It might seem difficult to take positions on a prominent issue diametrically opposed and equally preposterous. But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a man whose Pavlovian opposition to the U.S. fossil energy producers has led him into incoherence rare even by Beltway standards, has achieved just such a magical trick.
Whitehouse, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, for years has accused the major U.S. fossil energy producers of creating the purported climate “crisis” and hiding their knowledge of and deceiving the public about the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. Translation: For decades, the U.S. fossil energy sector has produced too much energy and thus too many greenhouse gas emissions.
Alas, that stance is so yesterday. Whitehouse’s new argument is that “oil and gas companies could be engaging in collusive, anti-competitive activities with OPEC+ that would raise crude oil prices.” So now the U.S. fossil energy producers in cahoots with OPEC+ might be producing too little.
With respect to Whitehouse’s collusion argument: Perhaps Whitehouse should call President Joe Biden as a witness for a Budget Committee hearing, as it was Biden who in October 2022 asked the Saudis to delay a scheduled production cut until after the midterm elections.
More generally, it is the Biden administration that has taken hundreds of actions making U.S. fossil energy production more difficult and costly. It is the Biden administration that has tried to hide the attendant adverse price effects by using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and other government stockpiles to manipulate short-run supplies in a wholly ad hoc fashion — that is, for purely political purposes.
If U.S. producers are “colluding” with OPEC+ to restrict output, they are doing a rather bad job of it. Since March 2021, when real U.S. gross domestic product growth was about 5%, U.S. crude oil output has increased by 13%. U.S. natural gas production has increased by more than 5%. U.S. refinery capacity utilization has increased from 81.9% to 89.7%, refinery use of crude oil and other inputs has increased by 10.7%, and refinery output of products has increased by 8%. OPEC+ output is about the same as in early 2021, while non-U.S. output in the rest of the world has increased by almost 4%.
With respect to Whitehouse’s climate “responsibility” and “deception” assertions: U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from all combustion of fossil fuels are about 74% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Elimination of all U.S. fossil fuel combustion emissions would reduce global temperatures in 2100 by 0.077 degrees Celcius, applying the Environmental Protection Agency climate model under realistic assumptions. That effect would not be detectable.
Accordingly, someone should ask Whitehouse to explain the precise sense in which U.S. fossil energy producers are “responsible” for the asserted climate crisis (for which, by the way, there is no evidence). That is the relevant question in particular given that reduced output by U.S. producers would be offset largely or wholly with increased production by foreign producers.
Whitehouse continues, “For decades, the fossil fuel industry has known about the economic and climate harms of its products.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 1990 First Assessment Report made it clear that it could not explain why temperatures were higher 5,000-6,000 years ago despite no evidence of an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Fast forward to the Sixth Assessment Report: IPCC still cannot narrow down the “likely” range of climate effects of increased greenhouse gas concentrations. And the IPCC climate models continue to overstate the atmospheric temperature record by a factor of over 2.3.
In short, according to Whitehouse the fossil energy producers for decades have “known” things that were not known in 1990 and are not known now. They are producing too little energy and too much. Such are the Schrödinger-like fruits of a stance wholly ideological, impervious to facts, and oblivious to the real investment and economic harm caused by the Beltway blame game.
Whitehouse’s “investigations” have produced no useful information but gobs of Beltway propaganda: “If it is an election year, the fossil energy producers must be guilty of something.” Is this the best he can do? The evidence says yes.
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Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.