VA GOP Lies Three Times in 15-Word Tweet; In Fact, the U.S. Had the Highest Net Energy Exports in Its History in 2021 Under President Biden. Also, If Anyone’s Responsible for “High Gas Prices,” It’s Republicans!

If the Virginia GOP is tweeting (or if its lips are moving), you know it’s lying. The latest? See below, in which they make three false claims in the span of 15 words!

First, Democrats do NOT have “total control of the federal government,” as one branch – the Judiciary – features a right wingnut supermajority on the Supreme Court, while the US Senate has a 50-50 tie, which combined with the 60-vote filibuster threshold, means that Democrats have at best a tenuous hold on that body.

Second, not only has “American energy independence” not been “destroyed,” in fact – according to the US Energy Information – the US had the highest net energy EXPORTS in our history in 2021. So not only was the US “energy independent,” it was MORE than energy independent! And finally, the VA GOP claims that Democrats supposedly “destroyed” that energy independence, except that…again, the US is now a net energy EXPORTER – with President Joe Biden in the White House! LOL

For more on the VA GOP’s crazy lie about US energy independence, also see this WaPo article, which explains:

“Since last October, we’ve been exporting more than we import each month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent government statistical agency. That is, we got back to ‘energy independence’ under Biden, but Republicans forgot to update their talking points.”

And:

“U.S. crude oil production has been rising again since about late 2020. Perhaps not as quickly as consumers would like, given other disruptions to global markets, but it’s still rising. In fact, we’re producing about as much crude today as we did in 2019, and are not that far below the record levels of production from early 2020. In other words, in the documented history of U.S. oil production, there has been only about a year when U.S. oil producers pumped more per day than is the case right now.”

Finally, it’s worth debunking the absurd Republican claim that somehow President Biden is responsible for “high gas prices.” For some excellent background on this subject, see The Dishonest Debate Over Gas Prices, which explains (among other things) that “Charges that the Biden administration are holding up domestic oil production are patently false“; that the oil industry “has over 9,000 permits to use that haven’t been tapped yet”; and of course that “Pumping more oil also would mean continuing to shirk our responsibilities to head off catastrophic increases in the climate change that already has precipitated the worst drought in the US Southwest in 1200 years.”

But more to the point, in fact if anyone’s responsible for “high gas prices,” it’s *REPUBLICANS*. Why? Two big reasons:

1. Republicans have relentlessly opposed efforts to transition the U.S. off of its oil addiction and to a clean energy economy, in which all the energy is renewable and domestically produced – from the sun, wind, etc.  If Republicans had NOT opposed those efforts for decades, the US would be much, much further along in getting off of oil, and we’d all be busy telling OPEC and Russia where to shove their oil pumps! Note that after 9/11, many of us (raises hand!) urged that the U.S. get off of our oil addiction as rapidly as possible. Instead, what did oil industry guys George W. Bush and Dick Cheney do? Shockingly (not), they…did everything they could to keep us firmly addicted to oil.
2.  Republicans have also been climate science deniers and close allies of the climate-science-denying fossil fuel industry, all part of an effort by that industry to delay the clean energy transition as long as possible, keeping us addicted to their products and maximizing their profits, even if makes our planet a toxic, hot hellhole in the process.
3. Republicans also have been hostile to the cheapest and cleanest “form” of energy, which of course is energy efficiency (aka, the energy you never have to produce in the first place!). Thus, Republicans have opposed raising energy efficiency standards, and even rolled them back (!), which is completely bonkers, irresponsible, etc. For more on this sorry and disgraceful story, see House GOP Seeks to Ease or End Vehicle Emissions Standards; Red States Are Less Energy-Efficient Than Blue Ones: Another Partisan Divide?; Industry: Light bulb war a dim idea; etc.
4. Obviously, if the U.S. had started years ago (e.g., during the Reagan administration) to slash its fossil fuel consumption and ramp up clean energy production, at this point we’d mostly  or completely have kicked our oil addiction, as we’d be powered by sun, wind, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, etc. But nooooo…thanks mostly to Republicans and their oil industry buddies!

Anyway, none of this is going to stop the Republican Party from lying, because that’s what they do. And it’s not going to stop the Republican Party from being 100% in bed with the fossil fuel industry, because that’s also what they do. But the next time you see or hear Republicans blathering about how Democrats are supposedly “destroying American energy independence” or “driving up gas prices” or whatever, just remember: if Republicans are tweeting (or their lips are moving), at least when it comes to energy, they are  almost certainly LYING.