“Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm indicated that President Joe Biden has considered using the Defense Production Act to help mitigate the record-high gas prices, but stressed that it is just “one” of the tools at the president’s disposal.
“President Biden, like all other leaders around the world, are grappling with this for their citizens,” Granholm said Wednesday at a White House press briefing. “And the president is doing everything he can to reduce prices for American families.”
The price for gas nationwide has exceeded $5 a gallon for the first time since AAA started recording prices in 2000. The average price jumped $1.92 compared to this time last year.” “
“So we know that the war in Ukraine, having driven up the price of fuel … we’ve got to make up for the million barrels per day that we’ve lost,” Granholm told reporters. “We will have a demand problem when China opens up, and there will be additional upward pressure on supply.”
Granholm stressed the belief that “no president alone” can control gas prices and claimed the U.S. needs “More players at the table,” which led to the president appealing to Congress to enact a gas tax holiday.
Biden announced he would call on Congress to approve a gas tax pause for three months. The federal government currently charges 18 cents in taxes per gallon of gasoline and 24 cents per gallon of diesel, the official said.
TREASURY SEC. YELLEN SAYS ONLY WAY TO FIX ENERGY CRISIS IS TO ‘MOVE TO RENEWABLES’
Officials had raised concerns that rushing to remove the gas tax due to concerns that it might undermine recent funding Congress passed for the infrastructure bill, but Biden made a point of insisting Congress remove the tax without stripping money from the Highway Trust Fund that finances highways and mass transit.
Granholm previously hinted that Biden might take other, more drastic actions to help combat record-high gas prices. During an appearance Sunday on “State of the Union,” she noted that the president has a number of tools to use, including the Defense Production Act to try and direct resources.
“Let’s just say the president is prepared to use all of his authorities to do what he can to increase supply,” Granholm said during an appearance Sunday on “State of the Union.” “
Comment: To even hint at a threat of seizure of the oi industry under the DPA is to risk rebellion. Will the federal security forces be used to seize oil industry installations in states like Texas?
This is but one of the possibilities implicit in Biden-Harris government policies that point to desire of the movers and shakers in this administration to Sovietize America.
Biden’s policy in the Ukraine is THE ONLY policy adopted by him with which I agree. Russia’s desire to destroy Ukraine as a state has been proven. Unfortunately this has been seized upon by ardent anti-Biden people like Tucker Carlson as an opportunity to further condemn and ridicule the Bidonians.
This, in turn, is taken by Russian IO (both governments and foreign agents of influence) as a way to undermine American support for Ukraine.
A sad state of things. pl
Addendum to comment: At the time of the fall of the USSR I advocated the dissolution of NATO, believing it had fulfilled its purpose and would prove to be a major irritant in relations with Russia, but the temptation for the US Borg and the military to seek a new enemy to replace the old proved too great and the new Russia became the designated foe.
I opposed the political drive to recruit new NATO members from among former member countries of the Warsaw Pact. As this process progressed the Ziocon Political Bloc, who hated Russia from Jungian memory of pogroms and shtetls past, made the NATO expansion their particular cause.
But, what’s done is done. We have accepted the new NATO as our treaty allies nd the obligation cannot be ignored. These countries fear Russia and IMO their fear must motivate our actions. pl
” Russia’s desire to destroy Ukraine as a state has been proven. ”
So… Can you explain how is this YOUR problem, personally and also as an American citizen?
Or any Americans.
People get the government they deserve…….no “mean tweets.”
Colonel, I have a stupid question, but none the less it puzzles me why.
The Russians captured a few days ago, somewhere near Kharkhov, two american citizens and one of them is Former Army Staff Sgt. Alexander Drueke (supposedly 39 years old). During an interview in English, the journalist apologizes for disclosing the pension of Drueke (approx. 20 000 USD monthly) asking for the reason why he came to Ukraine, Drueke answers that he didn’t come to Ukraine for the money.
If we put the principles and beliefs aside, why on earth would some 39-year old with a 20 000 USD ,,pension” go fight in a war that’s not his? Is it adrenaline? Or maybe obligations towards the army?
