EDITORIAL: Democrats hit desperation mode over energy prices

As a parable of chutzpah, it’s difficult to top the apocryphal tale about the boy who killed his parents and then asked the judge for mercy because he was an orphan. But a handful of House Democrats gave it a shot Wednesday as they hectored oil and gas executives about high energy prices.

It’s an article of faith for modern politicians that the voters are too brain-dead to remember what their representatives said three days ago, let alone a year back. Democrats, in desperation mode as gasoline prices exceed $5 a gallon and inflation runs at a 40-year high, are banking on that cynical assumption as theself-preservation urge kicks in.

It was barely two years ago when candidate Joe Biden told a debate audience that the days of oil and gas production were numbered. “No. 1, no more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry,” he said in March 2020. “No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, No. 1”

Meanwhile, the Review-Journal reported this week that the Biden budget blueprint calls for nearly a dozen new taxes on oil and gas producers. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seek a “windfall” profits tax on energy companies, which would further drive up costs and discourage production. Progressives have made no secret of their animosity toward traditional energy producers. Just six months ago, a number of House Democrats voted to ban fracking and demanded that the industry take steps to bring less oil and gas to market.

Yet here were Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week pretending none of this ever happened as they blamed oil and gas executives for price gouging during a show hearing intended to point the finger anywhere else except where it belongs.

“Democrats pondered why the companies do not increase oil and gas production more rapidly to make up for shortfalls caused by the embargo of Russian energy imports,” E&E Daily reported.

It takes longer than a few weeks to ramp up drilling operations, but what incentive exists for industry executives to greatly increase capital outlays when the party that controls Congress has vowed to drive them out of business?

“I’ve certainly enjoyed watching my Democrat colleagues convulse dramatically between two opposing stances — drill more, drill less,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas. Sen. Ted Cruz also choked on the irony. “The kangaroo court that’s playing out in the House is particularly amusing,” he said. “Especially when every single nominee from the Biden administration has laid out their objective to starve the energy industry of capital.”

Indeed, the Democratic chutzpah on this issue is striking even by Washington standards. And the voters shouldn’t forget it.