energy indep dominance

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SEE TRUMP EPA ZELDIN BURGUM 2009 ENDANGER

see ukraine 4

primary on gas price // pres poll

see drill baby

macho?

KIRK 5

3 22

i am expanding this notion a bit beyond the actual literal term to related concepts, sparked by putin invasion of ukraine

some neglect

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oil has holy mystical quality? = strength and prosperity = win = manly (and owning liberal elite hypocrites:

fox is wary/ jealous of putin's energy dominance?

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MMA

Fox used California's climate policies to deflect from gas price spike driven by Trump’s war on Iran

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

:{Published 03/23/26

Fox News and Fox Business coverage of rising gas prices nationwide has singled out California, blaming the state’s climate regulations for skyrocketing fuel costs while downplaying global oil shocks from the Trump administration’s war with Iran.

On February 28, the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, opening what has quickly become a large-scale and open-ended conflict, started without congressional authorization, that has been widely criticized as an illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression. The U.S. has joined Israel in targeting Iranian leadership as well as civilian and military infrastructure, while President Donald Trump has signaled an explicit willingness to pursue regime change. These attacks have triggered Iranian retaliation, including efforts to restrict transit through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints, helping drive a sharp increase in global crude prices and U.S. gas costs.

Fox's coverage has largely echoed the Trump administration’s framing of the conflict and its economic fallout. Even when Fox has acknowledged that U.S. strikes on Iran have disrupted the global oil supply, that connection is not sustained. Instead, Fox’s coverage has dispersed attention about rising gas prices across a range of explanations, moving between domestic policy factors, claims that price increases will be temporary, and arguments that higher costs are a necessary “sacrifice.” Taken together, these talking points diffuse the link between Trump’s decision to launch the conflict against Iran and the resulting price spike, shifting scrutiny away from the source of the disruption.

However, the focus on California serves a distinct narrative function — by emphasizing the state’s climate regulations, Fox networks depict a global, war-driven supply shock through a familiar domestic political lens, recasting climate policy as part of the problem behind high gas prices rather than a solution to it.

Fox framed California’s high gas prices as a warning about Democratic climate policy during a war-driven price spike

Lying at the entrance to the Persian Gulf from the Sea of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important oil trade routes, carrying roughly one-fifth of global supply. As the conflict with Iran continues to escalate and shipping through the strait is disrupted, oil prices have soared above $100 per barrel and gas prices have risen sharply across the United States. Analysts have described the conflict as a major supply shock, and the International Energy Agency has called it the largest oil disruption in history.

Rather than linking rising prices to the disruption in global oil supply, segments on Fox News and Fox Business repeatedly shifted attention to California’s long-standing fuel costs, presenting them as evidence that Democratic climate policy is responsible for higher prices.

During the March 9 episode of Fox Business’ *Varney & Co.*, Stuart Varney, introducing Chevron executive Andy Walz, warned of an “economic collapse in California under Gov. [Gavin] Newsom’s climate policy.” Walz picked up the thread, claiming California could eliminate in-state refining and increase dependence on foreign fuel sources. He continued by describing the state as “heading down a path of relying on imports” and predicted that its climate policies could add another $1.20 per gallon to gas prices, which “hurts the people that can least afford it the most.”

On March 11, Fox Business’ *The Evening Edit* acknowledged rising global oil prices tied to the Iran war but pivoted to California, highlighting soaring in-state gas prices. The segment featured a clip from an earlier interview with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who assailed California's climate policies and concluded that the state has “restricted supply and killed their own economy.”

Later that day, Fox News @ Night reinforced the same frame, with guest and former Trump adviser May Mailman claiming that California's policies are designed “not just to make gas more expensive, it's to make gas unavailable. … So when President Trump says he's brought oil prices down, he has created the policies that have allowed energy dominance to thrive in this country.”

On March 14, Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked the Defense Production Act to order the restoration of drilling operations off the California coast, describing the move as necessary to strengthen domestic supply and energy security. The order provided a new policy rationale for arguments already circulating on Fox.

On March 16, *The Big Money Show* broadened the argument beyond California, with co-host Dagen McDowell pointing to Democratic-led states more generally and claiming that gas taxes imposed “in the name of Mother Nature and climate” are driving up fuel costs for working Americans. On the March 17 episode of The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham opened an interview with Sable Offshore chairman and CEO Jim Flores by pointing out that California, under Republican leadership in the 1980s, produced “a million barrels a day.” Now, Flores claimed California's declining oil production was “the reason why Trump invoked the Defense Production Act … to make sure that our military is well-fueled.”

By March 18, the narrative framing had hardened further. During the March 18 episode of *The Evening Edit*, host Elizabeth MacDonald lamented that “gas is headed to $8 a gallon in parts of the state, … but now California Democrats are suing to stop the Trump White House from reopening a pipeline offshore from Santa Barbara.” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) agreed with a statement from Wright that California had “strangled its own oil and gas production.” He continued, “We used to be a net exporter. We can produce all of our own oil and natural gas. We've chosen to shut them down, to regulate them out of business,” before concluding, “We clearly are a state in a downward spiral.”

That same framing persisted in the days that followed. During the March 21 episode of Fox Business' The Journal Editorial Report, host Paul Gigot acknowledged that the Iran war was disrupting global energy markets but quickly pivoted to California, telling viewers that gas prices are “much higher” in the state because “Gavin Newsom’s anti-fossil fuel policies make the state more dependent on foreign oil.”

This coverage treats California’s climate measures as unjustified drivers of higher prices, portraying the state as expensive, constrained, and vulnerable. In reality, California's gas prices are often higher than other states' because of policies aimed at cutting pollution, addressing climate change, and reducing reliance on volatile fossil fuel markets. But these regulations are not driving the current spike in gas prices, which follows weeks of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that have disrupted the entire region. Oil markets responded. Prices followed. This is a global supply shock driven by war, not a sudden change in California policy.

Fox used California to redirect blame away from Trump’s war on Iran and U.S. reliance on the fossil fuel economy

Fox's focus on California gas prices comes as another long-running Fox narrative breaks down. For years, the network argued that U.S. “energy independence” would shield Americans from global oil shocks. The current spike, driven by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz despite record domestic production, directly contradicts that claim. Rather than reckon with that failure, Fox has largely ditched the “energy independence” framing that was so central to its narrative explanation for price spikes under the Biden administration.

Now, the Trump administration’s decision to launch a new conflict in the Middle East becomes less central to how rising prices are understood on Fox, replaced by a familiar domestic argument about Democratic governance. However, this shift does more than redirect blame; it cuts against the reality that energy shocks like this one are a direct consequence of our reliance on fossil fuels and the vulnerable supply routes that sustain them. This is not an abstract risk — it is already happening now, and the global community is increasingly alarmed for the future.

By recasting a war-driven price spike as the product of climate policy, Fox turns that reality on its head, treating a crisis rooted in fossil fuel dependence as evidence against moving away from it.

---

MMA

Fox personalities used to claim that energy independence would shield the US from potential retaliatory action by Iran — such as closing the Strait of Hormuz

As gas prices rise, the network has scarcely invoked the concept of “energy independence,” mentioning it a fraction as often as it did during the start of the Russia-Ukraine war

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 03/18/26

The current surge in gas prices in response to President Donald Trump’s war against Iran challenges Fox News’ long-touted narrative that so-called “energy independence” would insulate the U.S. from disruptions in the global oil market and potential overseas conflicts, specifically in the Middle East. And while Fox personalities have wielded this narrative against Democratic presidents and used its talking points to advocate for more drilling and fossil fuel extraction, the network has fallen nearly silent on the concept of achieving energy independence as domestic energy costs continue rising despite Trump’s claims of achieving “energy dominance.”

In reality, America has never truly been energy independent, and such a policy is not even truly possible. Energy prices are determined by a global market, meaning the United States will never be free from oil and gas price fluctuations no matter how much oil it produces domestically. Indeed, this moment represents the most definitive rebuke yet of the idea of American “energy independence.”

Even as the U.S. is producing record amounts of oil and the Trump administration pursues a voracious pro-fossil fuel agenda, the national average price of gas reached $3.45 a gallon on March 8, with The New York Times reporting that oil prices rose “above $100 a barrel for the first time in roughly four years, more than 40 percent more expensive than it was before the United States and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 28.” As of March 18, gas has climbed to a national average of $3.84 a gallon.

But rather than conceding the point that oil markets have always been and will likely always be volatile, Fox personalities are moving the goal posts on what “energy independence” means compared to the network’s narratives in 2022 and 2020. They’re now suggesting that energy independence can be achieved by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that it means disruptions to gas prices caused by conflicts overseas are only temporary, or that energy independence enables the U.S. to start new wars that “wouldn't even have been possible if Joe Biden was president.”

## In 2022, as gas prices surged in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Fox blamed Biden’s energy policies. Now the network is downplaying the price increases as temporary.

The rapid increase in fuel prices surrounding Trump’s war with Iran mirrors how the global oil markets responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. At the time, one of the dominant narratives across Fox was the suggestion that gas prices in the U.S. were rising due to losing “energy independence” under President Joe Biden — a claim which is categorically false. (Oil production in 2022 was the second highest of any year in U.S. history, yielding approximately 12 million barrels a day.) In some cases, Fox personalities and guests even suggested America’s purported lack of “energy independence” under Biden emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in the Ukraine.

In fact, Fox News mentioned “energy independence” at least 329 times in the first two weeks of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and it continued to be a central narrative of Fox’s coverage after that, with mentions increasing to 632 one month into the conflict. Now, as prices skyrocket in response to Trump’s war on Iran, that talking point has been far less prevalent. In the first two weeks of the conflict, from February 28 through March 13, the terms “energy independence” or “energy security ” were mentioned just 12 times on Fox News programs.

Part of the 2022 narrative on Fox was also attacks on the Biden administration for releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to lower gas prices after Russia invaded Ukraine. Fox’s Maria Bartiromo claimed the move “tells you that they were blindsided” because the SPR “is supposed to be a reserve for crises and emergencies.”

Now, on the March 13 edition of *Fox & Friends First*, co-host Carley Shimkus claimed that “President Trump is restoring America’s energy independence [by] ordering 172 million barrels of oil to be released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” calling it an example of how he is “battling back” against “the economic impacts of war.”

Notably, Fox correspondent David Spunt pointed out on March 9, before Trump decided to tap the reserves, that Biden was criticized by the right for releasing oil from the SPR in 2022 to offset sanctions against Russia by putting more oil in the global market.

In 2022, energy independence meant maintaining low gas prices during a foreign conflict. Now, Fox and others in right-wing media suggest price hikes driven by the fighting are only a temporary “sacrifice” for attacking Iran.

One Fox host, Tomi Lahren, did seem to acknowledge that energy independence has not shielded the U.S. from price shocks, though she still worried that people would grow impatient with gas costs.

It’s “really such a shame too because this president has worked so hard up until now on getting those gas prices down,” Lahren said. “American energy independence, still obviously a priority, but this kind of shakes the boat a little bit.”

In 2022, Fox personalities suggested energy independence was about insulating us from foreign conflicts. Frequent Fox guest and former Trump adviser Steve Moore now suggests it's about enabling us to start new wars abroad, claiming during a March 5 appearance on *Fox & Friends* that “this incursion wouldn't even have been possible if Joe Biden was president, because we didn't have the energy capacity to do it.”

“Thanks to drill, baby, drill, and Trump's America energy independence plan, … we produce more oil and gas than any other country in the world today,” he continued. “Thank you, Donald Trump, for making that possible. It’s really made it much — we're much less reliant on the Middle East than we used to be.”

And Fox anchor Shannon Bream tried to quickly move past the connection between rising global oil prices and Trump’s domestic energy policies during a March 1 interview with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), calling it “a whole ‘nother conversation.”

Kaine rebutted that it “does connect — the president wants energy independence, so he says, while he is terminating offshore wind projects and alternative energy all over the United States. If you want U.S. energy, why are you doing that?”

Video

Citation

From the March 1, 2026, edition of Fox News Sunday

Kaine raised a key point that often takes a back seat to calls for more drilling during moments of oil volatility: the role of domestic clean energy in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. As U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres noted last week, “homegrown renewable energy has never been cheaper, more accessible, or more scalable,” offering countries a way to protect themselves from the “shock waves” conflicts can create in a “global energy system largely tied to fossil fuels.”

## In 2020, Fox claimed that US energy independence under Trump “makes us far less vulnerable” to retaliation from Iran. The country’s leader just said the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed as oil prices continue to climb.

In 2020, after the U.S. assassinated Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani under the first Trump administration, right-wing media not only claimed that our supposed energy independence made the action possible, but also that it had made the U.S. “far less vulnerable” to any retaliatory action by Iran, such as cutting off the Strait of Hormuz. Now, the country’s newest supreme leader has promised the strait will remain closed, and while Trump has announced some actions to address oil market disruption, like releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, experts have warned that “higher prices will likely persist until traffic through the Strait of Hormuz returns.”

In a January 4, 2020, op-ed for Fox News, Daniel Turner with the pro-industry think tank Power the Future argued that the “US can withstand Iranian attack on global oil supplies, thanks to Trump energy policies.” He wrote: “Fortunately, President Trump has aggressively pursued deregulation and other needed policies that have led to big increases in U.S. production of oil and natural gas. This makes us far less vulnerable to Iranian threats to block the Straits of Hormuz."

Fox Business host Jackie DeAngelis said on the January 3, 2020, edition ofFox News’ *Outnumbered* that Trump’s oil deregulation efforts were a “national security strategy.”

“Yes, the Strait of Hormuz, about 25% of the world's oil comes through there, so we'll be watching that closely,” she said. “But the U.S. just hit 12.6 million barrels a day in production. ... So when I look at the Trump administration rolling back regulation, what they’ve done with the oil strategy, I really look at it as a national security strategy.”