Jovan P,
I see your question not as stupid, but as pitiable. I’ll answer your question with a song that first moved me in the mid-60s. It’s The Impossible Dream (The Quest) sung by Richard Kiley in the Broadway production of Man of LaMancha. If you can grasp the meaning of the words of that song, you may understand “why on earth would some 39-year old with a 20 000 USD “pension” go fight in a war that’s not his.” If not, then you remain pitiable. In that case, perhaps someday you’ll understand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeY4J8Q2jeY
In response to JP’s question to the Colonel, as I distinctly recall, the Colonel well stated that given a couple decades off his age he, as well, would be off volunteering to fight with the Ukrainians.
AI
Correct.
Well, here’s another song from the 60s, “Where have all the Flowers Gone”:
https://youtu.be/bI3QVsW30j0
Also, concerning a different aspect of things,
another song that was popular in some academic circles back then promoted real contempt for the U.S. Army.
I found this effort despicable.
The fact that it was written, played, and sung by a math professor at Harvard made it no less despicable.
Tom Lehrer, “Proud to be a Soldier”:
https://youtu.be/RHQb7JT6_zU
Note the uproarious delight with which the audience received Lehrer’s effort.
It fit in with the contempt for the U.S. Army (“baby killers”), cops (“pigs”), the Boy Scouts (“like Hitler Youth”) and the bourgeoisie
that was current in certain circles.
Keith Harbaugh,
I appreciate Tom Lehrer to this day, from the academically humorous to his sarcastic anti-war parodies. I may not agree with all his lyrics, but I certainly don’t despise them. How can you not smile when listening to “We’ll All Go Together When We Go” or “The Vatican Rag,” even if they’re unpatriotic or sacrilegious. He did it with such style and wit.
As if by stroke of magic all the sad songs, protest songs, anti-military songs, campus occupations, draft card burnings, escapes to Toronto, and marches ended when Nixon ended the draft. It was late ’70 early ’71. I was there and they all stopped on a dime! I wondered, could it only have been about the draft. Naah, they were all protests about American foreign policy.
Bill Roche,
I don’t doubt it. When an issue can affect you personally, it can definitely induce you to protest. When it doesn’t affect you, most won’t lift a finger.
“style and wit”: hmm…
That song is, IMO, an artifact of the culture war that has been going on in the homeland of the West
while you and Colonel Lang were off fighting kinetic wars,
and is giving America fits today.
What I see in that song is an example of the contempt for the working class that pervades and pervaded so much of the intellectual “elite”.
Sure, Lehrer is witty.
But that wit often came at the expense of mocking people unlike him.
An excellent discussion of this problem is in
How the Intellectuals Took Over
(And What to Do About It)
The new American elite differs radically from the old, and the social and cultural damage it has done may be…
Well, enough sociology.
Here is something you and I can perhaps agree on.
Have you ever tried Adroit Theory Negation?
Remarkable and outstanding, IMO.
TTG,
Brian Stoke’s rendition, with a back-lit march to stage front at the key lines, is far superior.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzm0SJc6GZs
Not that a willingness to march into hell is ever going to be understood by some folks, or anything.
Yes, Stoke’s rendition is magnificent and you’re absolutely right about the inability of some to never understand the willingness to march into hell for a heavenly cause.
I would suggest that seeking to understand this man’s motivations by putting principles and beliefs aside is an exercise in absurdity.
You’re right. Sorry, my mistake.
what interests me is how do you get 20k monthly pension for a decade or so of service as 39 year old ? 🙂
And the guy was not some hot shot SF member but a chemical-biological warfare unit member.
borko,
That 20k figure has to be wrong. No US military pension is 20k a month. A four star on active duty doesn’t get close to that.
I figured it must have been wrong.
The figure was mentioned in the interview by the journalist as a fact and the US guy nodded in agreement.
I guess he was too rattled to set him straight or misunderstood the journalist. Maybe it is 2k.
Depends on when he retired. If he had 20 years service then as an E6 he’d get maybe 55% of $4400 base pay, which is about $2400/month. Not bad, but nowhere near the $20K/m someone claimed above.
