by Bethany Blankley
On Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his energy plan. It includes reversing all Biden administration policies to get gasoline prices at the pump back to $2 a gallon in 2025.
Gas prices and all other household goods reliant on petroleum have soared to over 40-year highs since President Biden implemented new energy policies in 2021. They include canceling the Keystone Pipeline on his first day in office, halting offshore and onshore lease sales, advancing EPA and other regulatory restrictions solely on U.S. oil and natural gas companies, halting investments in the industry by imposing environmental, social governance policies to restrict lending to U.S. oil and natural gas companies, among other policies.
Both Florida and Texas implemented policies to ban environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing policies in their states. Texas has also fought every administrative policy seeking to halt production in the west Texas region of the Permian Basin—where DeSantis announced his energy plan.
DeSantis announced his “Midland over Moscow” plan in Midland, Texas, in the Permian Basin—where oil and natural gas production is driving production in Texas and the U.S. American companies operating in the Permian Basin are continuing to set production records and emission reduction records.
On Wednesday, DeSantis said his administration would choose “Midland over Moscow. We’ll choose the Marcellus over the Mullahs. We’ll choose the Bakken over Beijing,” referring to the oil and natural gas-rich shales located in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, eastern Ohio and western New York (Marcellus) and in Montana, North Dakota and Canada (Bakken).
“We will also choose critical mineral manufacturing in places like Stillwater, Oklahoma, over some random province in China,” DeSantis said. “Our self-imposed handcuffs on oil gas and critical mineral extraction will be removed. The days of rolling blackouts and unreliable grids will be finished.
“To every American outraged by rising gas prices under [President] Biden … our target goal is $2 a gallon in 2025.
“We will reignite American energy dominance, save the American automobile and assure American energy security.”
Midland over Moscow.
The Marcellus over the Mullahs.
The Bakken over Beijing.
That will be our energy policy when I’m President.
We will reignite American energy dominance, save the American automobile, and assure American energy security. pic.twitter.com/0wv2oQKoin
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) September 20, 2023
DeSantis’ “$2 in 2025” plan pledges to reverse Biden administration policies that he and others argue have targeted the U.S. oil and gas industry, contributed to inflation, and directly impacted prices at the pump, the grocery store and every industry that relies on petroleum.
His “Freedom to Fuel” plan prioritizes 1) restoring American energy dominance, 2) “saving the American automobile,” 3) elevating “evidence over ideology,” 4) “reforming environmental permitting and ending ‘Green Lawfare,'” 5) “jump-starting critical mineral and federal land development,” and 6) building the “most efficient, affordable, and reliable energy grid in the world.”
On his first day in office, if elected president, he says he will restore American energy dominance by unleashing oil and natural gas exploration and development, pipelines, and infrastructure “to crush inflation and support working families.” He also plans to replace “climate change ideology with energy dominance in all national security and foreign policy guidance” and expand American energy exports “to strengthen global stability and end energy poverty.”
The U.S. already leads in liquified natural gas exports, led by Gulf states. The U.S. became the world’s largest LNG exporter in the first half of 2022, led by Texas. Texas energy production and export infrastructure and the Port of Corpus Christi also helped provide “a lifeline” to European countries crippled by an energy crisis.
DeSantis said he also plans on refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and limiting its future use to emergencies.
His plan to “save the American automobile” includes repealing the Biden administration’s EV mandates, eliminating federal EV subsidies, preventing “California and faceless bureaucrats from setting America’s environmental standards,” among other initiatives.
DeSantis said his plan focuses on evidence not ideology, includes withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords, Global Methane Pledge, all “Net Zero” commitments, eliminating ESG regulations, repealing the administration’s WOTUS rule “to protect American farmers and ranchers,” and repealing all rules targeting gas stoves, furnaces, and appliances.
His plan to combat “green lawfare,” includes streamlining the environmental review process for energy and infrastructure projects, streamlining the permitting process to help states, preventing abusive litigation by environmental groups, and defunding “ideological activism.” It also includes expanding federal land lease sales and devolving more leasing authority to the states.
His plan also includes greenlighting oil, gas, coal, uranium, and critical mineral mining and development on federal lands and creating a Critical Mineral Strategic Reserve to reduce U.S. reliance on China. It also includes repealing President Biden’s Clean Power Plan and repeal and oppose all policies that increase the U.S. energy sector’s reliance on China.
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Bethany Blankley is a contributor to The Center Square.
Photo “Ron DeSantis” by Ron DeSantis.