Fox Business host Stuart Varney even claimed on the January 3, 2020, episode of Fox & Friends that because of Trump’s energy independence policies, “if you took out Iranian oil installations, I don't think it would have that big an impact on us in America.”

Now, Trump is threatening to target the centerpiece of Iran’s oil production facilities on Kharg island — a major escalation that analysts warn risks “accelerating a structural shift in how energy supply chains are priced.”

“War-risk insurance premiums will likely remain elevated long after the last missile is fired,” wrote Jeff Currie of Carlyle Analysis. “And the behavioral response — hoarding, contract renegotiations, the scramble for alternative suppliers — permanently reprices the supply chain.”

The reality is that the U.S. cannot drill its way to “energy independence.” Becoming truly energy independent means weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels and adopting clean, renewable energy sources. That was true in 2020 and 2022, and it's even more important now.

Methodology...

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MARCH 2022 BS BOSSIE

We Have The Power

About

If you do not have access: purchase here.

We've restricted our access to our own natural resources, and for 30 years, our policy has been to import more oil from foreign countries rather than access our own resources here at home. So, we've basically made it tougher to produce our own energy and easier to use energy from other people.

We Have The Power, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich is a groundbreaking new documentary by Citizens United Productions. The movie is inspired by the book "Drill Here, Drill Now," which was authored by Newt Gingrich and Vince Haley. Including interviews with energy experts and political leaders, We Have The Power provides in-depth analysis that you won't find anywhere else. We dive into the heart of the issues surrounding a myriad of energy solutions to help inform Americans about the possibilities that we have right here at home.

We need to get it right on energy. Too much is at stake for our nation to do otherwise. America's ready to stop talking and take action. Isn't it time Washington got ready as well?

Featuring:Newt Gingrich, Callista Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rob Bishop, John Boehner, Red Cavaney, Mike Conaway, Ralph DeSantis, Mary Fallin, Alex Flint, Adrian Herrera, Skip Horvath, Daniel Kish, Charles Krauthammer, Philip Moeller, Devin Nunes, Jason Perron, Mike Rogers, Ned Ross, Patrick Serfass, Bob Walker, James Woolsey,Robert Zubrin

PARK PUBLIC LAND DUCK 2 26

The Wilderness Society

https://www.wilderness.org › articles › press-release › map-illustrate-public-lands-reach-trump-energy-dominance

New map illustrates public lands reach of Trump's "energy dominance ...

Feb 24, 2025A new map and data from The Wilderness Society illustrate the potential reach of executive and secretarial orders issued to fulfill President Trump's fossil fuel-centric "energy dominance" vision.

Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com › environment › newsletter › 2025-12-25 › how-trump-sold-out-public-lands-2025

How the Trump administration sold out public lands in 2025

Dec 25, 2025Almost a year into the Trump presidency, it's clear his administration has sided with the corporations seeking to mine and drill our nation's public lands.

westernpriorities.org

https://westernpriorities.org › 2025 › 02 › new-map-illustrates-trumps-destructive-energy-dominance-plan-for-public-lands

New map illustrates Trump's destructive "energy dominance" plan for ...

Feb 25, 2025The Wilderness Society produced a new map to illustrate the potential reach of executive and secretarial orders signed by President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in pursuit of their shared fossil fuel-centric "energy dominance" vision for America's public lands. "As we speak, the Trump administration's Department of the Interior is deciding which of our treasured ...

Center for American Progress

https://www.americanprogress.org › article › a-historically-bad-year-for-public-lands-under-president-trump

A Historically Bad Year for Public Lands Under President Trump

Dec 11, 2025The Trump administration's attacks on parks and public lands broke records in 2025, but they also met intense public opposition.

New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › 2026 › 02 › 19 › us › politics › trump-east-wing-rubble-in-a-public-park.html

Why Is Trump Dumping East Wing Rubble in a Public Park?

2 days agoThe East Potomac Golf Links is a municipal course that has been a fixture in Washington for decades. President Trump is turning it into something else.

UPI

https://www.upi.com › Top_News › US › 2025 › 10 › 15 › public-land-alaska-texas-oil-drilling-mining › 8411760534258

Most public land already open to energy production; Trump wants ... - UPI

Oct 15, 2025The Trump administration has vowed to open up public land to usher in an age of American energy dominance but in the West there is little frontier left.

Western Environmental Law Center

https://westernlaw.org › trump-escalates-war-on-nature-with-attack-on-public-lands-rule

Trump escalates war on nature with attack on Public Lands Rule

Sep 10, 2025The rescinding of this common-sense rule shows that the Trump Administration is dead set on prioritizing energy development and extractive industries over all other uses on our public lands, rather than seeking to uphold balanced land-management practices." - Alec Underwood, conservation director of the Wyoming Outdoor Council Contact:

CNN

https://www.cnn.com › 2025 › 09 › 30 › climate › coal-power-trump-public-lands

Trump is handing out public land and millions of dollars to ... - CNN

Sep 30, 2025While the Trump administration wages war against clean energy, it is now vowing to lease millions of acres of public lands at a discount and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up the ...

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Washington Free Beacon Staff

January 1, 2026

Just one year ago, our nation's great coastline was being filled with hideous windmills. Ford was building electric "trucks." Oil companies had climate goals.

Donald Trump pledged to stop the madness. But who would be the enforcer? Enter Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

Remember those windmills? No, you don't. Remember when oil demand was supposed to peak by 2030? No, you don't. Remember Greenpeace? No, you don't.

What do you remember? Record oil production and the lowest gas prices since 2021. And Burgum is just getting started, as this sorry excuse for a letter from congressional Democrats opposing his plans to sell a f—kload of oil and gas leases next year made clear:

"The United States already leads the world in oil and gas production," they wrote after calling on Burgum to "halt" the sales. "The industry currently holds more than 2,000 offshore leases covering over 12 million acres of federal waters." Awesome. Thanks for reminding us!

The closest thing to a hit piece produced on Burgum during his time in the cabinet was published in the Atlantic(duh). "Interior Secretary Doug Burgum likes chocolate-chip cookies—preferably freshly baked and still warm," reporters Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker wrote. Burgum asked political appointees at the department to "Learn to regularly bake cookies for Burgum and his guests, using the industrial ovens at the department headquarters." Somebody give this man a promotion!

So add it to the list: towering oil production, cratering gas prices, and warm chocolate-chip cookies baked fresh by federal bureaucrats. The hair doesn't move. The drilling rigs do. Burgum is well on his way to making the country energy-dominant. Now he gets something just as sweet: He's a Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year.

Published under: Doug Burgum , Man of the Year , Oil

===

email 9 25

kirk ai FF ripff of

https://heated.world/p/charlie-kirks-extremism-was-fossil

no lnx

Charlie Kirk was a fossil fuel industry plant

Big Oil's money gave Kirk a larger platform to spread baseless climate conspiracy theories—as well as other extremist views.

Emily Atkin

Sep 18, 2025

The term “plant” is often used to describe someone whose success was not solely the result of a grassroots movement, but instead bolstered by powerful corporate interests who secretly poured massive amounts of money into ensuring their fame.

For example: Charlie Kirk was a fossil fuel industry plant. The right-wing activist murdered last week built his massive platform for racism, sexism, transphobia and climate denial in part by using anonymous funding from Big Oil.

Turning Point USA, the group Kirk founded to ignite a culture war on college campuses, has managed to hide much of its funding sources. Roughly half of the group’s $40 million in income in 2020 came from 10 anonymous donors, NBC News reported.

But in 2017, Kirk admitted that some of the group’s anonymous donors “are in the fossil fuel space.” Speaking to The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, Kirk disclosed that he’d fundraised for TPUSA at the annual meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), as well as the 2017 board meeting of the National Mining Association.

In those meetings, Kirk promised oil and gas companies he’d fight “the myth that fossil fuels are dirty,” and target the “leftist professors” on college campuses who “perpetuated” the “myth.”

The meetings “went great,” Kirk told Mayer. The IPAA’s president, Barry Russell, wound up joining TPUSA’s advisory council, where he remains today. (Kirk had said that most advisory council members are also TPUSA donors).

How Kirk tried to re-popularize climate denial

Over the next nine years, Kirk worked to chip away at young Americans’ rising concerns about climate change. He did this by claiming climate science is still debated—and then peddling the conspiracy theory that all climate policies are a Democratic bid for government control.

“A tyrant’s fantasy is to have a massive green economy transition,” he said in 2023. “You can get rid of private property, you can control people’s movements. It’s fundamentally the abolition of civilization as we know it.”

To justify his claim that climate science is unsettled, Kirk would often cite “experts” who downplay the seriousness of planetary heating. For example, in 2023, Kirk claimed climate science is “debated” because “a Nobel prize winning scientist recently came out and said there is no real climate crisis.” Kirk also cited the opinions of John Coleman, the now-deceased founder of the Weather Channel, as evidence that climate change is a hoax.

But the experts Kirk cited were almost always unqualified. For example, Coleman was a meteorologist, not a climate scientist, and his claims were frequently debunked by publishing climate scientists. The Nobel-Prize-winning scientist Kirk referenced, John Clauser, is not a climate scientist, and won the Nobel for physics in the 1970s. No other Nobel Prize-winning physicist denies mainstream climate science; in fact, some of them are climate scientists themselves.

Coincidentally, Kirk never considered the opinions of publishing climate scientists to be credible. Instead, he reflexively dismissed their warnings as "garbage … designed for one thing: power and control.”

A YouTube caption for one of Kirk’s videos calls climate change “nonsense” and “boulder dash” [sic]

Kirk’s final climate segment

Kirk’s continued to frame climate change as a conspiracy in an interview with Trump’s Secretary of Energy Chris Wright three weeks before his death.

In the interview, Kirk and Wright spoke about the Department of Energy’s recently-released 151-page report claiming climate change is not a serious problem. That report was put together by five contrarian scientists personally recruited by Wright, a former fracking executive.

Kirk praised the report, and dismissed all criticism against it as politically motivated. “We think this is all politicized,” Kirk said. “This is driven towards a environmentalist agenda that is trying to weaken American energy dominance.”

Wright agreed, and said all the critics of his climate report only took issue with who wrote it—not the data within it. “They want to impugn the writers or impugn the way we reference people,” Wright said. “They want to find little things. What we want to talk about is the data.”

This, however, was objectively false. The data within Wright’s report was meticulously criticized by 85 publishing climate scientists, who issued a 439-page rebuttal pointing out various misrepresentations, messy citations, cherry-picking, and factual errors. In addition, many of the scientists cited in Wright’s report complained that their data was misrepresented, and explained their complaints in detail.

Perhaps the most mind-boggling part of Kirk’s final climate interview, however, was the argument he used to claim there can be no such thing as a scientific consensus about climate change.

”Science does not have consensus,” he said. “This is a very important thing. Right? Science says nothing. Scientists say things. Okay? Science never talks. Science is silent. This is a good thing that could apply to everything.”

Kirk was certainly correct that scientists say things. But over the course of his life, Kirk was set on ignoring most of them. For example, the vast majority of publishing climate scientists have been saying the same thing over and over for decades: That heat-trapping pollution from fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, and deforestation is steadily raising the average temperature of the planet—and that the warming poses an existential threat to human, animal and plant life.

Kirk ignored those scientists for a simple reason: Because listening to them would mean accepting that fossil fuels harm people. Neither Kirk nor his donors could accept that reality.

The inseparable connection between climate denial and right-wing extremism

The point of this newsletter is not to claim that Kirk was paid by the fossil fuel industry to say things he didn’t believe about climate change. I think most online political commentators genuinely believe what they’re saying, no matter who they’re funded by.

The point is to reinforce what has been true for decades: the fossil fuel industry is behind most of the climate disinformation you see and hear today.

Big Oil has spent billions sowing doubt about the reality and severity of climate change. They’ve done this for one reason: Solving climate change would require using less of their product, and using less of their product would hurt their bottom line.

Pretty much everyone with a massive following who spreads climate denial derives money or power from fossil fuels. The sooner everyone understands that, the better.

The other point here is to remind everyone about the inseparable connection between climate denial and other types of right-wing extremism. Often, you’ll hear climate activists debate whether it’s a good idea to get involved in larger movements for justice, or whether it’s better to just “stay in their lane” of climate policy.

The opposition to climate action is not having that debate. Instead, they are funding right-wing extremists who say things like the Civil Rights Act was "huge mistake;” that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was "a diversity hire;" that trans people are responsible for inflation; and that Taylor Swift should "submit to [her] husband." As long as “climate change is fake” is part of that rhetoric, they don’t care what the rest of it looks like.

Racism, sexism, and transphobia is being used to build the climate denier base. If you want climate action, you can’t pick and choose which you fight back against.

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KIRK TALKS ABOUT OIL // STRANGELOVE FLUIDS

mma

August 19, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show SALEM

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): You've taken on the entire kind of climate science world. Energy department attacks climate science in contentious report. By the way, you're in safe company here. We think this is all politicized. This is driven towards a environmentalist agenda that is trying to weaken American energy dominance. The agency asked five client skeptics to write a report criticizing the consensus on global warming.

First of all, science does not have consensus. This is a very important thing. Right? Science says nothing. Scientists say things. Okay? Science never talks. Science is silent. This is a good thing that could apply to everything. Scientists say things. And scientists, like we learned during COVID, we learned during the lockdowns, learned during the vaccines, can say a lot of different things with the data.

Now, again, global warming does not have consensus like the second law of thermodynamics. Global warming does not have consensus like a object at rest will stay at rest. Your reaction, Mr. Secretary, and how you think about this because they — again, let me read this New York Times article, The consensus on global warming. What an outrageous claim. Your thoughts, sir.

CHRIS WRIGHT (GUEST): Yeah. I always give the contrast between the science, which is what the left likes, which is the opposite of science. Science is a process of challenge and engagement and debate and wrestling with data. And if the data doesn't agree with your model, your model is wrong. Where the science is this top-down, authority-driven thing used with COVID to me was the climate movement in fast forward. The science told you what to do.

