Help Ukraine, Help New Mexico “Drill Baby Drill”
According to Investopedia, Oil and gas are responsible for more than 60% of Russia’s exports and provide more than 30% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). That’s a lot.
How can the US best push back against what amounts to a petro-state? Radical environmentalists seem to think that pushing EVEN harder toward “green” energy is realistic and will loosen Russia’s grip. Of course, countries like Germany that have gone down that path suffer from some of the highest electricity prices on the planet and even if 100% of electricity generation in Europe was “renewable” or even nuclear, McKibben fails to realize that oil is primarily used in transportation, not electricity generation. 
An alternative would be to bring down the price of Russia’s leading source of revenue to put pressure on their economy. This idea has the additional benefit of having worked in the past.
Here are some specific ideas that would have two salutary benefits: 1) Boosting the US economy/Relationship w/ Europe and 2) reducing global energy prices.
- Move aggressively to open the Keystone XL pipeline;
- Reopen federal lands to drilling and oil/natural gas exploration, including ANWR. Revoke Biden’s order banning oil/gas leases in the Outer Continental Shelf;
- Aggressively work to eliminate unnecessary regulations on the US energy industry producers and refiners;
- Work to bring new energy sources to Europe in an effort to replace Russian sources.
Of course, all of this has the ADDITIONAL benefit of benefiting New Mexico’s economy. As New Mexico Congresswoman Yvette Herrell recently wrote, the Biden Administration has dramatically slowed leasing on federal lands (an issue of special interest to New Mexico) in the wake of a judge’s ruling tossing out the moratorium on such leases.
HT: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem
