Mark Trahant
Indian Country Today
It’s not often that one day in a news cycle captures complexity.
“We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday. “That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports, and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine.”
Then a few moments later he added this important kicker. “We understand Putin’s war against the people of Ukraine is causing prices to rise. We get that.”
Then he talked about the U.S. energy production. “We’re approaching record levels of oil and gas production in the United States, and we’re on track to set a record of oil production next year. In the United States, 90 percent of onshore oil production takes place on land that isn’t owned by the federal government. And of the remaining 10 percent that occurs on federal land, the oil and gas industry has millions of acres leased. They have 9,000 permits to drill now. They could be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year. They have 9,000 to drill onshore that are already approved.”
The message here is energy independence. But it’s that word that remains divisive. This is a moment, the president said, that should “motivate us to accelerate the transition to clean energy.”
Related:
— Monitoring the Arctic in Russian invasion of Ukraine
— What now? Pandemic. Social unrest. And war
This is the rub. Energy independence means different things to different people.
House Republicans Rep. Steve Scalise and Garret Graves from Louisiana and New Mexico’s Yvette Herrell see energy independence as more oil and gas, including the export of liquified natural gas to America’s allies so they do not have to rely on Russian energy sources.
“Oil is still going to be needed to run not only our economy but the economies all around the world,” he said. “And so, the question is, where do we get it? And if they’re worried about carbon emissions, we emit a whole lot less carbon to make energy-producing oil and natural gas here in America than if it’s made in Russia, or if it’s made in Iran, or if it’s made in Venezuela, or those other countries that President Biden is begging to produce the oil when it should be made here.”
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal recently made the case for more energy production too. The Journal said: “We take the point that reducing regulatory barriers to development won’t increase production or reduce energy prices overnight. But as one oilfield services executive recently told Bloomberg, “Biden is signaling that his environmental goals trump energy security and consumer prices,” and “that’s not lost on public companies or the banks they rely on.”
This is exactly why energy policy is so complicated. There is no way to increase production now to help lower gas prices. And any policy debates will take months, make that years, before they make a difference.
So it’s a question about what kind of energy mix do we want a decade from now?
The recent report by the UN’s latest working group was an urgent call to action because global warming will continue to increase deadly heat waves, droughts, floods, sea-level rise, storm surges, and catastrophic wildfires.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres put it: “People and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change. Nearly half of humanity is living in the danger zone — now. Many ecosystems are at the point of no return — now.”
Indeed Europe – where gas prices were high even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine – is saying this is the moment for a transition. Independence.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner is calling green sources as “freedom energies.”
One study, published by Wuppertal Institute, said that Europe could move faster to replace oil and gas heating with electric heat pumps, powered by renewables. “A smart strategy focused on increasing efficiency and expanding renewables not only reduces supply risks,” said the Institute in a statement, adding that the transition would also be “highly economically attractive for households, businesses and public institutions.”
This could be done a lot faster than adding more oil and gas or even exploring more fuel from the United States.
Then stepping up the shift to renewable energy is something that people say they want.
According to March 1 Pew Research: A relatively small share of Americans, or 31 percent, believe the U.S. should phase out the use of oil, coal and natural gas completely; far more (67 percent) say the country should use a mix of fossil fuel and renewable energy sources. Officials are considering ways to remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere through tree plantings as well as carbon capture and storage.
There is a partisan bent to this data, too.
“On balance, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents give greater priority to expanding the production of oil, coal and natural gas than to developing alternative energy sources, and they overwhelmingly believe that fossil fuels should remain a part of the energy picture in the U.S,” Pew found. “Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, very large majorities support prioritizing the development of alternative energy sources and favor the U.S. taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050.”
And are we doing enough, or at least, as much as we should? Pew reports 36 percent saying the U.S. is doing less than other countries with large economies, 32 percent say it is doing more, and 31 percent say it’s doing as much.
A complicated story – all reflected in one daily news cycle.
Mark Trahant, Shoshone-Bannock, is editor-at-large for Indian Country Today. On Twitter: @TrahantReports Trahant is based in Phoenix. The Indigenous Economics Project is funded with a major grant from the Bay and Paul Foundations.
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