The New York Times reports that President Biden has a plan to counteract Russia’s energy stranglehold on Europe:
The Biden Administration announced on Tuesday that it was working with gas and crude oil suppliers from the Middle East, North Africa and Asia to bolster supplies to Europe in coming weeks, in an effort to blunt the threat that Russia could cut off fuel shipments in the escalating conflict over Ukraine.
The EU currently imports about a third of its oil and gas from Russia. And, of course, the Germans have been busily making the situation worse by shuttering their nuclear-powered electric plants and pushing for the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would bypass Ukraine and further entrench German dependence on Vladimir Putin’s petro power.
“We expect to be prepared to ensure alternative supplies covering a significant majority of the potential shortfall,’’ a Biden administration official told the Times.
And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. . .
According to the unnamed “senior administration official,” U.S. strategy involves:
boosting “a few cargoes of different suppliers,’’ and could involve sending shipments of liquid natural gas from the United States and other producers.
Biden’s “plan” is properly understood as geopolitical theater.
It’s soft power so soft that even our friends in Berlin are blushing.
That the Biden administration, at this late hour, is attempting to do something about the problem is better than nothing, I guess. But not by much.
Remember, for eight years the Obama-Biden administration fought the development of U.S. oil and gas reserves at every turn. It fought the development of the American pipeline system and American energy-exportation facilities. And now, under Joe Biden, the U.S. government has failed to do all it can to kill the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will directly bankroll Russia. Finally, it has frittered away credibility, time, and money with a symbolic release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a laughable attempt to reduce the price at the pump by a few (temporary) cents at a moment when there was a geopolitical and energy crisis afoot.
Unfortunately for the United States and our European allies, the time to fix this problem was ten years ago. “Fixing” Europe’s dependence on a rogue regime’s energy resources isn’t like flipping the light switch off. It will take years of effort and billions of dollars in investment (on top of years of higher-than-necessary energy prices in the meantime) — if, that is, the problem gets fixed at all. There’s a lot of blame to go around in green- and soft-power obsessed Berlin and Washington for all this.
Yes, better late than never — or so the saying goes. But I’ll be surprised if this administration is still pushing these projects once the current crisis has passed (if it passes). If six months from now, the Biden administration is still working hard to facilitate U.S. energy production and exportation to our European friends, if it’s cutting red tape to allow the construction of new American liquefied natural-gas (LNG) export terminals, if it’s sanctioning Russian energy exports and doing everything it can to ween the United States, Germany, and the whole Western world off Moscow’s energy straightjacket, I’ll be surprised and I’ll be relieved.
But I won’t hold my breath.