But as you said, Charlie, look at those critics. They critique the authors. Five skeptics. Well, skeptical of what? They presented — these are five highly distinguished scientists. One of them was undersecretary for science in the Obama administration, provost at Caltech, PhD from MIT. All of those scientists were accomplished scientists that are also tired of this censorship of the science, censoring real science and real process of engagement. But even on my CNN interview a couple weeks ago, I went on to talk about the climate report. There are zero questions about climate change. Zero. They want to impugn the writers or impugn the way we reference people. They want to find little things. What we want to talk about is the data.

Let's talk about climate science. Like, it's a real phenomenon. It's a slow-moving phenomenon, not even remotely close to the world's biggest problem, but it's used by the left to justify big government and top-down control of everything. Let's be honest. Let's engage in real science, as you said. That's what we're about. And I'm excited to have that debate over four years. We're going to end a lot of children's nightmares. We're going to end a lot of people trying to be pushed around and bullied by people that don't know what they're talking about. Like, I've spent twenty years studying climate science as physical data, and the people who were passionate about it never want to debate me because they don't know anything about it. But we're going to have that debate whether they want it or not.

KIRK: Science is a process. It doesn't tell you anything. People tell you. Science is a method. It's a methodology. And good science, which again is a verb, they they act as if, well, science, you know, puts something out. No. You do science. You go in exploration of truth. And then once you have a conclusion, you have to measure it, you have to analyze it, you have to inquire it, you have to cross-reference it. And by the way, we're bringing back that methodology to our government, RFK at HHS, and you at the Department of Energy.

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mma

Fox Business pushes “clean coal” and other energy falsehoods to rally behind Trump's so-called energy dominance plan

Jackie DeAngelis: “We’re looking at crude oil around $60 a barrel — that's another one of what I call one of the bright spots in the market that is essential to Donald Trump's overall strategy”

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 04/11/25 mma

Fox Business’ The Big Money Show aired a segment purportedly on achieving American energy dominance in which the hosts used false narratives and missing context to cheerlead the president's actions on energy.

Airing on April 7, the segment came several days after oil prices plunged to the lowest level since the pandemic due to market fears of a global recession – and hours before Trump signed his executive orders aimed at boosting coal production.

Here are five things Fox Business got wrong (or omitted) about energy:

Video

Citation

From the April 8, 2025, edition of Fox Business' The Big Money Show

Coal is not clean, and programs that protect coal miners have been cut by DOGE

Host Jackie DeAngelis previewed Trump’s executive orders on coal by claiming that the U.S. has “some of the cleanest coal that there is in the world.”

Despite advances in technology, coal continues to have devastating health impacts on communities, including developmental delays in children, asthma, cancer, and premature death. In fact, in the U.S. alone, 460,000 deaths were attributed to coal plant pollution between 1999 and 2020. Meanwhile, the number of cases of black lung disease — which affects an estimated 16% of coal workers — has recently risen.

The number of operating coal plants has declined in the U.S. because of cheaper and clean options. According to a newanalysis from a nonpartisan energy/climate think tank, 99 percent of existing U.S. coal plants are more expensive to run than it would cost to replace them with local wind, solar, or energy storage resources.

And excluded from the discussion about Trump’s plans for coal is the fact that the entire unit of people working at the Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program — a program of the Centers for Disease Control that coal miners are entitled to by law — were put on administrative leave on April 1 as part of the sweeping scheme to reduce the federal government.

Also part of the effort was the termination of “leases for three dozen offices in the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the agency responsible for enforcing mine safety laws.” As ABC reported: “Retired coal miner Stanley ‘Goose’ Stewart questions whether it's safe for anyone to work in the industry right now.”

Oil prices are down because of fear of a global recession — not because of Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda

DeAngelis said “one of the bright spots in the market” is that crude oil currently costs “around $60 a barrel” and argued that plunging oil prices were “essential to Donald Trump's overall strategy” to bring down energy costs and increase “supply to meet future demand” for things like artificial intelligence and crypto mining.

While a steep drop in oil prices will eventually mean lower gas prices, those prices would come as a result of fears of a global recession that pushes demand for oil down, not because of an increased supply from U.S. producers.

On the contrary, oil and gas producers are already cutting back investments in drilling not only due to fear of a global slowdown but also because tariffs on production materials like steel are making drilling more expensive at the same time that oil is selling for less. As one producer explained to The New York Times:

“We’re going from ‘drill, baby, drill’ to ‘wait, baby, wait,’” said D. Kirk Edwards, chief executive of a small West Texas oil and gas producer that recently scrapped drilling plans because of higher steel costs. Steel tubing, valves and other components — which now face a 25 percent tariff — make up about 20 percent of the cost of a well, he said.

“You’re not going to go out and spend money to drill a well when your costs are higher because of steel and your product prices are dramatically lower,” Mr. Edwards said

And they are not alone. Industries that are driving “future demand” like AI are also cutting back. On April 6, Microsoft delayed indefinitely a $1 billion project to build three new data centers in Licking County, Ohio.

DeAngelis and the other hosts did not mention these critical details about what plunging oil prices would mean for U.S. oil and gas producers if they continue and how it would negatively impact Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda.

On April 9, Trump paused some of his reciprocal tariffs. The New York Times reported that in response, oil prices bounced back to $62 a barrel but noted, “For now, many companies are waiting to see where prices settle before adjusting drilling or spending plans. As this week has demonstrated, commodity prices can be very volatile.”

The fracking industry has not delivered the jobs and prosperity it promised

Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock claimed that if environmentalists don’t like coal, they should embrace natural gas, because it produces half as much carbon dioxide as coal.

“Here in New York State we’ve got a lot of natural gas. … We won’t touch it,” he said. “The left in this state doesn’t want to do anything about it. It would be a very good way to get a lot of energy, create jobs, bring prosperity to an area that’s just sort of sitting there very quietly, and at the same time produce one half of the CO2 that coal does.”

Again, this fails to consider that even if those areas were open for fracking, they would likely go undeveloped because it is not profitable amid the current climate of uncertainty. Reviewing a recent fossil fuel industry survey, The New York Times reported:

Without clarity about long-term trade policies, operators said, it’s difficult to invest in facilities that may not be operational for years to come. “The administration’s chaos is a disaster for the commodity markets. ‘Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry,” wrote one respondent from an exploration and production firm. “Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn’t have a clear goal. We want more stability.”

Murdock also erroneously suggested that fracking brings prosperity to the communities that sit atop shale gas deposits. In his example, Pennsylvania, the second largest natural gas-producing state in the U.S., jobs in the oil and gas industry account for less than 1% of all jobs in the state, and the industry continues to shed employees, in part because of automation. It also has failed to deliver the wealth promised to many communities burdened with fracking wells, while instead bringing health issues.

Meanwhile, “clean energy industries employ more than 8 times more PA workers than the state’s gas industry.”

Renewable energy accounted for 93% of new capacity last year and is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs

Fox contributor Brian Brenberg noted that “95% of the proposed energy projects” currently in development are “renewable projects,” but he attempted to dismiss this telling stat by claiming that “the time required to get those permitted and up in running has doubled since the year 2000.” Even if that is true, according to one fossil fuel trade paper, “renewable energy projects generally face shorter permitting periods compared to fossil fuel projects.”

He went on to suggest that politicians are promising coal miners green jobs that never materialize. In fact, clean energy technologies constituted93% of new energy generation capacity added to the grid last year alone, and the climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act“have spurred the highest levels of factory construction in American history, with more than 400,000 new jobs announced across the country.”

One of those projects, which broke ground in May 2023, is a facility that will manufacture energy storage batteries in Weirton, West Virginia – the state with the most coal-mining jobs in the U.S. According to Reuters, Breakthrough Energy Ventures “said the factory will begin making battery systems in 2024 and … create at least 750 jobs in the state, which has suffered for years from a lack of high paying jobs as coal production falters amid the energy transition.”

Trump is not pursuing an all-of-the-above energy strategy. He is relentlessly trying to kill clean energy development.

Murdock suggested that the push for coal — “burn, baby, burn” — along with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda are part of the “all-of-the-above approach to energy” to deal with “all this increased demand for electricity.”

Anchor Cheryl Casone suggested that Trump's energy strategy is about “hundreds of thousands of jobs,” claiming that “this is why President Trump has been so keyed into the energy infrastructure industry.” She also argued that the U.S. is going to “need all of the energy sources for AI data centers.”

The Trump administration approach is not encompassing “all energy sources.” It is actively rolling back clean energy, which is putting energy and manufacturing jobs at stake while jeopardizing U.S. leadership in clean energy development. And several new analyses say energy prices for Americans will rise and hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost if Trump’s campaign promise to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act is achieved. For example, according to one report, repealing IRA incentives and program funding would cause the loss of more than 700,000 jobs throughout the country in 2030 (while also increasing cumulative household energy costs by $32 billion from 2025-2035).

Notably, as The Wall Street Journal reported, oil industry jobs are shrinking even in the best of times:

Falling prices put an additional squeeze on an already tight job market for petroleum engineers, geologists and drilling-rig hands. Recruiters say oil-industry workers are already having a tough time finding jobs after a series of layoffs in the wake of mergers and other cost-cutting moves.

Chevron said it planned to cut some 8,000 jobs globally by the end of 2026 in a bid to bring down structural costs, while Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips had previously said they plan to cut hundreds of jobs in the wake of their acquisitions of Pioneer Natural Resources and Marathon Oil.

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in a March 13 segment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake explained how Trump’s use of the campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill” points to a nonexistent problem pushed by right-wing media, namely that the U.S. is not producing enough energy.

In the segment, Haake points out, “The United States is producing more oil and gas right now than any other country has in the history of the world. We are producing more. We are importing less.”

Video

CitationFrom the March 13, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe

On March 11, Trump posted to his Truth Social account, “My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!”

This isn’t the first time Trump has listed oil and gas development as a top priority. As reported by The Washington Post, in February, Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham, “There are two things I’m going to do. Number one is drill, baby drill.”

But as Haake pointed out, Trump would not actually be inheriting an energy crisis, despite the messaging that both his party and right-wing media have espoused. Fox News personalities have falsely claimedthroughout the Biden administration that President Joe Biden’s policies are making the U.S. “energy dependent” on foreign countries — particularly when it comes to oil — and that the administration is cutting production of energy.

“I think it's an attempt to kind of connect the inflation issue to something that, you know, voters — Republican voters, base voters — have known for a long time, this desire to increase energy production going back to 2008, 2009, 2010,” Haake said of Trump’s fixation on “drill, baby, drill.”

The slogan originated in 2008, prior to the shale boom, and was used by Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Sixteen years later, the energy landscape looks very different. The U.S. has been exporting more energy than it imports since 2019, though it still does, and likely always will, import some energy from abroad.

Scientists have said that in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, countries would have to start phasing out fossil fuels immediately. With current energy policies in place, global average temperatures are predicted to cross that threshold within the next decade.

//America is producing more energy than ever, but Fox News is attacking Biden over it anyway

03/07/24

### Fox News pushes “energy independence” 329 times in first two weeks of Russia’s war in Ukraine, shaping coverage of energy policy on cable news

03/11/22

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Third Republican presidential debate illustrated that Fox News' relentless misinformation about the Green New Deal and Keystone Pipeline is still paying dividends

Special PROGRAMSCLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER

PUBLISHED 11/09/23

During the third Republican presidential debate, candidates invoked the “Green New Deal” and the “Keystone pipeline” — both staples of Fox News’ misleading coverage of climate and energy issues — in response to the moderators' questions around the Venezuelan regime and the rising cost of living in the U.S.

Through Fox’s relentless coverage of the Green New Dealbeginning in 2019, the proposal has become synonymous on the right with socialism and often misapplied to any climate policy.

Similarly, Fox has made the canceled Keystone pipeline a symbol of Biden’s energy policy, which the network has blamed for rising gas prices, and falsely claimed constructing the pipeline would make the U.S. energy-independent or less vulnerable to the global crude oil market.

The moderators' handling of these right-wing media canards was mixed – and it suggests legacy media need to be better prepared to counter these false right-wing media narratives as the election season moves into full swing.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mischaracterized Biden’s climate agenda as the Green New Deal

After regularly attacking the Green New Deal since its introduction in 2019, Fox News spread the bad will it had engendered against the proposal to other climate policies, using the name to label and attack any and all climate action. This included a failed Senate coronavirus relief vote in March of 2020, the modest climate plan President Joe Biden announced in July 2020, the American Jobs Plan introduced in April 2021, and, more recently, the Inflation Reduction Act.

During the November 8 debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed suit:

KRISTEN WELKER (MODERATOR): Many Venezuelan immigrants are settling right here in Florida. Former President Trump and President Biden have taken different approaches to Nicolas Maduro's regime with little result. Former President Trump put economic pressure on Venezuela and backed one of Maduro's rivals. President Biden temporarily eased sanctions to encourage electoral reforms. Gov. Desantis, do you see the political situation in Venezuela as a threat to the United States? And what would your approach be?

GOV. RON DESANTIS: We should never rely on Venezuela for oil like Biden has had to go beg. I am going to unleash all of America's energy potential. On day one I'm taking all the Biden regulations, the Green New Deal, ripping it up, and throwing it in the trash can where it belongs. We're going to lower your gas prices. We're going to create jobs. We’re going to lower energy costs. But we're also going to be more energy independent and secure. … That is good for America's national security. Biden's Green New Deal, that's good for Venezuela. It's good for Russia, it's good for Iran, and it's good for China.

:{Video

CitationFrom the Republican Presidential Debate aired on NBC on November 8, 2023

Welker failed to challenge DeSantis on his inaccurate characterization of Biden’s climate plan. That plan is mostly encapsulated in the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated a historic $369 billion in climate and energy provisions. Since its passage, 272 clean energy projects have been announced in the United States, representing $278 billion in new investment and creating 170,606 new jobs, according to Climate Power. (Notably, the majority of IRA credits and loans are benefiting red congressional districts, per an analysis by Politico.)

