Old and busted: The oil industry won’t produce gasoline because of profiteering! New hotness: We won’t let them invest in more production because of our incredible transition from fossil fuels!

We knew this already, of course, thanks to Joe Biden’s EO 13990, his repeated pledges to end fossil fuel use, and his promoting the “incredible transition” that high gas prices will supposedly facilitate. It’s intentional, and Biden energy adviser Amos Hochstein admits it (transcript via Townhall):

Biden energy advisor Amos Hochstein: We need to stop projects and limit oil usage to "accelerate the transition." pic.twitter.com/ItxMdcmAnJ

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 19, 2022

“It’s about making a choice between what is the short term and the medium term so we can make sure we have enough oil and gas to support us through the transition and what are the kind of steps we don’t want the oil and gas industry to take that would have longterm consequences when we don’t want new major projects that would take 20-30 years that would become profitable,” Hochstein said. “So we have to make that differentiation to make sure the American consumer has what it needs to grow, grow our economy and the global economy, but not take steps and endanger the climate work that we’re trying to do to make sure that we’re on a better footing to accelerate the transition.”

It’s about making a choice, and Biden made that choice on Day One. His executive order imposed all sorts of new costs and regulatory hurdles on new and expanded investment in oil and natural gas production and refining. Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline that would have expedited delivery of Canadian crude to US refiners. Rather than relent on his energy policy, Biden keeps doubling down on it while offering temporary gimmicks and begging other countries to increase output instead.

Why bother? John Kerry’s down with the “incredible transition” too, as Biden’s climate czar said yesterday:

Biden Climate Czar John Kerry: “We’re behind” and need to “accelerate the transition” to green energy. pic.twitter.com/dCM8hvRLrN

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 18, 2022

The only way to deal with the current energy crisis, initiated by Biden and made worse by Russia’s war on Ukraine, is to increase American production and refining output to support our domestic economy. The only way to accomplish that is to remove the obstacles Biden erected in EO 13990 and to find ways to incentivize long-term investment in expanded extraction and refining operations, or at least to stop insisting that the US government plans to shut down such operations over the next few years. Without long-term return, no one — no matter how much money they have — has any reason to invest in oil production and refining. And the other energy sources that are our supposed replacements don’t exist at scale nor are scalable in their present existence.

In other words, this isn’t about corporate greed — it’s about the arrogance of incompetent elites. Hochstein makes that clear and obvious here.