LETTER: Energy production remains strong under President Biden
Roger Marvin’s Sunday letter to the Review-Journal on his utility bill complains about President Joe Biden’s January 2021 executive order that has resulted in higher energy costs. I assume he is referring to his directing the secretary of the interior to halt new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and water.
I can’t speak to the reason for an energy company’s price increases but production data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration indicates that both crude oil and natural gas production are at historic levels.
American crude oil production hit a peak in November 2019, just before the pandemic hit, but has since recovered to exceed those levels, as of the October 2023 reporting.
Natural gas production didn’t seem to have been impacted as much by the pandemic and increased by about 9 percent in October 2023 as compared to the previous peak in February 2020, just before the pandemic.
So it appears that Mr. Biden’s executive order has not impacted oil and gas production. And there is not much that the administration can do about what the energy companies charge.