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said he’d “sign the XL Keystone Pipeline”

For years, Fox News hosts, anchors, and guests have touted the Keystone XL pipeline as a solution to domestic high gas prices and global energy insecurity, despite multiple fact checks to the contrary.

LESTER HOLT (MODERATOR): This is a question that will go to all of you. An Iowa voter recently told NBC News, ‘How I am going to make sure my pantry's stocked without breaking the bank?’ You've all said the best way to deal with rising prices is to cut government spending, but that would take time to play out, and Americans are struggling right now. Sen. Scott, I'll start with you. What would you do the moment you take office to help Americans manage the cost of living? So we're talking about short-term here.

SEN. TIM SCOTT: My mother was a single mother who raised me and my brother in a very challenging economic situation. The first thing I can tell you is that when your gas prices are 40% higher right now than they were just a little over two years ago, that's not a problem for my momma — that was a crisis. The first thing I would do as president of the United States is I would sign the XL Keystone pipeline and start seeing resources flow. Second thing I would do is make sure there is certainty and predictability so that those folks who have the leases in our country would have the certainty and predictability to go ahead and become energy independent.

:{Video

CitationFrom the Republican Presidential Debate aired on NBC on November 8, 2023

Moderator Lester Holt did follow up and challenged Scott on the idea that the pipeline would have any impact on current gas prices, noting, “Your time is up. But let me follow up. The idea of pumping gas, of turning on pipelines, that doesn't make gas cheaper that day.”

Indeed, not only was the pipeline only 8% complete when Biden revoked its permits, but the company building the pipeline officially abandoned the project in June of 2021, so there’s no project to “sign.” And even if the project weren’t dead, as proposed it would have threatened thedrinking waterof indigenous communities whose land the pipeline would cross, and it would have had enormous implications for the climate; renowned climate scientists James Hansen called the project “game over”for the climate.

Both DeSantis and Scott made misleading claims about gas prices and energy independence that reflect Fox News coverage

DeSantis suggested his plan would lower gas prices and make the U.S. more energy independent while Scott, in addition to falsely suggesting that the Keystone XL pipeline would lower gas prices, also claimed that more drilling was needed to make the U.S. energy independent.

None of the moderators challenged candidates' claims around energy independence or the idea that U.S. gas prices can be decoupled from the global market (another staple of Fox News’ energy coverage). The price consumers pay at the pump is determined by the cost of oil, which is tied to the global market and therefore inherently vulnerable to global disruptions, so the idea of achieving energy independence through fossil fuels is a fallacy.

Further, one definition of “energy independence” is exporting more energy than a country imports, and the U.S. has been a total net exporter of energy since 2019. According to the U.S. Energy Information Association, in 2022, U.S. total energy exports were the highest on record, and domestic oil production hit an all-time high last month.

Four years after Fox started pushing its misleading “Green New Deal” and “Keystone XL Pipeline” narratives, the misinformation persists, illustrating the network’s role in shaping the debate around energy and climate issues and the necessity of its media counterparts challenging Fox’s misinformation.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-mentioned-keystone-pipeline-141-times-one-week-during-networks-coverage-war

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Fox News pushes “energy independence” 329 times in first two weeks of Russia’s war in Ukraine, shaping coverage of energy policy on cable news

CNN and MSNBC are missing the opportunity to reframe the topic around clean domestic energy

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER & TED MACDONALD

PUBLISHED 03/11/22

From the outset of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, Fox News has been using the conflict as a pretext to agitate for the production of more oil and gas here in the U.S., which the network's personalities and guests claim will lead to American “energy independence” – an outdated concept that right-wing media use as shorthand for increasing our reliance on domestic sources of fossil fuels, particularly during moments of global instability.

In the first two weeks of the conflict from February 24 through March 9, “energy independence” or “energy security” were mentioned across Fox News programming at least 329 times, illustrating how pervasive the fossil fuel industry talking point is within the right-wing media landscape.

The terms have appeared far less during programming on CNN (13) and MSNBC (12). However, the use of the term by its cable counterparts offers insight into how Fox is shaping cable news coverage of energy policy.

Fox is dominating the energy independence narrative on cable news

Over a two-week period from February 24, the day that Russia invaded Ukraine, through March 9, Fox News mentioned the terms “energy independence,” or “energy security” a whopping 329 times.

Fox is trying to tether the idea of “energy independence” to expanding the U.S. fossil fuel industry, and suggests that the only way to achieve said energy independence is to allow for more oil and gas drilling in this country. As host Jesse Watters stated on the March 8 edition of Jesse Watters Primetime, “It’s time to restore the suspended leases on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There is 600,000 square miles of Alaska with most of it fertile drilling land. Look at that. This is how we restore American energy independence. We become self-sufficient on oil and gas and then we can sell it to our allies who need it in Europe.”

Other Fox segments implied that President Joe Biden’s focus on climate policy somehow ended U.S. energy independence. During a segment discussing the Ukraine crisis on the March 8 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Ainsley Earhardt claimed that “we used to be energy independent. Now we are dependent on countries like Russia, so we are funding this in a sense.”

Others tied the idea of increasing our reliance on fossil fuels to “energy security.” For example, on the March 1 edition of America Reports, Fox senior political analyst Brit Hume stated that “the green lobby needs to be asked to stand aside for a while and the war on carbon to be postponed” so that the U.S. can “drill now,” adding that “we can give ourselves the greatest amount of energy security and our allies.”

These claims are bogus, of course. For one, the U.S. is still a net exporter of energy, with crude oil production even forecasted to rise to record-high levels in 2023 and 2024. Before the Russian oil ban went into effect, only 8% of our total oil imports came from Russia – so unlike Earhardt’s claim, the U.S. is not “dependent on countries like Russia.” It’s also worth noting that even if the U.S. were to drill more, it wouldn’t really lower gas prices as that price is determined on the global market. Additionally, oil companies not drilling has less to do with Biden administration policies and more to do with the fact that the high cost of oil allows these companies to pay more dividends to their shareholders. Finally, as we’ve reiterated before, the U.S. cannot drill its way to energy independence – becoming truly energy independent means weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels and adopting clean energy.

Fox has spent years reinforcing the idea that U.S. energy independence only comes from more oil and gas drilling

Fox’s obsession with energy independence in the wake of the Ukraine crisis is not surprising – it’s historically been a fervent ally of the fossil fuel industry while demonizing any and all climate policies.

Fox commentators have baselessly implied that Biden’s climate policies were responsible for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion on February 24, constantly mentioning the canceled Keystone XL pipeline) and wrongly blaming the administration for high gas prices following the attack.At the time, Media Matters noted, “The narratives around Keystone and high gas prices form part of a trifecta that includes the supposed halcyon days [MAGA] of American energy independence, another favorite topic during Fox’s coverage of Ukraine.”

Many of these Fox talking points actually predate the current war in Ukraine. In January 2020, there were numerous examples of Fox commentators implying that the U.S. assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani was only possible due to the supposed energy independence under former President Donald Trump.

Fox personalities like Sean Hannity, who implied on March 2 that Biden’s policies lost U.S. energy independence, has been at this for a while. As far back as 2014, Media Matters noted that “Hannity frequently touts domestic oil extraction and oil pipelines as ways to achieve energy independence.” In 2012, Fox’s Stuart Varney falsely claimed that then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s energy plan would allow the U.S. to “be on the road to energy independence.” And in a March 2011 appearance on Fox News, disgraced former host Eric Bolling stated that the U.S. can reach energy independence through domestic drilling: “We've got more oil than Saudi Arabia. How about an energy policy that isn't blocking, hindering, and obstructing our own drilling companies?”

CNN and MSNBC have sometimes failed to challenge the “drill more” mantra – or even adopted it as their own

To be clear, the volume of discussion on cable news around energy related issues exacerbated by the war in Ukraine is extensive – reviewing coverage that mentions the terms “energy independence” and “energy security” is just a small slice of how the conversation is playing out and who is driving it.

The 13 mentions of “energy independence” on CNN and its 12 mentions on MSNBC often echoed the same framing from Fox News and largely reinforced the idea that energy independence is achieved through increased domestic oil and gas production.

For example, during the March 7 edition of CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto, former Trump national security adviser H.R. McMaster insisted that producing more American oil and gas would “increase our own energy independence, but also the energy independence of the free world.” Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, appeared on MSNBC’s Craig Melvin Reports on March 3 to claim that we lost the energy independence that Trump achieved when Biden “canceled the Keystone pipeline and they stopped renewing new permits” to drill on federal lands. Notably, NBC correspondent Peter Alexander did an excellent job disarming Short’s attempt to push the false narrative that the Keystone pipeline would have made us less dependent on foreign oil, but stopped short of challenging his claims that we had greater energy security under Trump.

Video file

CitationFrom the March 3, 2022, edition of MSNBC's Craig Melvin Reports

In fact, networks’ anchors or hosts rarely pushed back on this idea of energy independence, but neither did they raise the idea on their own – with some notable exceptions.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough used the term during at least three episodes of Morning Joe to push for more domestic drilling. During the March 2 episode, Scarborough suggested to guest Richard Haas that we should increase U.S. oil production to decrease dependence on Russian oil.

Haas, the president of the Council of Foreign Relations, did not affirm the idea of drilling more but noted that “we should rethink the balance between energy security and climate change policies. The good news is you can have energy security and responsible climate change policies.”

“Energy independence” achieved through domestic clean energy garnered little attention on CNN and MSNBC

During his announcement that the U.S. was going to ban imports of Russian oil on March 8, President Biden said: “This crisis is a stark reminder that to protect our economy over the long term, we need to become energy independent. It should motivate us to accelerate a transition to clean energy.”

In fact, the argument equating energy security with clean energy production has been around as long as the term energy independence has been in common use – but right-wing outlets like Fox have largely drowned out this idea by calling to deepen our reliance on fossil fuels. This moment is no different. Only a select few instances of reframing energy independence appeared on CNN and MSNBC, while Fox’s calls for more U.S. oil and gas production reached a fever pitch. On the March 5 edition of Alex Witt Reports, Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) pivoted to the idea of “clean energy independence” during a discussion on whether to ban Russian oil, noting the strides his state of Massachusetts has made to transition to a clean energy economy.

And during the March 8 edition of CNN Newsroom, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese echoed Biden’s speech on the Russian oil ban affirming that the crisis in Ukraine underscores the need to achieve energy independence by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Perhaps the best illustration of the challenges to shifting the thinking around “energy independence” in the face of its relentless use by Fox came in this exchange between Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and CNN anchor Jake Tapper on the March 8 edition of The Lead:

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): But let's admit, the insanity of the U.S. economy that continues to run on oil that is provided to us by dictators. The reality is if we're not getting this from Russia, we're likely going to be importing more from another brutal dictator, in Saudi Arabia, for instance, or we may have to go to Venezuela. We should learn our lesson here and become energy independent and choose to invest in clean domestic energy so we never have to choose between one dictator versus another.

JAKE TAPPER (ANCHOR): Republicans say the same thing except they're not talking about clean energy, they're just talking about American fossil fuels from Louisiana, ANWR, or Keystone.

In the short-term consequences of Russia’s invasion, unfortunately, gas prices are going to be painfully high – but the truth is we cannot drill our way out of this crisis. In the longer term, the only way to be truly energy independent and disarm oil-rich aggressors who use energy as a weapon is to decarbonize our economies and transition away from fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, this idea, at least on cable news, still seems to be at the margin instead of being front in center of the national discussion on energy this crisis has forced.

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the Kinetiq video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for any of the terms “energy independence,” “energy independent,” or “energy security” from February 24 through March 9, 2022.

We counted each instance of any of the terms as a single mention. We then reviewed transcripts in the SnapStream video database to determine whether any of the mentions on CNN and MSNBC suggested that energy independence could only be achieved through more fossil fuel production or by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

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IN THIS ARTICLE

Cable news

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolds, right-wing media is pinning the blame on Greta Thunberg and climate activists

03/08/22 11:04

Fox News mentioned the Keystone Pipeline 141 times in one week during the network’s coverage of the War in Ukraine

03/01/22

Fox is using the Ukrainian crisis to suggest the Biden administration’s climate policies emboldened Putin

02/24/22

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an 12 22

When the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren handed down its unanimous decision in New York Times v. Sullivan back in 1964, it established a tough standard that plaintiffs have to meet in defamation lawsuits. Plaintiffs, according to the Warren Court, have to prove “actual malice.” And that is what Dominion Voting Systems is trying to prove in the defamation lawsuits it filed against Fox News, Newsmax TV, One America News (OAN) and others in response to the false claims they promoted about the 2020 presidential election.

After Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes, many far-right MAGA Republicans at Fox News, Newsmax and OAN promoted the false claim that Dominion’s voting equipment was used to help Democrats steal the election — a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked. Fox News, in response to Dominion’s defamation lawsuit, has maintained that its hosts weren’t saying the claims about Dominion were true, and that they were just asking questions.

Dominion, meanwhile, is trying to show, in its $1.6 billion lawsuit, that hosts at Fox News acted with actual malice and promoted claims they knew were nonsense. And on Wednesday, December 21, attorneys for Dominion pointed to Fox News host Sean Hannity as an example of someone who knew that the Big Lie was a lie but promoted the claims of Trump attorney Sidney Powell anyway. Powell, who is also facing a defamation lawsuit from Dominion, falsely accused Dominion of helping Democrats steal the election from Trump. Another MAGA Republican who made that false claim and is being sued by Dominion is MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Dominion has sued former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well.

Reporting for the New York Times on December 21, journalist Jeremy Peters explains, “On November 30, 2020, Sean Hannity hosted Sidney Powell on his prime-time Fox News program. As she had in many other interviews around that time — on Fox and elsewhere in right-wing media — Ms. Powell, a former federal prosecutor, spun wild conspiracy theories about what she said was ‘corruption all across the country, in countless districts,’ in a plot to steal reelection from the president, Donald J. Trump. At the center of this imagined plot were machines from Dominion Voting Systems, which Ms. Powell claimed ran an algorithm that switched votes for Mr. Trump to votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. Dominion machines, she insisted, were being used ‘to trash large batches of votes.’”

