an interest in the Saudi oil. Kommieforniastan is sitting on a huge amount of oil and gas but nooooooo let it stay there and pray that the windmills will power the state. We need to drill and have more refineries or this state is toast, and we can thank the that idiot Socialist fools for that.
Sure, we can sell our nation’s non-renewable resources on the global market, allowing greedy corporations to pocket billions in quick profits. Why worry about tomorrow? As with the million-million dollar per year deficit, today’s defenseless children will be left holding the empty bag.
@Greg: Sure. Much better for Democrat donors to get rich off of government subsidized green energy industry, they scamper off with their profits when the businesses go bankrupt, leaving the US taxpayer on the hook for the losses. Brilliant plan: contribute to Democrats, get rich off taxpayer’s investments.
Cut off all fossil fuel sales to Greenpeace lets see them run their ships on sails
@Greg: Im confused do you want to end all fossil fuel use or leave them to the children to burn? Do you think this country needs steel?
You cant make that without Coke, not the cola. Why do you people want to stop Coal mining?
@kitt, #6:
You’re setting up a false dilemma fallacy. No one is calling for an immediate end to fossil fuel use. Rational people are calling for an accelerated transition, involving stricter energy efficiency standards and the rapid development of renewable energy technologies. The benefits are twofold: increasing renewable energy supplies, and far less environmental pollution.
Indirectly subsidizing fossil fuel industries that encourage increasing dependence on something that isn’t going to last while resisting the development of technologies that could free us of such dependence is stupid. It’s made to appear less stupid by promoting b.s. propaganda memes like, Wind turbines require more energy to build than they produce. This is simply a lie, which explains why technologically advanced nations in Europe are building and installing them in ever-increasing numbers.
@kitt:
I have asked Comrade Greggie before; how much “fossile” fuel do we have left and when did the Earth stop making “fossile” fuels. Of course, Comrade Greggie had no answers so he just ignored my questions.
He also ignores how Al Gore got filthy rich by promoting “global warming” which morphed into “climate change” which has now morphed into “climate crisis.” I’m amazed Comrade Greggie doesn’t hate Al Gore since he seems to have such hatred for anyone who has $2.00 more than he does.
Oh, but we can’t have wind turbines. They kill birds, don’t you know?
https://helpsavenature.com/how-do-wind-turbines-kill-birds
So while Comrade Greggie is worried about the use of fossile fuels, he’s not so concerned that he has refused to use his computer (made mostly of fossile fuel products) and the internet which requires use of electricity to have him post his idiocy on FA. Why isn’t he living in the dark using dead wood he found in the forest for his light and heat?
Because Comrade Greggie is the typical left wing hypocrite.
@Greg:
No more false than the Climate emergency propped up by progressives in order to control and micro manage our lives. Starve and freeze the elderly and poor least likely to have the money to retrofit to the less efficient, less reliable green energy.
“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, …who said that?
An Independent U.S. threatens globalist fantasies, like Greg’s.
@Greg: Trying to drive producers out of business and drive up the cost of energy is not a “transition”; it’s tyranny. Aside from nuclear, we currently have no viable replacement for fossil fuels, yet you liberals want to eliminate them (yes, actually, you do… because you HAVE no rational leaders) and rely on solar and wind, which is not only expensive but inadequate.
As soon as I see some celebrities and other global warming fanatics taking the “crisis” seriously by reducing THEIR carbon boot-print, I might take them seriously. But they don’t believe in it any more than I do; they just want the leverage.
@retire05, #8:
Why should anyone be expected to waste time repeatedly answering questions that were already answered on previous occasions? You’ve been told before that the Carboniferous Period was a one-time event in the Earth’s history. There haven’t been any repetitions of that 300-million-year geological period when the planet was covered by the vast swamp forests that gave rise to coal deposits and petrochemicals, and there aren’t going to be any new ones that will result in additional fossil fuels that will ever be relevant to the human species. When we’ve consumed what’s already there, that’s it.
Write that down somewhere so you’ll have it handy the next time you forget. Or ask any high school student who paid attention in science class. Just don’t bother me with it again.
@Greg:
So how much is there, Rain Man? Surely you are so well informed you can give us all a finite amount, right?
Oh, my, did I strike a nerve, Comrade Greggie?
Just might do that. But it will not be a high school student who is subjected to fake science in our painfully radically left wing public school systems.
Hey, arschloch, I will bother you any time I please. If you don’t like it, don’t come back with your insanity.
Yeah, Trump loves the poorly educated, and you folks are happy to supply them.
@Greg: Its always the democrat run cities dragging down the entire nations literacy and math numbers.
Democrat is a noun. The grammatically correct adjectival form is democratic.
@Greg:
So what?
Have you appointed yourself the FA grammar police?
@Greg: I fixed it.
@Greg:
I would remind you that the liberals have introduced indoctrination into our education system as a replacement for knowledge, so the supply of the ignorant is provided by the left. Trump love and provides opportunity for ALL citizens.
There is nothing democratic about them, so they don’t get that term applied to them in any capacity. FASCISTis the proper term for them now.
@Greg:
Says the party who exploits illegal aliens and poor minorities.
Education, as defined as the ability to “think”, is the bane of your party’s current platform.
Heaven forbid someone makes decisions based on reading the Odyssey and the Bible, rather than what SNL or Maher said last night.
The Democrat party is the party of non-educated rubes.
@Nathan Blue, #20:
You should show more appreciation for their stronger family values, ambition, and work ethic. But then that’s what a lot of people probably find threatening.
@Greg: greggie, do you have any idea who owns what you call greedy corporations? The American people own those businesses. You really are a DS!