BIlly Long: America facing an energy dilemma brought on by Biden, "worst president ever"

(From Seventh District Congressman Billy Long)

As we head into the winter months everyone wants to know, how high their heating bill is going to be. With the exponential increase in gas prices over the last year you know there is going to be sticker shock. 

When you combine that with the Biden Administration’s attack on common sense energy policies, many Americans are worried about energy prices. That is on top of the 6.8% inflation numbers - the worst in 40 years that was announced on December 10th. 

One way that we can help to heat American homes without drastic cost increases is through the use of pipelines, better known to the Biden Administration as the Devil.

This issue is particularly important in Missouri. In 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a new state of the art pipeline 65 miles long in the St. Louis area, which connects with neighboring pipelines to provide natural gas to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. 

In June, a Federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled that the pipeline should shut down because FERC didn’t adequately demonstrate a need for the pipeline. The good news is that FERC has allowed the pipeline to continue under an emergency use. This is only a temporary reprieve. 

Spire Energy, who operates the pipeline, is asking the US Supreme Court to hear the case and allow them to continue operations. They say that shutting down the pipeline would affect up to 400,000 homes in the St. Louis area.

The debate around pipelines is not just playing out in Missouri, but nationwide. Democrats see pipelines as harmful to the environment, but the facts aren’t on their side. Without pipelines to move natural gas, transportation would be relegated to tanker trucks, which are far worse for the environment, and less efficient. 

That is why President Biden’s shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline was such a terrible idea. Not only did it kill thousands of jobs, but it made it harder to transport gas, which in turn makes America more dependent on foreign energy sources. 

When President Trump left office, America was energy independent, but not even a year into President Biden’s tenure we are no longer energy independent. That is why gas prices have skyrocketed in recent months. 

When Democrats demonize and destroy common sense policies, there are real world consequences that their utopian worldviews couldn’t predict. This isn’t a game, and the American people are feeling the financial impacts of their terrible policies. In Kansas City Missouri this week President Biden said that everyone needs to pay their fair share for gas but only their fair share. What does that even mean?

While President Biden derides pipelines at home, he has no problem with them being built overseas, namely in Russia. Yes, President Biden lifted sanctions on Nordstream 2, a Russian project to build a pipeline to Germany. 

This move gives Russia more power, power that they should not have. Making our European allies dependent on Russian oil and natural gas is a direct threat to our national security. We simply cannot allow Russia to gain outsized influence in Europe, but President Biden doesn’t care. And they said that President Trump was the one that was in Vladimir Putin’s pocket?

America is facing an energy dilemma brought on by the worst President ever. Inflation has affected everything in American life, and energy prices are no different. The answer to this solution is simple, stop shutting down pipelines that are working. President Biden might not realize it, but his energy policies are terrible for this country, and are designed to build Russia back better.