But when Hannity gave a deposition two years later on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 and was under oath, he admitted, “I did not believe it for one second.”

According to Peters, “The hearing was called to address several issues that need to be resolved before the case heads for a jury trial, which the judge has scheduled to begin in April. Mr. Hannity’s disclosure — along with others that emerged from court on Wednesday about what Fox News executives and hosts really believed as their network became one of the loudest megaphones for lies about the 2020 election — is among the strongest evidence yet to emerge publicly that some Fox employees knew that what they were broadcasting was false.”

Under the New York Times v. Sullivan standard established by the Warren Court 58 years ago, defamation is very difficult to prove. An honest mistake doesn’t fit the definition of defamation — the plaintiff has to show actual malice. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times and lost because Palin and her attorneys couldn’t prove actual malice.

“The high legal standard of proof in defamation cases makes it difficult for a company like Dominion to prevail against a media organization like Fox News,” Peters notes. “Dominion has to persuade a jury that people at Fox were, in effect, saying one thing in private while telling their audience exactly the opposite.And that requires showing a jury convincing evidence that speaks to the state of mind of those who were making the decisions at the network. In Delaware Superior Court on Wednesday, Dominion’s lawyers argued that they had obtained ample evidence to make that case.”

Peters adds, “One lawyer for Dominion said that ‘not a single Fox witness’ so far had produced anything supporting the various false claims about the company that were uttered repeatedly on the network. And in some cases, other high-profile hosts and senior executives echoed Mr. Hannity’s doubts about what Mr. Trump and his allies like Ms. Powell were saying, according to theDominion lawyer, Stephen Shackelford. This included Meade Cooper, who oversees prime-time programming for Fox News, and the prime-time star Tucker Carlson, Mr. Shackelford said.”

Citing Cooper and Carlson as examples, Shackleford told the court, “Many of the highest-ranking Fox people have admitted under oath that they never believed the Dominion lies.”

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mma 12 22 ted mcd

2022 was a banner year for the fossil fuel industry. Fueled by the rise in energy costs due in part to the war in Ukraine, major oil and gas companies brought in massive profits. By the end of 2022, the net income of the seven largest oil corporations is projected to hit a record high of $4 trillion.

Yet Fox News used major events in 2022 to claim that the industry is suffering under a vicious “war” on energy waged by the Biden administration.

Fox defended the industry’s profits and ran cover for its role in limiting oil production, on many occasions advancing the idea that the world needs to invest more heavily in oil and gas. This latter point flies in the face of what the global climate scientific community is saying about climate change: Emissions from fossil fuels are rapidly altering the Earth’s temperature, and the only way to stop this from worsening is to rapidly reduce our dependence on these fossil fuels. And it advances the wrong takeaway from the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s aggression. Rather, moving toward clean energy is the only way to shield the U.S. from the vagaries of the global oil and gas market.

Throughout the year, Fox used the same debunked narratives to both defend and promote the fossil fuel industry

One of Fox’s main narratives in 2022 has been that the Biden administration is crippling or trying to destroy the fossil fuel industry through burdensome climate regulations. This talking point does not reflect reality. Just last year, the U.S. set a record for natural gas production. Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil production has steadily risen under Biden, and there is expected record oil production in 2023. And instead of the administration telling companies not to drill, oil producers are holding back from even more drilling primarily due to Wall Street pressure.

As part of this contrived “war on fossil fuels” narrative, Fox has been pushing the Biden administration to allow companies to drill more in the U.S. to help alleviate high domestic energy prices. But since oil prices are set on the global market, the Biden administration’s energy policies make little impact on what we pay at the pump.

With each major climate and energy-related event this year, these narratives got recycled as Fox doubled down on its longstanding defense of the fossil fuel industry.

A timeline of major 2022 events which saw Fox defend the powerful fossil fuel industry

The Russian invasion of Ukraine

Fox News was quick to blame the Biden administration’s climate policies for emboldening Putin in his decision to invade Ukraine. As the invasion roiled global energy markets, the network launched a full-throttled defense of the fossil fuel industry and attacked the administration for its supposed crippling regulations on the industry.

In March, the administration banned Russian energy imports to the U.S., and Biden critiqued the industry for not drilling enough after finding out that companies are sitting on thousands of untapped oil leases. In response, Fox defended the industry and gave a platform to its biggest boosters:

Fox host Larry Kudlow: Oil and gas companies are “the greatest industry in this country … the greatest industry around the world.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [3/8/22]
American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers: “Some of the policies that are being pursued right now by this administration are putting us on a road to more dependence — not independence.” Fox News, *The Faulkner Focus*, [3/9/22]
Fox Business host Charles Payne:“It’s unfortunate that the president of the United States would do this, but I’ve seen a whole lot of this kind of stuff.First of all, they get to attack the war. They don't like capitalism. The word profit is a four-letter word to them. And you know, these are companies that hire Americans. Why are you demonizing them? It's nuts. We are blessed to have the oil under our feet.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [3/16/22]
Frequent Fox guest Rick Perry: Criticizing the oil and gas industry is “unpatriotic," and the administration needs to “take the food off of the neck of the oil and gas industry.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [3/9/22]

Gas price spikes and efforts to reduce the pain at the pump dominated energy news during the spring and summer

Month after month, Fox hammered Biden’s policies as supposedly the primary reason gas prices were increasing. A number of events during this time period saw Fox trot out such claims as that the fossil fuel industry is being unfairly maligned and that increased production would help alleviate high energy prices.

In April, the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing on Big Oil’s record profits and its role in driving high gas prices. In response, Fox carried the industry’s water:

API President Mike Sommers: “We all know that the real reason for high prices are a consequence of low production because of some of these Biden administration policies, but also some other factors that are going on throughout the world. So — but this is a typical blame game that we see all the time on Capitol Hill. It is pretty outrageous, though, that they're hauling American executives that supply 11 million American jobs up before Congress to blame them for something that they themselves can be blamed for.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [4/6/22]
Fox correspondent Chad Pergram: “Democrats who control the House, Senate, and White House are struggling to address the price surge, so they need a scapegoat. Oil companies. Attacking big business is good politics for the Democratic base. Democrats tried to focus on profits and turned on the witnesses.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [4/6/22]
Fox anchor Sandra Smith:“That is an incredibly important picture that they are painting because they are being demonized for the billions in profits that they are making in 2021. And that is the case. We ran a brain room research here for all the witnesses, companies that were there, Shell, BP, Chevron, Exxon, and I have in front of me, Joe: BP making $7 billion in 2021 while it lost 20 billion in 2020. You got Shell making 20 billion in 2020; it lost more than that — 21 billion in 2020. This is the environment those oil companies have to navigate.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [4/6/22]

In May, Biden suggested that high gas prices, which had reached a record high, are part of “an incredible transition that … when it's over, we'll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels.” In response, Fox came out firmly on the side of fossil fuels:

Fox guest Wesley Hunt: “He's got his words wrong. It's not about energy transition; it's about energy addition. … The bottom line is this — it's an all-hands-on-deck approach to fulfill the energy needs of this country. … This administration is trying to kill our industry, but we are not going to allow that to happen.”Fox News, *Fox & Friends First*, [5/24/22]
Fox host Brian Kilmeade: “We could be stepping up, an opportunity, as bad as things are, to step up with natural gas. That's what the president should be doing, saying I need my natural gas community to step up and help our allies in the time of war and the time of strife and the time of stress. Instead he said this could be a good thing. We'll all be doing -- we’ll all be having clean burning vehicles, which by the way natural gas is clean burning.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [5/24/22]
Fox Business correspondent Jackie DeAngelis: “This administration loves to attack Big Oil,” and the fossil fuel industry’s selfless act of producing oil it didn’t have to produce was for “the American people.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [5/31/22]

In July, in an effort to stabilize global oil supplies, the administration conducted an entirely noncontroversial sale of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move that actually helped temporarily alleviate gas prices. Additionally, Biden visited top oil producer Saudi Arabia in order to strengthen diplomatic ties. Fox responded with attacks:

Fox host Sean Hannity: “While Biden suffers more blunders abroad, ask yourself, why is Biden so hostile to American oil and gas and domestic production? Why has he been so soft on American adversaries like China because he's given them our Strategic Petroleum Reserves and he's giving them a pipeline to Vladimir Putin. Fox News, *Hannity*, [7/14/22]
Fox host Katie Pavlich: “Instead of ramping up domestic energy production to combat sky high prices here, Biden left with no choice but to beg Saudi dictators for more oil.” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/14/22]
Oil executives interviewed by Fox correspondent Lauren Simonetti: The oil industry is “demonized” by Biden and American energy is produced in an “environmentally responsible way.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [7/15/22]

Finally, in July, Biden made a major climate announcement in Massachusetts.

Fox contributor Brian Brenberg: “I think most of America wishes the coal plant was still there because … more people could be in a cool environment and be safer.” Fox News, *Your World with Neil Cavuto*, [7/20/22]

Extreme weather and OPEC+ oil cuts pushed gas prices back into the headlines in early fall

Punishing extreme heat, fires, and drought affected vast swaths of the globe during the summer, with climate scientists saying that these events were made worse by the burning of fossil fuels, and a major hurricane hit the U.S. in September. Additionally, a major OPEC oil decision roiled gas prices again. Fox once again defended and promoted the fossil fuel industry.

In September, as Hurricane Ian hit Florida, Biden warned oil companies not to use the storm “as an excuse to raise gasoline prices or gouge the American people.”

Fox anchor Neil Cavuto: “I want to echo again, there is no evidence, there was no evidence, there has been no evidence that gouging was going on of the oil companies, or the gas giants, were, you know, colluding to rig prices or all of a sudden take advantage of a bad situation by doing this sort of thing.” Fox News, *Your World with Neil Cavuto*, [9/29/22]

In October, OPEC+ cut oil production.

Fox anchor Martha MacCallum: “There's no reason why we can't be energy independent. As you say, we have been before.” MacCallum continued, “We basically scolded a lot of our energy companies out of expanding and growing their businesses because they have been told by several administrations, not the last one, that they were going to be out of business soon. Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [10/12/22]
Fox anchor Dagen McDowell: “[Biden] won’t open our spigots wide open and start pumping all that delicious natural resources. … Four years ago, we were a net exporter of petroleum products, first time since 1949. We were the swing producer in the world; we controlled world oil prices. … Joe Biden could do that, but he won’t because he is obviously both a masochist because he likes taking it from Saudi Arabia and also a sadist because he likes inflicting pain on the people of the United States.” Fox News, *The Five*, [10/15/22]
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX): “Unleash the American energy sector, and oh by the way, don’t declare absolute total war on them, which is what the administration has done over the past two years. … We do it cleaner, so if you care about the environment, you should be rooting for American energy.” Fox News, *Fox Report with Jon Scott*, [10/15/22]

The COP27 climate negotiations and oil sales to Venezuela in November provided fodder for Fox to boost the fossil fuel industry

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP 27, yielded an agreement for a global fund in which richer nations, which are vastly responsible for climate change, would contribute money to poorer nations to help the latter rebuild from climate-fueled extreme weather disasters. Fox heavily criticized the plan, instead claiming that more fossil fuel usage is the way to move forward. Additionally, the Biden administration allowed Chevron to resume drilling operations in Venezuela.

Fox contributor Sean Duffy attacked the fund for its lack of focus on fossil fuel usage:“This money isn’t free, right? So, when they offer money from this development fund to these poorer nations there’s going to be strings attached, which means you can’t develop carbon-based energy, and carbon-based energy is the cheapest energy. And If you want your economy to grow, if you want to manufacture and transportation, you need carbon.” Fox News, *The Big Sunday Show*, [11/20/22]
Fox contributor Marc Thiessen claimed that it’s actually climate policies, and not fossil fuels, that will destroy the world: “If anyone owes poor countries anything, it is the climate extremists.… They would drive billions of people out of the middle class and stop billions more from getting into the middle class. So this would do more damage, the climate activists would do more damage to prosperity, more damage to the GDP of these countries than any of the solutions they offer and so the war on fossil fuels is what is hurting the developing world, not anything else.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [11/21/22]
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) suggested Biden’s energy policy is like something his dog would do: “President Biden's energy policy looks like something Roger used to keep under my back porch. It is a fact that America has the greatest economy, strongest economy in all of human history. We can't run it without fossil fuels, not today, not tomorrow. It is also a fact that through reserves and technology, America can produce every drop of oil and natural gas that we need and have extra left over to sell to our friends.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [11/30/22]
Fox Business host Charles Payne: “We've been indoctrinated in this over the last couple of decades to movies. You turn on a faucet and fire comes out instead of water. And you know how fracking became a four-letter word in this country for a long time, even though it created the energy independence that you described, it created an amazing number of jobs, it revitalized small or rural towns, it wasseen as enemy number 1 by folks who don't care.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [11/28/22]
Fox goes on an anti-climate justice marathon after COP27 reparations agreement
11/23/22 1:32 PM EST
Climate denial abounds on Fox as Hurricane Ian devastates Florida
09/30/22 2:52 PM EDT
Fox News platforms climate denial and the Great Reset conspiracy theory during COP27
11/14/22

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omg going on offense?! std/key API talking pt?

jj comm dr an 12 22

Fresh off posting the highest quarterly profit in its history, the U.S.-based fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil sued the European Union on Wednesday in an attempt to stop the bloc from imposing its recently approved windfall tax targeting major oil and gas companies.

The Financial Times, which first reported the new lawsuit, noted that the challenge takes aim at the European Council's "legal authority to impose the new tax—a power historically reserved for sovereign countries—and its use of emergency powers to secure member states' approval for the measure."

