Global oil prices are rising,
which translates to higher prices at the gas pump.
Not great news considering Labor day weekend, however, the country,
meaning the United States, is in fact pumping a record amount of oil.
In fact, the Biden administration currently is pumping more oil, or
is allowing for the pumping of more oil, than even the Trump administration had.
And you wouldn't think that considering what you hear Republican politicians
argue, they claim that we were on the path to energy independence, and
because of Biden's climate change policies, they are impacting our ability
to produce the fossil fuels necessary to keep the prices low at the pump.
Those are all lies, the problem is Joe Biden ran a campaign where he promised
voters that he would not allow for any new drilling, so if he came out and
defended himself by saying no, no, I'm actually allowing for
more drilling under my watch might hurt him at the polls.
So it's this difficult position that Biden has put himself in, but he deserves it
because you shouldn't make campaign promises that you do not intend to keep.
Now, U.S. oil production as I mentioned earlier, was already
the highest in the world, but it's now on track to set a record this year.
U.S. oil production is forecast to average an all time high of 12.8 million
barrels a day this year and keep growing to 13.1 million in 2024,
according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
And that's up from the most recent trough of 5 million barrels a day back in 2008.
And Biden is literally pumping more oil than Trump did.
Oil production from federal lands and waters has risen on Biden's watch,
reaching past 3 million barrels per day last year.
The high mark during Donald Trump's term was 2.75 million barrels a day.
So again, Biden can't brag about this because his voters don't wanna hear it.
This is not something that would help him politically with Democratic voters,
especially progressives, but it could have an impact on independence and whether or
not they support him.
But I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that while Republicans
claim that Biden's policies are having an impact at the gas pump, that is a lie.
But the prices have gone up quite a bit, the national average price for
regular gasoline rose to $3.87 a gallon last week, up more than 30 cents
in a month, and that's according to the American Automobile Association.
Prices had held near $3.50 for most of the year, but
it may be a while before drivers see that level again, especially after an explosion
forced the shutdown of the nation's third largest refinery in late August.
And so former Vice President Mike Pence has capitalized off of the high gas prices
by putting out this incredibly goofy ad, take a look at this.
>> Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Mike Pence here, remember $2 a gallon gas?
I do, and then Joe Biden became president of the United States and
launched his war on energy.
Since that time, gasoline prices are up 60%, electricity prices are up 25%.
Joe Biden's war on energy is causing real hardship for working families,
small businesses, and family farms, but we've got a plan to relieve all of that.
We just unveiled the Pence energy plan that'll not only put our country back on
a path to energy independence, but by 2040 we will reclaim America's role
as the leading producer of energy in the world.
Join us in the fight for American energy leadership,
by going to MikePence 2024.com.
We can lead the world once again to a more prosperous and a secure future for
America with energy independence and American energy leadership.
>> Speaker 1: One of the other forgettable Republican candidates for
President Tim Scott also did something similar,
although he did it in social media, on X, gas prices are sky high because the Biden
administration has shut down energy production in America, but that's a lie.
>> Speaker 3: Total liar, Senator Tim Scott's a liar, and
you'll see all of media kissing his ass very respectable politician,
even MSNBC and CNN love that guy, why?
Corporate establishment Republican goon, so they love guys like that,
you're gonna lie about and to help the oil companies, bravo Tim Scott, bravo.
>> Speaker 1: Now Cenk, why don't we actually talk about what's actually going
on here with the international market and
how this really works because the idea that private industry,
these fossil fuel companies are basically keeping these resources here
within our borders is ridiculous because they are playing the international market.
So how does this work?
>> Speaker 3: So a couple of things here.
First of all, as Anna pointed out, we're now producing more gas than any
other country in the world, and Biden is producing more oil and gas in his term,
in his administration, than any other administration in American history.
So if you see them saying Biden's not drilling enough, that is 100% false.
Yet the theory was, and this is not a right wing theory,
this is all over corporate media, MSNBC, Fox, etc, they all say the same lie,
we just got to drill more to get energy independent, right?
And then that gas price will go down if we drill more, well we've never drilled more
in our history and gas prices aren't going down, why?
For two reasons we've been telling you all along and of course we are 100%
right about, number one is, it's not our oil, it's the corporation's oil.
It's not the American people's, if we said hey it's the American people's oil,
they'd say communists, what do you mean?
A country keeping its own natural resources?
No, of course, you give it to a private corporation and they make the profit and
the American people get nothing out of it, okay?
So since it's their oil and not American oil, what can they do with it?
They can export it.
>> Speaker 1: They could do whatever they damn well please with it.
>> Speaker 3: Exactly, and they do export it.
So they drill it here, and they sell it elsewhere.
They sell some of it here, and some of it abroad.
So this idea that we're gonna keep the American oil has been a lie told to you by
American media, every part of American media your whole life, and you can go,
you could look it up, you can research it,
you could do anything you like it, I want you to do that.
And you will find out no, of course, we don't keep the oil we drill here,
the companies keep it, and
sell it for a profit wherever they get the largest profit.
The second issue is it's a global market, and the global market is gigantic.
So even if the largest oil producer, America drills significantly more,
it still doesn't affect the prices enough globally,
because of simple supply and demand issues.
There's so many other factors across the world, there's what OPEC is doing,
there's the Russia Ukraine war, etc.
So this idea that if we just drill more here,
gas prices will go down has now definitively been proven false.
And it was obviously false if you knew anything about basic economics.
But yet everyone in media makes it seem like,
well if we just drill more we'll be energy independent and gas prices will be lower.
Why do they lie like that?
Because a lot of their top advertisers are oil companies.
So they lie on their behalf and pretend to be objective.
>> Speaker 1: 1,000%.
And one of the other games that is currently being played by the OPEC
plus cartel, these are the oil producing countries,
is they will intentionally withhold production in order to have
limited supply on the market to keep prices as high as possible.
Russia and Saudi Arabia have been playing that game recently.
>> Speaker 3: Absolutely, and then it has to be noted in this story we're beating up
on Republicans, are beating up on the media, but how about Biden?
>> Speaker 1: Yep.
>> Speaker 3: Biden said that we would do less drilling, he said on public land he
wouldn't do any of the drilling that Trump's talking about.
He's now drilling on public land more than Trump did, total utter lie by Joe Biden.
Broken promise again, right?
And he's bragging about it, and remember they said Joe Biden did so much,
no progressor should run against him, no one should run against him,
he's such a great Democrat, he delivered so much for you.
And the number one thing he delivered was he delivered on climate change.
Now, he's bragging about I didn't deliver on climate change at all,
I pumped more oil and more gas than Trump did, than Bush did, than any of them did.
Ha,ha, I'm the worst on climate change, congratulations Joe Biden,
you must be so proud.
>> Speaker 1: Well, one correction, he's not bragging about it too much or
publicly because it would hurt him with some of the voters.
>> Speaker 1: No that's why he's having other Democratic corporate senators like
Chris Murphy and others go on Twitter and go, we're doing the most drilling,
we drill more than the Republicans.
We lie to our voters all the time, we're not gonna do a goddamn thing about climate
change, cuz of our corporate no, I didn't mean that.
I mean, we think that climate change is irrelevant and
oil is the best thing in the world, and Biden sent me out here to brag about it.
Of course, Biden's not bragging about anything,
cuz he's in a basement asleep somewhere.