Jovan, $20,000/m= $240,000/yr for an E-6? I shoulda stayed in !!!!
What would you do for principle, love, honor, duty, responsibility … you know, that sort of thing. For reason known only to Alexander Drueke, he risked his life for Ukrainian independence. Alexander is a strange spelling for his first name. His name could be Prussian. Maybe his family were thrown out of Kalingrad by the Russians?? Freedom is worth risking life. I recommend an old talk given by a certain Patrick Henry in Virginia 1775. Its famous you’ll find it. America was built on Henry’s sentiments in part and some still share them.
When the SU fell George Bush the Dumb said it is now time for a new world order. I thought, as a child of the cold war, wheew, great finally. Then I thought, what did he just say?? He d/n mean US/Russian friendship but western victory!! How foolish. Well, I had the same reaction when I heard Granholm’s remarks. What did she just say? She was threatening the oil industry w/nationalization. We have seen this played out time and again. It can get very bad! The communist took the kulaks ppty then killed them. The state is unaccountable after all. The American gov’t wants to take citizen’s guns ergo no accountability. It will steal their ppty (that is what nationalization will do to anyone w/interests in the oil industry) and control oil production. This fits nicely w/t march to no carbon based energy. Create a problem and solve it by nationalization “giving” citizens lower prices at the pump while gas still may be pumped. If the federal gov’t can control health, education, gas/oil, interest rates, housing regulations etc. what can it not do. This nation needs to divide. It needs separation, no divorce.
Bill, I do agree with you on divide, not just separate. But how? We seem to be headed for an explosion or implosion or something and the powers that be seem to want that. Maybe a bit of release is needed to dampen the volcano or something, would tragically help in the long run. Or maybe we just hang on to see if several election cycles might do the trick.
It seems our government wants to overthrow We the People and our Founding Documents.
WW I think one party wants to over throw the republic. It is the socialist party. This is a job for the states and the state governors. four or five govs threatening secesh and the country will wake up.
Maybe so, but secession I doubt would garner much support among voters. Too many lost financial ties. There is an effort out West, https://www.greateridaho.org/, that is seeking to move or remove state borders to free Red counties from the Blue counties death grip. There may be other efforts elsewhere too like California.
Look at the two issues currently ginned up to divide, guns and abortion, the old favorites, and the bait will be taken. This will be the most important election of a lifetime, again.
Per the Col’s above comment re Tucker Carlson, we know have this further “brilliance”:
Tucker “the Dumb” Carlson Claims Nicotine Crackdown Is a Biden Plot to Make Working Class Men ‘More Passive and Easier to Control’
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-claims-nicotine-crackdown-is-a-biden-plot-to-make-working-class-men-more-passive-and-easier-to-control/
Al,
I liked TC when we agreed on not expanding NATO and when he occasionally focused on class.
Too bad Trump didn’t pick Bernie as his running mate. So many heads would’ve exploded.
The DPA Act has been around for over 70 years and has been reauthorized by Congress 50 times. Although some sections were repealed. For example Potus can no longer seize private property, nor fix wages, nor implement rationing. So nationalization of any industry would be illegal. Closest we came to that was Harry T in the Korean War when he ordered wage and price controls, and regulated production in the steel and mining industries. So I doubt Granholm has a clue.
But I do like what they did with the DPA to complete the trans-Alaska pipeline way back when. And it was used to initiate LNG development back in the 60s.
“So we know that the war in Ukraine, having driven up the price of fuel … we’ve got to make up for the million barrels per day that we’ve lost,”
She sounds like one of the old Politburo types back in the USSR days who would open an address similarly: ‘As well all know’, ‘as everybody already knows’ or ‘as we have all seen’. This would always be followed by some bs or lie about the goodness of Soviet life or the evils of capitalism. She seems comfortable in the current nomenklatura.
Nomenklatura, Granholm is comfortable in that crowd. Her ilk are part of Plato’s “philosopher kings”; the elite. The remainder of humanity, hoi polloi, are dog shit to the Granholms who know better. Listen and obey.