:{:{"The new tax is due to take effect from December 31 and will apply a levy of at least 33% on any taxable profits in 2022-23 that are 20% or more above average profits between 2018 and 2021," the newspaper explained.}:

In a statement, Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton insisted the company recognizes that sky-high energy costs are "weighing heavily on families and businesses" but claimed the tax would "undermine investor confidence, discourage investment and increase reliance on imported energy."

Reuters reported Wednesday that Exxon's chief financial officer has estimated the E.U.'s windfall tax could cost the corporation around $2 billion through the end of next year—a fraction of the company's 2022 profits.

Approved in late September amid a mounting cost-of-living crisis across Europe, the windfall tax was presented as an effort to generate additional revenue to "provide financial support to households and companies" struggling with high energy costs.Oil and gas companies like Exxon have been accused of exploiting global energy market chaos spurred by Russia's war on Ukraine to hike prices and pad their bottom lines.

In late October, Exxon announced it brought in $19.7 billion in profits from July to September, its largest-ever quarterly haul. The company also announced it would raise its dividend and expand its share buyback program, rewarding wealthy investors as consumers continue to face elevated prices at the pump.

According to a recent filing, Exxon has also been rewarding its top executives, boosting the annual salary of CEO Darren Woods from $1.70 million to $1.88 million for the coming year.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/right-wing-media-used-opec-oil-cuts-blame-biden-domestic-gas-price-volatility

mma 10 22

On October 5, OPEC [saudi?] and non-OPEC allies decided to impose cuts on oil production despite the fact that they were cautioned against doing so by the United States. The cartel will cut 2 million barrels, a move that could further elevate gas prices in the lead-up to midterm elections. To help ease the impact of the cuts, President Joe Biden, during remarks on gas prices and energy security delivered on October 19, announced a 3 point plan to address rising costs and global oil supplies, including the release of 15 million barrels of oilfrom the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Biden also called for oil companies to increase production instead of buying back stocks and paying dividends to their shareholders, and warned these companies not to gouge gas prices as the cost of oil comes down.

Fox has painted Biden as chiefly responsible for rising gas prices in a ploy to hurt Democratic candidates in the final weeks of midterm campaigning. Other right-wing media outlets and personalities have followed suit, and criticism has been magnified by a claim made on October 12 by Saudi Arabia’s ministry of foreign affairs saying that Biden asked OPEC to postpone the oil cuts for a month.

In response, right-wing media is using the same playbook and the same series of debunked arguments and disinformationfrom earlier in the year when Russia first invaded Ukraine and global energy security became a concern.

Right-wing media is once again misleading voters about how the global energy market works to push a pro-fossil fuel agenda.

Conservative media outlets are pushing the idea that drastically increasing oil production in the U.S. is a quick and common-sense solution to the problem of high gas prices because it would allow the U.S. to be “energy independent," a term experts have pointed out is widely misunderstood. The U.S. has imported oil for decades and will continue to do so for economic reasons. Importing and exporting some energy is necessary to meet the needs of the market. In that sense, we will probably never be truly energy independent in a fossil fuel economy. If we understand energy independence to mean the U.S. exports more energy than we import, that is still the case. In fact, by this standard, U.S. energy independence reached its peak in 2021 when Biden was president.

Former Secretary of State under Trump and Fox News contributor Mike Pompeo: “Energy independence doesn't just mean lower costs for Americans. It means not having to beg Venezuelan dictators or the Iranian regime for more oil.” Twitter, [10/9/22]
Host columnist for the conservative The Washington Times and Newsmax contributor Kelly Sadler on Newsmax’s Wake Up America: “They [Democrats] want to put the fossil fuel industry out of business…as a result, we are not — we are no longer energy independent.”Newsmax, *Wake Up America*, [10/10/22]
Martha MacCallum, host of Fox News’ The Story: “There's no reason why we can't be energy independent. We have before.” MacCallum continued, “We scolded a lot of our energy companies out of expanding and growing their businesses because they have been told by several administrations, not the last one, that they were going to be out of business soon. Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [10/12/22]

Right-wing comedian and radio host Tim Young: “I'm so old, I remember when America was energy independent.” Twitter, [10/12/22]

Founder of dark money group Power the Future Daniel Turner said, “Americans could use energy independence right about now.”Turner: “Gas prices are near $4.00. Core inflation has hit a new 40-year high. Average winter heating costs will rise by 28%. Americans could use energy independence right about now.” Twitter, [10/13/22]

Fox News contributor Joe Concha: “We backed ourselves into this corner.” Concha: “The fact that we have to depend on Venezuela and OPEC+ which is basically Russia and Saudi Arabia instead of energy independence that we had here at home — gas and oil leases off of the Gulf Coast, off of the Alaska coast, ANWR, obviously XL pipeline. Now we’re dependent on all these other countries, we backed ourselves into this corner.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/13/22]

Former Trump economic advisor Stephen Moore on America’s Newsroom suggested that Biden’s plan to reduce oil and gas production in the future is responsible for rising energy costs. Moore: “We didn't talk a lot about OPEC when Trump was president because we were the number one producer of oil and gas. This administration has come in with a radical climate change agenda, which — he even admits he wants to take our oil and gas production down to zero in the next 12 years. That's the leading factor for why the price of gasoline has gone from 2.50 a gallon under Trump to now in many places it’s like $5 a gallon.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [10/14/22]

Fox News anchor Dagen McDowell on*The Five *suggests that Biden is blocking the US from controlling world oil prices:“[Biden] won’t open our spigots wide open and start pumping all that delicious natural resources. … Four years ago, we were a net exporter of petroleum products, first time since 1949, we were the swing producer in the world, we controlled world oil prices. … Joe Biden could do that, but he won’t because he is obviously both a masochist because he likes taking it from Saudi Arabia and also a sadist because he likes inflicting pain on the people of the United States.” Fox News, *The Five*, [10/15/22]

Right-wing media push pro-industry talking points claiming that U.S. oil producers are hindered from drilling, blame elevated gas prices solely on decisions made by Biden

Gas prices have been elevated by increased demand following the easing of pandemic restriction and by oil supply disruptions created by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Prices dipped slightly toward the end of the summer, only to rise in late September, but are currently on the downtrend once again. Aside from OPEC’s recent decision to cut supply, a refinery fire in the Midwest and facility maintenance on the West Coast have reduced inventories to record lows, and a looming European ban on Russian oil, which will take effect in December, is also contributing to price increases.

The U.S. oil industry is not being hampered by the Biden administration, as it has claimed to evade blame.In March, CEOs of major oil producers stated that they were not planning on investing in any new drilling due to pressure from investors for bigger shareholder returns. To be sure, the current climate of increased demand and global supply disruptions caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine has increased the price of oil, lavishing these companies with record profits while U.S. and global consumers have been hurt by high energy costs.In fact, U.S. oil producers are sitting on 9,000 unused drilling leases for public lands, and while right-wing media push the industry claim that Biden is suppressing domestic production, U.S. oil production on public lands is near all-time highs and is on track for record output in 2023.

Fox Business contributor Phil Flynn: “The Biden administration has made it a very toxic country to invest in when it comes to fossil fuels.”Flynn continued, “Because already, they have canceled the Keystone Pipeline, they have slowed down the permitting process.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [10/5/22]

Podcaster and author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” Alex Epstein blamed Biden for making the U.S. “vulnerable.”Epstein said, “The Biden Administration is calling an OPEC production cut a “hostile act.” But if it hadn’t been for the hundred+ ‘hostile acts’ toward the US oil industry of President Joe ‘I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuel’ Biden we wouldn’t be so vulnerable to OPEC.” Twitter, [10/5/22]

New York Post Editorial: “Rather than White House whining about OPEC, America needs to drill, baby, drill — but Biden refuses.” New York Post, [10/5/22]

Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo onAmerica’s Newsroom: “It's not just about the leases — it is about all the rules, the regulations, the bureaucracy that this administration has put in place to stop, lessen and kill the fossil fuel industry.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [10/6/22]

Fox News host Harris Faulkner claimed Biden is “suffocating” domestic oil production. “Saudi Arabia leads OPEC+ and the Biden White House has been pressuring them to do more to help us while President Biden's policies have suffocated our own oil production at home.” Fox News, *The Falkner Focus*, [10/6/22]

Fox Business anchor Larry Kudlow: “What the Bidens have done with their very extreme climate radicalism, is they’ve taken the power of energy away from the United States and given it back to the Saudis and OPEC and Russia.”Fox News,*America Reports*, [10/6/22]

Former Fox Nation host Lara Logan on Newsmax: “The Biden administration is at war with fossil fuels.” Logan continued, “You're going to go to war on fossil fuels. You're going to have idiots like that person that they have in California who bans combustion engines and that the oil producing countries are just gonna take it.” Newsmax, *Eric Bolling the Balance*, [10/6/22]

Wall Street Journal: “The White House blames the industry for high gas prices while it does everything it can to make drilling more difficult and financially risky.” Wall Street Journal, [10/6/22]

Climate contrarian and frequent Fox News guest Michael Shellenberger: “By working against domestic oil production, it’s Biden who has allowed the Russians & Saudis to raise gas prices.”Shellenberger: “Biden just now said gas prices are ‘inching up because of what the Russians & the Saudis just did’ and ‘there's nothing beyond the capacity if we work together.’ But by working against domestic oil production, it's Biden who has allowed the Russians & Saudis to raise gas prices.” Twitter, [10/7/22]

Foxnews.com: “Joe Biden has hampered domestic energy industry while pleading for more foreign oil.”Foxnews.com, [10/7/22]

One America Newsroom host Addison Smith: “[Biden] cut the Keystone XL pipeline on day one.”He went on, saying, “He's campaigned on Green New Deal policies. He eliminated American energy independence byhalting drilling on federal lands. He's always groaning about how the sun monster is going to destroy us all if we don't buy electric vehicles and stop using fossil fuels.” OAN, *In Focus*, [10/7/22]

Kelly Sadler: “They want to put the fossil fuel industry out of business.”Sadler continued, “Joe Biden campaigned on that. As a result, we are not — we're no longer energy independent. Newsmax, *Wake Up America*, [10/10/22]

Chief National Initiatives Officer at the industry-funded Texas Public Policy Institute, Chuck DeVore: “Biden’s anti-domestic energy policies have caused oil and natural gas producers to be wary of spending money to boost production. While big banks’ woke capital restrictions are gradually starving the oil and gas sector of the money needed to drill new wells.” Foxnews.com, [10/11/22],

On Fox News, Chuck Devore said: “They can’t have it both ways. Either they have policies that make it more difficult to produce American energy and push up energy prices, and, you know, hasten the transition to electric vehicles, or they don’t. … Let’s change the policy so that people can benefit from lower energy prices today.” Fox News, *Fox News at Night*, [10/13/22]

Fox Business reporter Ed Lawrence on The Faulkner Focus: “The first day President Biden was in office canceling the Keystone Pipeline. The war on fossil fuels. No change in policy from this White House.” Fox News, *The Faulkner Focus*, [10/12/22]
Right-wing radio and Fox News host Sean Hannity suggests that in order to stop climate alarmists Republicans need to stop Democrats from controlling the House and Senate:“Could you imagine if we don't stop the madness that is the climate alarmists, cultists New Green Deal, socialist movement? Can you imagine even a worst-case scenario where the Democrats get to control the House and Senate and they get a bigger majority in the Senate and they end the legislative filibuster? ” Hannity Radio, [10/14/22]
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz: “If Joe Biden and Schumer and Pelosi get their way, gasoline…. is going to be $10 [per gallon] and then it’s going to be $12 then it’s going to be $20.” *Verdict with Ted Cruz*, [10/14/22]
Fox anchor Sandra Smith on America’s Newsroomsuggests that Biden is blaming oil companies instead of taking responsibility for high gas prices: “It's been OPEC, it's been now the Saudis, it's been Vladimir Putin, and most recently it's also been pinning a lot of blame on the oil companies themselves. … The president has been putting the onus on the oil companies that he told he would bring the end of the fossil fuel industry to ramp up their production.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [10/14/22]
Right-wing TV personality and former advisor to Trump Kimberly Guilfoyle said: “Gas prices are $1.44 higher under Joe Biden. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at a 40-year low. Home heating costs will soar by 28% this winter. Brought to you by Joe Biden's war on American energy.” Twitter, [10/20/22]

American Petroleum Institute president Mike Sommers said on Mornings With Maria that the administration is being contradictory on oil production: “This is a very precarious position we're in today at a time of dramatic geopolitical upheaval… The one thing this administration has done from the very beginning is they’ve tried to do everything they could to prevent production in the United States… This administration continues to talk out of both sides of its mouth, saying they want more production but not putting more policies in place that would actually encourage more production.” Fox News, *Mornings with Maria*, [10/20/22]

Right-wing media attack Biden for Strategic Petroleum Reserve use, foreign oil imports, and efforts to stabilize global oil supply

To help manage global oil prices, Biden began releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves in March. The latest release of 15 million barrels, announced on October 19, is the last of those planned releases. Right-wing media have suggested that drawing down the reserve makes the U.S. vulnerable to other disasters where the reserve would be needed to shore up supplies while doing nothing to address gas prices. As it stands, the reserves are still more than half full. The move has modestly lowered gas prices, however, experts agree it is not a long-term solution. Biden is also considering easing sanctions on Venezuela for Chevron to resume pumping oil there, allowing the country to export to U.S. and European markets.

Right-wing media has disingenuously argued that getting oil from Venezuela would be more environmentally damaging than producing more oil in the U.S., thus, increasing production domestically would be the more ethical choice. This is a common fossil fuel industry talking point that bad actors use to encourage long-term investments in expanding domestic production, meant to delay an economy-wide transition to renewable energy and ensure that we are reliant on fossil fuels for decades to come. This would be the worst possible outcome for the environment. The same individuals who praise the U.S. for having such “clean” energy production compared to other countries are also fighting against regulations implemented by the Biden administration that are meant toprotect vulnerable communities and hold the industry accountable for the extensive damage it will inevitably cause to ecosystems, the climate, and public health.

