President Biden's Golden Opportunity

Gas prices across the nation are skyrocketing, spelling trouble for President Biden. Source: SF Gate.

“Gas is $5.55 man. It’ll cost me 60 bucks just to fill up.” 

Those were the words of my friend when I called to invite him to Berkeley last Sunday. He then began to groan about President Biden driving up gas prices – he loves to complain to me about “my President.” I took it in stride, laughed it off, and offered to pay for half his gas. 

Maybe evaluating President Biden’s performance based on the price of gas isn’t fair. Many experts have noted that low gas prices during the Trump administration were a result of a lack of demand for gas during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, Biden and the United States would have faced geopolitical humiliation if the administration did not block Russian exports of oil into the U.S. after recent invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladmir Putin. 

But voters don’t care about fairness. To mobilize and gain support from voters in November, Democrats must offer a way to combat rising gas prices or eliminate gas prices as a relevant concern to Americans. 

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Republicans are putting political pressure on Biden to ramp up domestic oil production. Both Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham have made comments on Fox News urging the Biden administration to consider restarting construction on the Keystone XL pipeline. One of President Biden’s first actions in office was to kill the pipeline, citing its negative environmental impacts. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, Republicans are using rising gas prices as a political cudgel and forcing the Biden administration to play defense. 

President Biden and Vice President Harris are falling for their trick – abandoning nearly all rhetoric proposing renewable energy investment as a tool to reduce the economic impact of rising gas prices and end American oil dependency. In March, when questioned about rising gas prices, Vice President Harris told Americans “there is a price to pay for democracy.” In President Biden's State of the Union address, he only mentioned climate change one time in a passing reference to his legislative plan to curb the cost of inflation. 

Democrats don’t have to pick between combating the climate crisis and reducing American dependence on foreign and domestic oil production. As President Obama’s former press secretary Rahm Emmanuel famously remarked, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” The two biggest investments in combating climate change have been in times of great economic and geopolitical crises. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, President Obama's stimulus package earmarked $90 billion for clean energy investments to create green jobs and transform the American economy. President Biden's American Rescue Plan, passed just last year, provided $30 billion to improve public transit systems. As Europe begins to rethink its dependence on Russian oil and invest in renewables, President Biden and Democrats have a unique opportunity to leverage popular support for lowering gas prices and reducing American dependence on foreign and domestic oil into real investments in climate change mitigation and renewable energy infrastructure. 

Bringing a renewable energy infrastructure investment bill to the floor of the House of Representatives could give Democrats and President Biden the opportunity to reclaim the political narrative in the lead-up to the midterms. Right now, the administration looks extremely reactionary, offering no plan to get out in front of the oil production and inflation crisis. The media attention and voter awareness surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine provides a golden opportunity for the administration to re-engage voters just in time for the midterms and deliver on a key campaign promise to combat climate change. 

President Biden speaking at the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow on Nov. 2, 2021. Biden has promised to make climate a top priority of his administration, but he has softened his rhetoric on climate during the current energy crisis following the invasion of Ukraine. Source: White House.

What would be in such a proposal? Democrats would likely have to narrowly tailor such a bill to include policies like electric car subsidies and renewable energy infrastructure investments for windmills and solar panels. Both would be explainable to the average American voter as an attempt to reduce American dependence on gas and oil as well as mitigate the effects of inflation.  

Federal programs to subsidize green energy investment have had much success in the past decade. For example, Tesla Motors received a $465 million loan from the Energy Department and a $7500 government subsidy for consumers to buy electric vehicles. These policies aided Tesla in becoming an electric car behemoth. However, previous legislation has capped the number of vehicles an electric car company can receive tax credits for at 200,000 vehicles. President Biden has already proposed to increase the subsidy to $12500 and eliminate the vehicle cap. The current energy crisis could provide the political cover to pass such a package as these policies would reduce America's dependence on oil and gas for automobile travel and curb inflation by reducing spending on energy consumption. 

Here’s a line for President Biden on the campaign trail: “How can Republicans pretend they are representing the interests of average Americans and not vote for a bill that would reduce energy prices for the majority of Americans?” 

Every president faces geopolitical and economic challenges. Great presidents rise to the challenge and pass legislation to ameliorate the crisis and achieve their political goals – others are remembered for their failures. As the old saying goes, “life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.” If President Biden can leverage the tragedy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine into a legislative package that reduces our dependence on fossil fuelds, he will be remembered as the president who solidified our transition to a greener economy. If not, he will be remembered as a Democratic president who failed to capitalize on an opportunity to combat the climate crisis.