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The Environmental Justice Case for Domestic Oil Production
Hear me out.
As the Boston Herald editorial board joins the rising chorus of voices from left and right urging President Joe Biden to ease back from his commitment to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels, at least for now, an equally vehement chorus has emerged to extoll the higher fuel prices as a good thing.
“Time for Biden to fire up the coal plants,” urged the Boston Herald editorial staff today. They aren’t the only ones saying it, either. “Biden Has ‘Only Bad Options’ for Bringing Down Oil Prices,” concluded the New York Times on June 5, adding miserably; “The president’s trip to Saudi Arabia is unlikely to reduce oil and gasoline prices, and it is not clear that anything else he might do would work, either.”
While President Biden has called for a three-month gas-tax holiday, and invoked the Defense Production Act to accelerate the clean energy economy in recent weeks, U.S. consumers continue to grow very nervous as they watch prices rise across the board, impacted by skyrocketing fuel and production costs.
Those who oppose domestic energy production frequently ask: “Why would we want the dirty work of producing our own fossil fuels domestically?”
Pointing to impoverished Afghans forced to toil in unsafe coal mines in, “The…