Oil companies can post signs — NRA We Do Our Part
Col. Lang, I accept your opinion that treaty obligations to NATO members cannot be ignored and that therefore we must take account of the fears of new members.
Why cannot those obligations be satisfied and fears ameliorated by negotiating a series of overarching security treaties with Russia, as the Russians formally requested twice in 2021?
Our uncompromising stance appears to have been designed to precipitate the confrontation with Russia that we now face.
walrus
There’s no money in security treates. Conflict is good business for certain US industries.
Didn’t I read that sentiment in “The House of Krupp”?
Quoting Yellen: ” Refinery capacity is declined in the United States…”
Someone should remind her that not only is inflation not transitory, but the last new oil refinery built in the US was built in 1978. She should also call Granholm up and ask why she and her successor, Whitmer, keep trying to close line 5 in Michigan.
The Biden Administration should use DPA to build one, provided they get their own left wing to give ‘permission’, and direct the EPA to issue the permits without the innumberable studies that make these all cost prohibitive. While there at it finish that pipeline Biden had construction on stopped on 1/20/20. They can blame the Russians all they want, but cutting our own production is the reason we saw this rise to begin with.
“Oil is up nearly 70% since the election, a record in the modern era” CNN, Febraury 26, 2021 (yes last year).
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/26/investing/oil-prices-gas-biden-election/index.html
“”The economy will be far less sensitive to movements in the price of oil than it has been in our lifetimes,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM International. “Many of us are still prisoners of the 1970s oil price shock. But we are several economies away from then.””
He sounds as accurate as that Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman.
“President Joe Biden has moved swiftly to address the climate crisis by reentering the United States in the Paris Agreement, revoking the Keystone XL pipeline’s permit and ordering a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal land and water areas. These steps amount to a shot across the bow of the oil industry and could eventually depress US fossil fuel production”
I’m somewhat surprised that CNN hasn’t memory-holed this article yet. Hope you all are enjoying the Green New Deal by executive order, because bloviate all he will Biden isn’t going to do anything substantial about this.
“Granholm: President could use Defense Production Act to handle gas supply crisis”
The primary cause of the gas supply crisis is there has been only one refinery built in the US over the past 40+ years.
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from the website of the U.S. Energy Information Administration:
When was the last refinery built in the United States?
As of January 1, 2021, there were 129 operable petroleum refineries in the United States.
The newest refinery in the United States is the Targa Resources Corporation’s 35,000 barrels per calendar day (b/cd) condensate splitter in Channelview, Texas, which began operating in 2019. Condensate splitters are distillation units that process condensate, which is lighter than crude oil. Splitter capacity is included as atmospheric distillation units in U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data.
However, the newest refinery with significant downstream unit capacity is Marathon’s facility in Garyville, Louisiana. That facility came online in 1977 with an initial atmospheric distillation unit capacity of 200,000 b/cd, and as of January 1, 2021, it had a capacity of 578,000 b/cd.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=29&t=6
We can be swimming on a sea of petroleum but without the ability to refine it into gas, diesel, kerosene, bitumen etc it is effectively worthless.
This is a bipartisan problem created by the US government stretching back to the mid 1970’s.
The use of regional blends (there are seven) of gasoline is also another factor as refiners are not able to ship a blend from one region of the nation to another potentially creating spot shortages (or excesses).
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from the website of the U.S. Energy Information Administration:
Why are gasoline prices higher in some regions?
Gasoline prices vary over time and among states and regions. In addition to differences in state and local taxes, other factors contribute to regional differences in gasoline prices, including distance from supply, supply disruptions, and retail competition and operating costs.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/regional-price-differences.php
Personanongrata,
We didn’t have this problem when Trump was president.
Fred,
But we did have a pandemic, lockdowns, and a massive economic slowdown. After all, Trump was the president for those things and it’s customary to blame the president for anything that happens on his watch.
