For seniors and other Americans on fixed incomes, the cost of energy is no small matter. With spikes in energy prices often forcing seniors to make difficult decisions about medicine or groceries, you’d think the Biden Administration would be doing everything in its power to boost oil and gas supplies and create downward pressure on prices. Unfortunately, they’re heading in the opposite direction by limiting energy development and hamstringing America’s energy producers with even tighter restrictions, moves that create less supply and higher prices. That’s bad news for seniors and all American families and businesses counting on the president to provide relief in an already challenging economy.
The administration’s latest move, an announcement by the Department of Interior on offshore oil and gas leases, is a clear illustration of the administration putting its short-sighted agenda ahead of consumers. Interior officials recently announced its preliminary outlook of the nation’s offshore leasing five-year plan, a roadmap that shockingly offers the smallest amount of offshore oil and gas leases in American history. The “Proposed Final Program,” a plan Congress essentially forced Interior to cough up through provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, blatantly thumbs its nose at the very idea of American production.
For example, in announcing it would offer only three potential oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, slated for 2025, 2027 and 2029, Interior made clear that this historically low number was the minimum required by Congress to allow expansion of its offshore wind leasing program through 2030. In other words, Interior suggests, the department would have been happier to offer no oil and gas leases at all, had doing so not jeopardized renewable energy projects the president so clearly favors.
You don’t have to read between the lines to pick up on Interior’s clear disdain for traditional energy sources like oil and gas. The five-year plan finally unveiled by Interior, many months after its legal requirement, was carefully designed to leave room for exploration and development in the offshore wind sector while singling out oil and gas with restrictions sure to reduce the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, especially in the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico region. The Proposed Final Program joyously declares it will “phase down oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico,” adding that it also “includes zero oil and gas lease sales in the Atlantic, Pacific and Alaskan waters.”
Having released the most restrictive five-year oil and gas leasing plan in the department’s history, one imagines that Interior officials would have preferred to offer no leases at all, instead focusing narrowly on satisfying the administration’s fixation with renewable power. Fortunately, sensible lawmakers forced through provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that required Interior to pay at least some attention to oil and gas leases in exchange for pursuing its pet renewable projects.
Meanwhile, however, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, launched its own not-so-subtle salvo in the administration’s war against American offshore oil and gas production. In August, the Bureau announced new restrictions on offshore production, the product of a “closed door negotiation” with the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth that again singled out oil and gas shipments. Interior placed travel restrictions on various ocean-going vessels that transport oil and gas while giving a pass to offshore renewables. The message is a clear one: oil and gas, the sources that today provide 80% of our nation’s energy, are an unwelcome guest in America’s energy future.
While making life as difficult as possible for America’s oil and gas producers is sure to please the green lobby whose support the Biden Administration so covets, continued steps by federal agencies to limit oil and gas production does no favors to consumers. That includes the more than 40% of older Americans whose only income is Social Security, those Americans who’ve been told to make do with limited funds while inflation has soared as high as 9.1% and the price of staple goods has climbed. In this roller coast of an economy, the average monthly Social Security benefit of $1,781.63 often forces choices no senior should ever have to make.
Perhaps more than any other group, American seniors on fixed incomes will face the consequences of federal policies that limit offshore energy production and keep prices rising. The president’s team could have provided relief by unleashing oil and gas production, but it did exactly the opposite. It’s time the administration stops focusing solely on its overly ambitious climate strategy and instead supports all-inclusive energy production strategies that help American consumers.
Saul Anuzis is president of 60 Plus, the American Association of Senior Citizens.