Many Democrats deny Biden ever made war on oil, but a new report documents his war effort

The American Energy Alliance (AEA) has been keeping a tally of actions that Congress and current administrations have taken that impact the production of oil and gas in the U.S. The most recent list counts 50 actions that the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans have taken to unleash American energy since Jan. 20. 

The report starts with President Donald Trump signing 200 executive orders, including a declaration of a national energy emergency, an end to former President Joe Biden’s pause on liquified natural gas export permits, and an order to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. The list also includes Congress passing the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act’s methane fee and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s plan to review 31 regulations the Biden administration rolled out. 

“In just over 60 days, President Trump and Congress have already taken over 50 actions to reverse the damage. It is a great relief to see positive movement in the right direction, but there is much more to do. We look forward to rolling up our sleeves and helping to get the job done,” Tom Pyle, president of the AEA, said in a statement. 

Record high production despite hundreds of impediments

Under the Biden administration, oil companies produced record-high amounts of oil and gas, a fact many Democrats have used to either deny there was ever a war on fossil fuels or to credit Biden with being pro-energy. During the Biden administration, however, the AEA documented hundreds of actions the administration and Democrats took to impede the flow of oil and gas to consumers. 

In May 2022, the AEA published on their website an essay titled “100 Ways Biden and the Democrats Have Made it Harder to Produce Oil & Gas." At the time, Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, had passed the House without a single vote from Republicans, and it was making its way through the Senate. 

The list starts out with Biden, on his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021, signing executive orders canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and placing a moratorium on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge. By May of 2022, Biden was canceling a lease sale of 1 million acres in the Cook Inlet of Alaska and a lease sale in the Gulf of America. 

The AEA released regular updates throughout the Biden administration, and by the time Biden left office, the list had grown to 250 actions the Biden administration and Democrats had taken that made it harder for companies to produce oil and gas, including many of the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August 2022. The latest AEA report listing actions taken by the GOP and Trump administration shows a complete reversal on energy policy in the U.S. 

Alex Stevens, manager of policy and communications for the Institute for Energy Research, the research wing of the AEA, told Just the News that many of these actions are vulnerable to future administrations. Many of the items on the new report are executive orders, which was also the case with AEA’s list of actions Biden and the Democrats took. 

“The congressional actions are sort of the first steps on some of the CRAs [Congressional Review Act] that need to be done. I think overall, a good first couple months here. It’s going to be very important that Congress follows through on a lot of these things, because obviously, with his executive orders, they can be overturned,” Stevens said. 

Boasts of production, accusations of "conspiracy theory"

While the AEA list shows Biden and the Democrats took every opportunity to add more regulations impacting the oil and gas industry, many Democrats now deny there was any war on fossil fuels. In multiple congressional hearings, Democrats argued the record-high production rates under the Biden administration dispute Republican claims of a concerted effort to harm the oil and gas industry. 

“My colleagues have invited you here today to testify about President Biden's so-called war on energy, which we know doesn't exist. For better or worse, the United States is producing record high levels of oil and natural gas today, it's never been so high so our colleagues can breathe easy,” Rep. Jeremy Raskin, D-Md., said at a House Oversight Committee hearing in May 2024. 

After claiming that there was no effort to reduce oil and gas production, Raskin went on to explain that fossil fuels are causing an unparalleled crisis and oil companies have been deceiving everyone. “Climate change is the defining crisis of our time. And we know that burning fossil fuels is by far the leading factor in contributing to climate change, a fact that fossil fuel companies knew about decades ago, but suppressed,” Raskin said. 

Inconvenient fact

Raskin wasn’t the only Democrat making these seemingly contradictory statements in hearings. “This may be an inconvenient fact for some, but under President Biden and Vice President Harris, we are now producing more oil than ever before, more than Russia, more than Saudi Arabia, and more than any other country on Earth,” Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said at a House Budget Committee Hearing in September. 

Later in the hearing, Boyle seemed to take the other side, claiming that fossil fuels were costing Americans billions and to back up his claim, he cited the “Billion Dollar Disaster” tally of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The tally claims to show that costs of climate-related natural disasters are growing higher every year as a result of more extreme weather, but the methodology NOAA uses to produce the report has received extensive criticisms. In the face of mounting criticism, the agency agreed in August, one month before Boyle’s statements at the House Budget Hearing, to review and improve its methodology to be in line with scientific standards. 

At a House Oversight Committee hearing in February, Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., called the war on oil and gas “imaginary.” 

“The United States is already producing more oil and gas than ever, more than any country in history,” Ansari said. She then explained that the U.S. should prioritize a transition away from fossil fuels because “the gravest existential threat to our national security is climate change.” 

Stevens, from the Institute for Energy Research said that a lot of the impact of the actions Democrats and the Biden administration took impacted long-term investment on upstream investments, which is the exploration and production aspect of the industry furthest up the supply chain from the end consumers. This blunted any immediate impacts on production, as there were wells drilled under the first Trump administration that were still producing. 

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston last month that more investment in existing oil and gas fields is needed  in order to satisfy future energy demand. It was a contrast from the agency’s outlook just a few years ago, according to Reuters. The IEA had claimed in 2021 that no investments in new oil and gas development were needed as the world would be transitioning to a net zero economy by 2050. 

Regulatory hostility

Despite the Democrats who now dispute there was ever an effort to reduce the production of oil and gas, the AEA has documented hundreds of actions that the previous administration took in line Biden’s climate agenda, which made it harder for oil companies to produce fossil fuels. Its latest lists show the Trump administration has taken a very different direction. 

At the House Budget Committee hearing in September, Alex Epstein, president of the Center for Industrial Progress and author of “Fossil Future,” offered an explanation for how there could be so much regulatory hostility toward the oil and gas industry under the Biden administration, while the industry managed to produce record amounts. 

“This is very important when you hear the Biden administration has record production. That's in spite of them, not because of them,” Epstein said.