TTG,
Blame him all you want. “Two weeks to slow the spread” was the left’s “rope-a-dope” of germaphobe Trump. The lockdowns were not federal actions by the Trump administration. The Executive order Biden signed on January 20th started this off. Gas was $2.20 a gallon when he took office. It is now $4.69 at the station down the road from me. Joe Biden, the millionaire career politician pushing the pro marxist policies of the left and now hiding in his mansion on the Delaware Coast, is responsible for the CURRENT polices on drilling, fracking and importing; all of which affect the price at the pump.
https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/2020-gas-prices-year-in-review
“January 20, 2021: One of Biden’s first actions was to revoke approval for the Keystone XL pipeline and impose a moratorium on oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters. Roughly 25% of U.S. production comes from federal areas. … . The moves were part of Biden’s broader climate agenda and target to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.””
https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/timeline-biden-actions-oil-gas-priorities
Oh …, so that’s why the left blamed our involvement in WW I on Wilson, the Depression and WW II on Roosevelt, the Korean War on Truman, the Bay of Pigs, Missile Crises, and Nam on Kennedy, and the “Crash in the Sand” on Carter. We can talk about Johnson’s gifts in domestic policy if you’d like, but I think you were being sarcastic. No president is responsible for everything that happens during their term.
Bill Roche,
That’s exactly my point.
Bill,
Biden is responsible for the Executive Order issued on January 20th, 2020. The resulting effects on energy prices are all on his administration.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-protecting-public-health-and-environment-and-restoring-science-to-tackle-climate-crisis/
But, what’s done is done. We have accepted the new NATO as our treaty allies nd the obligation cannot be ignored. These countries fear Russia and IMO their fear must motivate our actions. pl
What is done can be undone.
Why should European fear dictate US foreign policy?
The entirety of the current unpleasantness in Ukraine has been brought about by US/NATO not abiding by the promises made to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 and the refusal to accept that Russia considers events in Ukraine in 2022 to be existential in nature.
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from George Washington University’s National Security Archives:
Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).
The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
To pretend that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not in direct response to a multitude of US/NATO instigations over the past 30+ years is to pretend.
We (ie US/NATO) made the shit sandwich and now we’ll all be taking a bite.
The collection of nation states comprising the Europe Union have roughly 450 million persons residing within their borders and a GDP of almost 20 trillion US dollars.
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/european-union/#economy
If Europe is truly in fear of Russia they are quite capable of providing for their own defense.
We (ie US) have our own problems to attend right here/now on Main Street USA.
Not one American life should be squandered to assuage European fear.
OT: 12 minutes of Democrats railing against past stolen elections and widespread election fraud -take no prisoner attitudes from those very same people now trying to hang Trump and Jan 6 up by his thumb:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/watch-12-minutes-democrats-denying-election-results-sore-loser-hillary-clinton-worst-offender/
The internet is forever. We have a long way to go to ensure fair and honest elections and be able to return to a peaceful transfer of power. Lest we forget who shouted this the loudest, and whose cabinet officers are not duly appointed right now either.
If an E-6 had a 20K a month pension Russia and Ukraine Soldiers would drop their weapons and defect to the US along with every other country which has me thinking about these 100’s of billions going to Ukraine. The war would end in 24 hrs if Russian Soldiers would turn themselves in for a large cash payment and be allowed to immigrate to the US.
So Janet Yellen thinks the answer to our current energy crisis is to focus on renewables. Funny how the people in power tell us we should all be driving electric vehicles and in the next breath ask us to run our air conditioning less to take the strain off the electric grid.
Have you not noticed? Yellen is a liar.
“We have accepted the new NATO as our treaty allies nd the obligation cannot be ignored.”
The “obligation” contained in the NATO Charter is the same for all member states: to “assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area”
such. action. as. it. deems. necessary.
So while Article 5 certainly authorizes the use of armed force, it does not “obligate” it.
The USA is under no obligation to come to the rescue of any NATO member state.
No NATO member state is under an obligation to come to the USA’s rescue.
That’s what it says, so that’s what it means.
Yes, rule by decree. When regular procedures are an inconvenience, go around them.
And repeat after me, “Our democracy!”