A sudden policy reversal

America is not the only country where oil and gas development gets pushback from the environmental community. It turns out Great Britain is not immune, either.

Last week, a major oil and gas project in the North Sea was given the okay by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, according to The Associated Press. The North Sea Transition Authority, charged with maximizing the economic benefits of Britain’s North Sea energy resources while also helping the country meet its climate goals for carbon emissions, approved development of The Rosebank Field, an area 80 miles northwest of the Shetland Islands.

The move would appear to be made in conjunction with PM Sunak’s walkback of his recent call to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party’s sole member of Parliament, called it “morally obscene,” while admitting the country should continue with existing production, just no “new” production.

However, she took it a step further (and one might say out of her depth) by saying “cheaper bills aren’t delivered by allowing … foreign-owned fossil fuel giants to extract more oil and gas … and sell it overseas to the highest bidder.”

Her economic arguments, at a minimum, are suspect.

The “highest bidder” is simply what the world market will bear. And the more energy supply that exists on the market will mean lower bids, so to speak. In fact, Britain—and the rest of Europe, America and the world—will experience lower energy costs as a result of this project, if only marginally.

But the UK will benefit the most because it owns the land and will receive revenue from taxes.

There’s also the additional economic activity that will presumably be enjoyed by the country from the people it takes to make the operation go. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

The larger question is: why the reversal in policy? In a word: Voters.

Voters drive cars, and by extension, drive demand for the fuel. PM Sunak was concerned that voters didn’t like his environmental program so he responded to the will of the people and changed it. Isn’t this the larger point of living in a society where leaders, just as in America, are democratically elected?