Former Trump advisor and frequent Fox News guest Stephen Miller: “You are watching an act of national sabotage, in real-time, carried out by President Biden. If a global emergency cut-off our access to foreign oil we would no longer have the strategic reserves to keep going.” Twitter, [10/5/22]

Conservative radio host Clay Travis: “Joe Biden’s administration is begging the totalitarian [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro regime to produce more oil — unlocking tens of billions of dollars for them in Venezuela — instead of producing more oil here.” The tweet continued, “Aside from rewarding dictators, how is it better for the environment? Of course it isn’t.” Twitter, [10/6/22]

Donald Trump Jr.: “The Wall Street Journal says Biden will ease sanctions on Venezuela to pump more oil but he won’t do anything to bring back American energy independence. … He will deal with the dictatorial regime but not Americans!” Twitter, [10/6/22]

Newsmax host Eric Bolling on Eric Bolling the Balance: “This Strategic Petroleum Reserve is supposed to be for emergencies, for wartime. Biden is using it to try and ease some of the pain at the pump. And it's not working. Prices are still going up…we're way back to Carter years.” Newsmax, *Eric Bolling the Balance*, [10/13/22]

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin on Eric Bolling the Balance: “Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve that is supposed to be for legit emergencies, not these economic political games that Biden's playing. … It's that newfangled, weird, bogus green energy policy that they want to cram down our throats.” Newsmax, *Eric Bolling: The Balance*, [10/13/22]

Fox host Steve Hilton on The Faulkner Focus: Democrats are “acting to prop up the Venezuelan regime.” Hilton continued, “The total basket case authoritarian regime of Maduro by trying to do an oil deal” and that this was another result of “their own stupid policies.” Fox News, *The* *Falkner Focus*, [10/14/22]

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) on Fox Report with Jon Scott: “We do it cleaner so if you care about the environment, you should be rooting for American energy.” Fox News,*Fox Report with Jon Scott*, [10/15/22]

Stephen Miller suggested Biden has jeopardized U.S. security through domestic energy policy. On Twitter, Miller said, “If every POTUS who wanted lower gas prices at election time raided our emergency stockpile there would be no emergency stockpile. Biden stands alone in his corruption & dereliction. We are now sitting ducks if an adversary disrupts our supply. And Biden still won’t drill in USA.” Twitter, [10/19/22]

Fox’s White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich said critics doubt the efficacy of Biden’s strategy: “The president's critics worry that draining the country's emergency stockpile could leave the U.S. vulnerable in the event of a major military conflict or natural disaster. …The White House has repeatedly claimed [gas prices] in the past are out of the president's control because of external factors like Putin's war in Ukraine and more alarming to the critics the White House is prepared to draw down the reserves even lower.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*,[10/19/22]
Fox contributor Katie Pavlich on The Story: “The continued depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by this president is outrageous and it is a scandal. It is a supply that is supposed to be reserved for the United States, not for Ukraine, but for the United States or in times of natural disasters. Let's not forget this administration sold millions of barrels of U.S. Reserve oil to China over the summer, so he is putting us in a crisis situation.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [10/19/22]

Right-wing media claims Biden’s negotiations to keep OPEC+ from cutting oil supply are politically motivated and even impeachable

Despite negotiations with Biden to keep oil supplies stable, OPEC+ announced on October 5 that it would cut its oil supply by 2 million barrels a day in an attempt to push the price to $100 a barrel. The White House has called the move shortsighted, while analysts have noted that it benefits Russia and could push the global economy closer to recession. Some early right-wing reactions suggested that Biden — who in response to OPEC’s decision signaled thepossibility of more releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — only cared about gas prices rising because of the looming midterms elections.

On October 12, in a rare statement to U.S. media, the Saudi government echoed these sentiments by claiming that Biden asked them to delay the cuts by one month – creating a feedback loop between right-wing media and the Saudi royal family. The White House has disputed these claims.

GOP strategist and influencer Alex Bruesewitz: “Joe Biden is emptying our strategic oil reserves ahead of the midterm elections to temporarily lower gas prices in an attempt to trick voters.” Bruesewitz also claimed this was ”another impeachable offense.” Twitter, [10/5/22]

Former Trump appointee and right-wing media commentator Monica Crowley wrote on Twitter said that “Biden deliberately crippled our energy sector” and drove up inflation, calling these “impeachable offenses." Twitter, [10/5/22]

On Facebook, right-wing outlet Breitbart pushed this message: “Of course, the Biden regime won't give a damn AFTER the election if gas prices soar, but heaven forbid they do so again BEFORE the midterm elections.” Facebook, [10/5/22]

On Facebook, Fox News promoted the idea that, “The president is attempting to circumvent a possible global spike in gas prices just before the midterm elections.” Facebook, [10/5/22]

Fox & Friends co-host Ainsely Earhardt: “He knows if price goes up again Democrats stand to lose in the elections. … Now he’s going to release these 10 million more in November when the elections are.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [10/6/22]

Larry Kudlow on America Reports: “For election year political price-fixing reasons they have depleted our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” Kudlow continued, “That is a pathetic response and it is a response that damages our national security because we are going to need that thing over time.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [10/6/22]

Sean Hannity: “[Biden’s] decision to drain our Strategic Petroleum Reserves to salvage a few votes is putting our country's national security at risk.” Hannity continued, “It is not, Joe, a national emergency when Democrats believe they are going to lose midterm elections. Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/6/22]

The Gateway Pundit:“BREAKING: Saudi Arabia Foreign Ministry Confirms Joe Biden Attempted to Coerce Kingdom to Cut Oil Prices Until After Midterm Election.” Gateway Pundit, [10/12/22]

Alt-right commentator Jack Posobiec: “BREAKING: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia confirms Biden attempted to coerce them to postpone oil cuts until after the midterms, announce they have rejected his quid pro quo.” Twitter, [10/12/22]

Trump shill and president of conservative organization Judicial Watch Tom Fitton: “So the Biden ‘October surprise’ was to get Saudi Arabia and OPEC to put off announcement of negative oil price news until after our elections.” Twitter, [10/12/22]

Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro also suggested Biden was engaged in shady negotiations with Saudi Arabia for political benefit:“So Joe Biden refuses to say whether he would support cutting off arms supplies to Saudi Arabia after the Saudis rejected his request to increase oil supply in a slowing economy — a request made for a specified period of time, until right after the election.” Twitter, [10/13/22]

RedState: “It Sure Looks Like Joe Biden Is Trying to Blackmail Saudi Arabia to Interfere in the 2022 Election.” RedState, [10/13/22]

Daily Wire: “Saudi Arabia Torches Biden For Trying To Pressure OPEC Into Not Cutting Oil Production Before Midterms.” Daily Wire, [10/13/22]

:{:{Maria Bartiromo: “Saudi Arabia has confirmed in a statement overnight that Biden did attempt to coerce the kingdom to postpone the OPEC}:
oil production cuts until after the midterm elections.” Fox News, Morning with Maria, [10/14/22]}:
Fox Business’ Stuart Varney on Fox & Friends:“We suffer the embarrassment of watching our president beg for oil or beg the Saudis, ‘Don't cut oil yet but wait until after the November elections.’” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [10/14/22]

Fox News host Laura Ingraham on The Ingraham Angle: “Now with the Biden administration attempting to pressure a foreign government to influence the outcome of the U.S. election, do you think that might be a big story?” Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, [10/14/22]

Fox News correspondent Kevin Corke on the Fox & Friends First: “The diplomatic chill coming after the Saudis say, ‘Yeah, we rebuffed a White House request to delay our oil reduction plan until after the midterms.’ …The allegation has people thinking, this White House pretty much did what they accused former President Trump of doing.” Fox News, Fox & Friends First, [10/14/22]

Mike Pompeo on America’s Newsroom: “This is pure politics. … Three weeks out from the election. … The point that was made earlier, we now have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a 40-year low.” Fox News, America’s Newsroom, [10/18/22]

Harris Faulkner on Outnumbered: “Less than three weeks ahead of the midterm election. His critics are calling it a desperate attempt to drive down the gas prices as the economy and inflation have emerged as a concern for voters.” Fox News,*Outnumbered*, [10/19/22]

The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland: “Joe Biden can’t stop spending other people’s money. Even at $72 a barrel, it will cost taxpayers over $21 billion to replace the oil he’s robbed from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for his midterm election slush fund.” Twitter, [10/20/22]

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) Press Secretary Abigail Marone: “Saying the quiet part out loud: Biden is draining our strategic oil reserves to try and win an election.” Twitter, [10/20/22]

---

922 mma

tyrant elite commie implicit, rubber glue on racism

guess she got the memo:

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): The entire ESG scheme is a complete fraud and the result will be the destruction of our energy independence, radical changes they're planning to our food supply and the creation of what ultimately will be something akin to a racial and ethnic caste system. The free enterprise system, that made us the most powerful nation on Earth, was based on objective merit and a strong work ethic. Well this helps smash all of that.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-fails-apply-fact-check-labels-energy-independence-misinformation

as the global economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, insufficient oil supply and the war in Ukraine have increased the price of crude oil, and gas prices have followed suit.On Facebook, right-wing pages are pushing a false narrative of American “energy independence” to shift the blame for high gas prices to the Biden administration and promote an ineffective, anti-science, pro-fossil fuel agenda.Misinformation on this topic is spreading on the platform, and the majority of posts go unflagged by Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners.

Facebook claims to reduce the distribution of posts with climate change misinformation through its fact-checking partnerships, though it does not remove climate change misinformation posts unless they violate its Community Standards. These organizations -- certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter -- can label misinformation, and posts with such labels are apparently pushed lower in the news feed. Facebook also says that pages, groups, or accounts that repeatedly share misinformation can face penalties, such as losing the ability to advertise or monetize posts or being tagged with pop-up warnings indicating that the account often shares misinformation. However, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and numerous media accountability reports have revealed that not only is Facebook’s policy incoherent and ineffective — as many posts go unlabeled — but the platform’s algorithm also appears to push users toward climate change denial content, pages, and groups.

In our latest study, Media Matters looked at Facebook pages that consistently spread climate or energy-related misinformation from September 1, 2021, through April 1, 2022, and found these pages were overwhelmingly ideologically right-leaning. We identified the 100 top Facebook posts with the most interactions (likes, comments, shares) that contained climate change and energy-related misinformation and found many posts used the energy independence narrative to push misinformation about gas prices.

Key findings

The top 100 Facebook posts with the most interactions (likes, comments, shares) that contain climate change and energy-related misinformation earned 5.2 million interactions.
Only 2 posts had a misinformation fact-checking label for failing to provide context and misusing the term “energy independence.” These posts earned 176,000 interactions combined.
Among the top 100 posts, 37 other posts made similarly false arguments about “energy independence,” yet none were labeled. These posts earned a total of 1.5 million interactions.
High gas prices were the key driver of misinformation for 41 out of the top 100 posts. These posts accounted for 1.8 million interactions.
- Among these, 14 posts (34%) argued for increased fossil fuel extraction, production, and infrastructure in addition to misusing the term “energy independence.”

## Misinformation fact-checking labels were applied to only 2 of dozens of “energy independence” posts
For years, Fox News has used the term “energy independence” to describe a situation where the U.S. could increase domestic fossil fuel production enough to isolate itself from the volatility of oil and gas prices caused by geopolitical instability. Recent misinformation on Facebook adopts these talking points, claiming that the U.S. was previously energy independent and is now dealing with high gas prices due to the Biden administration’s policies.

In reality, the U.S. was a net exporter of energy in 2021 and produced more energy than it consumed while Biden was president, fitting a widely accepted definition of energy independence. But whether or not a country is a net exporter of energy, gas prices are shaped by global supply and demand, not the actions of a single government.

The misinformation we found on Facebook prevents users from obtaining a full understanding of this concept, especially when there is no readily available fact check that users can access. Out of the top 100 misinformation posts Media Matters examined, just 2 had fact-checking labels. These posts earned 176,000 interactions combined.

One of the posts was from the page of climate denier Franklin Graham, who has argued that humans have a God-given right to increase resource extraction.

Graham’s labeled post claims that “the United States had the strongest economy in over 70 years — and we were energy independent. Now we are dangerously dependent on other countries again — buying 7 percent of our oil from Russia.”The post earned 132,000 interactions and was the fifth-most popular post out of the 100 Media Matters looked at between September 1, 2021 and April 1, 2022.

Facebook’s label indicates that the post has missing context, specifically that it “misled on energy independence.” The fact check links to an article by Agence France-Presse, one of Facebook’s fact-checking partners.

The other post which also has a missing-context label is a video from the Facebook page Media Research Center TV. The title of the video, “Killing Keystone: How Biden and The Far Left Destroyed American Energy Independence,” is a false claim in and of itself. Media Research Center, which describes itself as a right-wing media watchdog, has long denied the scientific consensus on climate change and receives funding from the fossil fuel industry. The Facebook label on the post cites misleading information on energy independence, linking to the same AFP article. The post has 44,000 interactions....

no lnx many twt]

facebook failed to consistently label similar high-performing posts as “energy independence” misinformation

It’s clear these two posts breach Facebook’s fact-checking policy. However, our research identified 37 other posts earning 1.5 million combined interactions that made very similar statements regarding energy independence. None of these other posts were flagged with a missing-context label.

For example, on March 6, Fox News posted a graphic with a quote from Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), presented as fact. The post claims that Scott claimed the Biden administration is preventing the U.S. from being energy independent because it has considered the possibility of sourcing oil from Venezuela or Iran rather than increasing domestic drilling. Compared to Franklin Graham’s labeled post, this post is similarly misleading, pushing the same message about how the president’s energy policies have impacted energy independence. And yet, this post, which earned 55,000 interactions, has not received a label.

