We’re paying too much for gas. President Biden should rethink his disdain for oil

People, of course, are concerned about the huge increase in gas prices and every negative thing that comes with it.

It’s emptying out Americans’ wallets and is a major problem for our nation’s economy.

Obviously, we all are asking: Why in the world are we paying so much for gas when we are the No. 1 oil producer in the world? When U.S. oil production is cleaner than most other major energy producers?

A couple of years ago, according to Statista, our production hit 16.5 million barrels a day, making the United States energy-independent from all other countries. Unfortunately, we are drilling less oil than before the pandemic; and President Biden canceled the Keystone pipeline.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden blames everything on the war and even considered easing U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for oil. Basically, we would negotiate with a government that has violated human rights and that is supported by the communist regime of Cuba. This idea made absolutely no sense, and even members of the president’s own party, such as U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, criticized it.

Miami-Dade residents are paying an average of $4.901 a gallon for premium. Worse, gas prices are expected to increase. Americans see their economy suffering, not only because of the huge increase in gas prices, but because, over the past year, inflation jumped 7.9%, a 40-year high.

Obviously, with the crisis in Ukraine, the oil situation is getting worse. Biden’s sanctions against Russia are mostly symbolic since we import less that 10% of our oil from that country. But they have, in turn, affected the global market, making prices surge.

The oil crisis has been a long time coming. The oil production was slashed during the COVID pandemic, creating a lag in production now. It does not help that Biden has made it clear that he wants to decrease oil companies’ incentive to pump more oil.

It is understandable that he wants to move Americans toward more sustainable energy, but this solution hurts the pockets of consumers. Ultimately, the full effect of Biden’s policies won’t be seen in the short term, but for right now, it does not help that other challenges, such as a weak supply chain, decreases in personnel and scared investors, also make securing oil so difficult.

Many people believe that electric cars are the solution, and they would be if they were more affordable. However, a single charge at a public charger for an electric car can range from $20-$45, not to mention the high prices of electric cars themselves.

Even for consumers who are well off financially, the transition to electric cars seems to be moving too slowly. Whether out of laziness, complacency or sheer disregard, too many of the bureaucrats who preach about saving the environment might not even have an electric car — and many use private jets.

So, if the goal of this “no oil” crusade is to create a domino effect that pushed Americans to use more electric vehicles, the government or the private sector needs to make it more affordable. For now, the cost of switching is not a price that most people can pay, even with unbearable gas prices.

We obviously need to ease the burden on the environment, but not at the expense of people’s livelihoods. We can also hope that a more-affordable electric alternative will come onto the market soon.

In the meantime, our government and the president should reconsider their disdain for oil and encourage pumping, if only to save us, for now.

Liliam M. Lopez is the founder of the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Dear New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker: Some days, you are really irritating.

That’s because you insist on being a happy warrior in grumpy times. With that eternal, internal and, yes, infernal sunshine of yours, you are to the body politic as that 1-877-Kars4Kids ad would be to a man with a hangover.

You float on pink clouds of bipartisan bonhomie, making friends of opponents, shoveling constituents’ driveways, racial slights bouncing off you like bullets off Superman, so upbeat, you make Fred Rogers look like Lewis Black. Even one of your former aides once said, “Sometimes it’s like, give me a break, Cory, take it down a notch.” This was in a Politico profile under the headline, “Is Cory Booker For Real?”

So yes, senator, some days you’re quite annoying. But there are other days, too. Wednesday was one of them.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee weighing her ascension to the Supreme Court, where she would be the first AfricanAmerican woman in its 232-year history. The clownish grandstanding of senators like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham was in full flower, displays of performative distress over phantom issues having nothing to do with her fitness, and everything to do with making their contempt palpable.

Why contempt? Does it even need saying?

If so, turn to conservative troll Charlie Kirk, who told his audience Brown represents “your country on CRT.” As if that was somehow too subtle, he went on to warn that, “Your children and your grandchildren are going to have to take orders from people like her.”

People. Like. Her.

“And what’s amazing,” he added of this woman who had spent hours quietly answering inane questions asked in bad faith without once snarling about her love for beer, “is that she kind of has an attitude, too.” By which, of course, he meant that she is uppity.

One felt debased by it all. One felt exhausted. And one had to wonder: When will this country ever, as a great man once put it, “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed?”

The feeling and the question have become sadly familiar.

Then, you started talking about resilience and faith. “I’m not letting anybody in the Senate steal my joy,” you declared, calling the Black church into this moment of historical reckoning. You invoked an AfricanAmerican woman who stopped you on the street to say what it meant to see Brown poised on the cusp of history. And an AfricanAmerican janitor who cried at the sight of you, a Black man, in the Senate.

You spoke of what it means to love a country that doesn’t love you back.

You even subpoenaed the ancestors to testify: Langston saying, “America never was America to me, but I swear this oath: America will be;” Harriet, finding in a sky full of stars, one you said she took as her “harbinger of hope for better days — not just for her and those people that were enslaved, but a harbinger of hope for this country.”

“Today, you’re my star,” you said. “You are my harbinger of hope.”

“Don’t worry, my sister,” you told her, and right then, there was nobody in the room but the two of you, Black senator counseling Black judge, Black man uplifting Black woman. “Don’t worry. God has got you.”

Senator, you did well. You found a way to turn ugliness into light, to remind America of itself. Small wonder the judge wept. After days of this, years of this, a lifetime of this, she surely needed what you had to offer.

She’s not the only one.