Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash Sunday to address the rising cost of energy in America.
“It will be more expensive this year than last year.” Granholm remarked in regard to heating costs. “We are in a slightly more beneficial position, certainly relative to Europe because … they’re going to pay five times higher. We have the same problem in fuels that the supply chains have. The oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as the demand requires.”
When asked about the national average of gasoline reaching $3.42/gallon, Granholm stated, “Every president is frustrated because they can’t control the price of gasoline. OPEC is unfortunately controlling the agenda in regards to oil prices. OPEC is a cartel and it controls over 50% of the supply of gasoline.
Households are expected to spend 54% more for propane, 43% more for home heating oil, 30% more for natural gas and 6% more for electric heating compared to a last winter, according to a report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released last month.
White House energy advisor Amos Hochstein claimed in October that America was in the midst of an energy crisis. “This is not just natural gas prices that have been elevated,” he stated, “but crude oil is at very high levels at the moment … and gasoline prices in the United States today are at seven-year highs as natural gas peaks at the same time.”
Under the Trump Administration, the U.S. was poised to become “energy independent,” according to then EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski.
President Joe Biden, however, halted new gas and oil permits on his first day in office and cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline. That pipeline would have carried over 800,000 barrels of oil a day from western Canada to oil refineries throughout the Midwest and Gulf Coast.
When asked Saturday, Biden was noncommittal on ordering a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release in an attempt to address rising prices after the OPEC+ coalition rejected calls from the U.S. and other nations to increase output by more than planned in December.
“I’m not anticipating that OPEC would respond, that Russia and/or Saudi Arabia would respond,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “They’re gonna pump some more oil. Whether they pump enough oil is a different thing.”