Fox News, Facebook, March 6, 2022 Energy Independence

Another example is a March 10 post from Mike Rowe.Rowe has hosted the TV series Six Degrees, which is sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute and contains fossil fuel propaganda in every episode. Rowe’s nonprofit has also received funding from Koch Industries. In the post, which accompanies a pro-fossil fuel episode of Rowe’s web series Good Questions, Rowe writes: “One minute, America was a net exporter of oil and natural gas. The next minute, we’re back to buying oil from despots and sheiks, with gas prices at an all-time high. Honest question - Why would we allow energy independence to slip through our fingers?”

Again, the post creates a misunderstanding of energy independence, suggesting that the U.S. cannot be energy independent while importing oil from other countries and that the U.S. is no longer a net exporter of energy. Both claims are false. This post earned 30,000 interactions. Even though the misinformation in Rowe’s post mirrors the misinformation in the other labeled posts, it lacks a fact-check label.

High gas prices have been a key driver of climate change and energy-related Facebook misinformation since 2021.

Media Matters found high gas prices have been a key driver of Facebook misinformation not just since Russia invaded Ukraine, but for the entire seven-month period Media Matters examined, starting September 2021. In total, 41 out of the top 100 posts were in response to the pain Americans are feeling at the pump and while buying everyday goods. These posts accounted for 1.8 million interactions.

The right has repeatedly blamed this crisis on various Biden administration policies despite a lack of evidence supporting that claim. The decision to cancel the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline was cited in 30 of the top 100 posts as a main culprit behind high gas prices. A March survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that in reality, oil companies aren’t drilling because of pressure from investors to reliably return profits through dividends and stock buybacks instead of investing in new production. Biden also approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in his first year than the Trump administration did in its first year. As for the Keystone XL pipeline extension, experts have pointed out that it would do virtually nothing to lower gas prices in the short term. Nonetheless, 34% of posts about high gas prices also argued for increased fossil fuel extraction, production, and infrastructure to further U.S. energy independence.

The right has consistently used loaded language like “energy independence” to defend fossil fuels despite their harmful impacts on human health, geopolitics, and the economy. Meanwhile, right-wing media and influencers spread misinformation about the viability of renewable energy, and even inaccurately blamed the shortcomings of fossil fuel infrastructure on wind energy during the Texas winter storm and power outages in February 2021. Understanding how the global energy market works could help media consumers understand that renewable energy can move the country closer to self-reliance, and that there is legislation moving with the aim of making that happen. As climate advocates have pointed out, transitioning to renewable energy is the only way for countries to achieve this sort of freedom from the fluctuations of the global fossil-fuel system in which we are deeply entrenched.

Even while Facebook managed to label 2 posts, these labels can only have a limited impact when they are so vastly outnumbered by disinformation across media. With midterm elections approaching, the Biden administration has broken a key climate campaign promise by reopening federal lands for new oil and gas drilling lease sales. The move is unlikely to help with high gas prices in the short term and is in direct conflict with the International Energy Agency’s pathway to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Voters must be equipped with accurate information about the conditions that created high gas prices. According to a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll, 71% of Americans blame Putin a “great deal” or a “good amount” for the increases in gas prices. However, the poll also found that 52% blame the price increases on Democratic Party policies, and 51% blame Biden. Facebook’s failure to uphold its own policies and crack down on misinformation is having real consequences and influencing how Americans view both this crisis and the role that fossil fuels should play in our economic future.

Methodology...

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he's good w/ metaphor

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/limiting-climate-change-life-support/

"The 1.5-degree goal is on life support. It is in intensive care."

So said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterreson Monday, as he stressed that a swift and just transition to clean energy is necessary to meet the Paris agreement's objective of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels—andwarned against using Russia's deadly assault on Ukraine as an excuse to ramp up fossil fuel production worldwide.

"The science is clear. So is the math," the U.N. leader said during a speech delivered at a Sustainability Summit hosted by The Economist. "Keeping 1.5 alive requires a 45% reduction in global emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by mid-century." And yet, "according to present national commitments, global emissions are set to increase by almost 14% in the 2020s."

"We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe," Guterres continued. "Our planet has already warmed by as much as 1.2 degrees—and we see the devastating consequences everywhere. In 2020, climate disasters forced 30 million people to flee their homes—three times more than those displaced by war and violence."

Just this past weekend, scientists conveyed shock and alarm in response to reports that temperatures at both of Earth's poles reached more than 50°F above average last week.Peer-reviewed research published on Friday found that increasingly frequent and intense wildfires around the globe are exacerbating Arctic warming, which is worsening the conditions that make future blazes more likely.

"Two weeks ago," said Guterres, citing part two of the U.N.'s landmark climate assessment, "the IPCC confirmed that half of humanity is already living in the danger zone. Small island nations, least developed countries, and poor and vulnerable people everywhere areone climate shock away from doomsday. In our globally connected world, no country and no corporation can insulate itself from these levels of chaos."

"If we continue with more of the same, we can kiss 1.5 goodbye," he added. "Even 2 degrees may be out of reach. And that would be catastrophe."

Making matters worse, said Guterres, "the fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine risks upending global food and energy markets—with major implications for the global climate agenda."

The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union have moved to restrict imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to Moscow's military offensive. Although progressives have emphasized that the ongoing invasion should lead to an intensification of efforts to move away from dirty energy,profit-hungry proponents of oil, gas, and coal have seized on surging prices to push for boosting extraction and exports.

Guterres warned that "as major economies pursue an 'all-of-the-above' strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels, short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence and close the window to 1.5 degrees."

"Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use," he said. "This is madness. Addiction to fossil fuels ismutually assured destruction."

"As current events make all too clear, our continued reliance on fossil fuels puts the global economy and energy security at the mercy of geopolitical shocks and crises," added Guterres. "We need to fix the broken global energy mix."

Noting that "the timeline to cut emissions by 45% is extremely tight," the U.N. leader stressed that "instead of hitting the brakes on the decarbonization of the global economy, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal towards a renewable energy future."

His remarks came just hours before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) kicked off a two-week meeting to validate part three of its report, which focuses on the need to drastically slash carbon pollution to avoid the most disastrous outcomes.

Guterres argued that cooperation between the developed and emerging economies of the G20—responsible for 80% of global emissions—is essential to addressing the planetary emergency.

"Accelerating the phase-out of coal and all fossil fuels and implementing a rapid, just, and sustainable energy transition," he said, is "the only true pathway to energy security."

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/great-barrier-reef-bleaching-event/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/climate-change-surge-uncharted-territory/

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see shillenberger

https://www.foxnews.com/world/europes-green-energy-policies-strengthened-putin-michael-shellenberger-says

ref to ?

no lnx [vid in bathrobe?]

DIGITAL ORIGINALS [VULNERABILITY PT??]

Published March 9, 2022

Europe's green energy policies strengthened Putin, Michael Shellenberger says

Europe's dependency on Russian energy empowers Putin in Ukraine conflict, Shellenberger says

By William Spruance , William Spruance | Fox News

Europe's green energy policies empowered Russian President Vladimir Putin and stripped Western countries of their ability to sanction Moscow effectively, according to the best-selling author of "Apocalypse Never."

"You're not really an independent nation if you depend on foreign countries so heavily for your energy supplies," Michael Shellenberger told Fox News. He said European nations have become increasingly dependent on Russia for energy in recent years as they have adopted green policy initiatives.

The continent imports nearly 40% of its gas from Russia, according to the Associated Press. It consumes nearly five times as much oil as it produces, and Russia produces nearly four times as much oil as it consumes, according to British Petroleum.

Europe's dependency on Russian energy limits its ability to take actions such as imposing economic sanctions against Russia in response to the conflict in Ukraine, according to Shellenberger.

UKRAINE CONFLICT ‘HEIGHTENS THE RISK’ OF CHINESE-AMERICAN WAR, PROFESSOR SAYS]

"Fifteen years ago, Europe produced more natural gas than Russia," Shellenberger said. "Today, Russia exports three times more natural gas to Europe than Europe produces."

"That's due both to the fact that Russia increased its natural gas production and Europe reduced it," he added.

Green energy policies have made Europe dependent on Russia

"Europe decided not to frack in large part in response to climate activists," Shellenberger told Fox News. "We now think there is strong evidence suggesting [the climate activists] were supported directly through financing from Russia."

Moscow intelligence agencies, for example, secretly supported European environmental groups in campaigns against fracking in order to keep the European Union dependent on Russian exports, according to a 2018 congressional report.

But environmental activist groups do not disclose their donors, so any benefactors of Russia’s donations remain unknown, according to Shellenberger. WHO DOES NOT DISCLOSE DONORS]

Additionally, Europeans became more reliant on Russian energy because of nuclear energy policies.

Putin "expanded nuclear power at home so that he could export more natural gas abroad rather than use it for electricity production," Shellenberger said. "Europe shut down its nuclear plants and declined to build new ones."

Russia's nuclear power capacity has increased by 33% since 2002, according to the World Nuclear Association. Germany's nuclear capacity has decreased by over 80% in that time period.

"That has proven to be catastrophic as the continent became increasingly dependent on Russia for energy imports," Shellenberger told Fox News.

Shellenberger described rising oil costs and foreign dependencies as "the worst energy crisis since 1973."

"I think the chances are very high that it's going to result in a global recession," Shellenberger told Fox News. "When oil prices reach these levels, they tend to trigger recessions." NOT ALARMIST AT ALL, LAST RECESSIONS CAUSED BY TRUMP COVID FAIL AND ENRON DEREG]

DataTrek Research co-founder Nicholas Colas recently told Barron's: "History shows that a 100% increase in oil prices over a year usually triggers a recession (1990, 2000, 2008). We’re not quite there yet, but we are getting closer by the day.

Crude oil reached $130 per barrel Sunday evening, according to CNBC. A year ago, it was $63.81.

Shellenberger said oil prices could hit $200 per barrel. [WELL QUALIFIED TO PREDICT]

European reliance on Russian energy leaves Western countries with little leverage against Putin in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, according to Shellenberger.

President Biden announced on Tuesday a ban on U.S. imports of Russia oil. Last year, the U.S. imported 7% of its petroleum from Russia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"Our hearts are with the Ukrainians," Shellenberger said. "We would love to be able to punish the Russians and stop importing their energy, but efforts to do that will make energy more expensive." [AND THUS NOT A SACRIFICE WOTH MAKING TO SAVED DEMOC TRUMP AND PUTIN TRYING TO DESTROY YOU TRAITOROUS FECK]

"It was always predictable," Shellenberger said of the energy crisis and European dependence on Russian energy. "This was all very apparent to people that wererational thinkers on energy."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Prosperity, sovereignty and energy independence are all interconnected, according to Shellenberger.

"There is no low-energy rich nation, just as there is no high-energy poor nation," [NIGERIA? VENEZUELA? IS RUSSIA RICH?] he said.

:{:{}:

"I hope it’s a wake-up call," Shellenberger told Fox News. "At best, we can hope to avoid a global recession, but that's going to require a significant expansion of energy supplies in the United States and Europe as quickly as we can."

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https://www.mediamatters.org/cable-news/fox-news-pushes-energy-independence-329-times-first-two-weeks-russias-war-ukraine

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the fossil fuel industry has been using the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine as a pretext to call for continued, and deepened, reliance on its dirty and dangerous products. Fox News’ coverage throughout the crisis has largely echoed the industry’s talking points, specifically the idea that America needs to drill and produce more oil. Critiques from President Joe Biden and his administration related to the industry's untapped leases and record profits have also prompted Fox and guests to leap to Big Oil’s defense in recent weeks.

In the face of another onslaught of fossil fuel talking points from Fox News, other cable news networks have not held the industry accountable by reporting on its role in driving the climate crisis, polluting the environment, and exacerbating geopolitical conflicts. In pivotal moments like this, viewers deserve to learn how our reliance on fossil fuels is leaving us more vulnerable to crises ranging from climate change to foreign wars.

Fox News has absolved Big Oil of any responsibility for energy price increases, while accusing the Biden administration of scapegoating

The fossil fuel industry has waged a billion-dollar campaign to erode the public consensus on climate change, fool the public about its commitment to addressing the climate crisis, and thwart any climate action that could impact its bottom line. The industry’s spin campaign has continued as the crisis in Ukraine escalated, causing economic disruption around the world. Faced with public majorities that are outraged at Russian aggression against Ukraine and “favor developing alternative energy, including wind and solar, over increasing production of fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas,” the industry has instead chosen to obfuscate its refusal to produce more oil and gas, pad its record 2021 profits via anti-consumerist practices, and move to deepen the world’s reliance on its products.

And one of its biggest media cheerleaders has been Fox News.

As tensions between Russia and Ukraine ratcheted up, Fox has been nearly unrelenting in pushing a narrative that the Biden administration’s climate policies emboldened Russian President Vladmir Putin to invade. This push includes Fox figures mentioning the canceled Keystone pipeline approximately 141 times in segments about the Ukraine crisis from February 22-28 and mentioning “energy independence” or “energy security” – industry talking points to promote more domestic drilling for oil and gas – at least 329 times from February 24 through March 9.

After Biden’s March 8 announcement that the United States was banning Russian fossil fuel imports, Fox News hosts and guests blamed him for instituting the same policy that they had previously demanded – all while praising oil and gas companies as “the greatest industry around the world,” deflecting criticism of them as “unpatriotic,” and arguing they are “basically our national defense.”

On the March 8 episode of *America’s Newsroom, for example, anchor Sandra Smith parroted the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) debunked talking point about the Biden administration discouraging fossil fuel investment. Fox host and former Trump adviser Larry Kudlow attacked the Biden administration for criticizing the industry’s price gouging and record profits on the March 8 episode of *America Reports.

Later that evening on Hannity, host Sean Hannity amplified API talking points that the Biden administration is making it hard to produce more oil; allowed fossil fuel shillDaniel Turner to claim that the Biden administration “wants to send a message to the environmental left” by attacking the industry; and gave energy analyst Phil Flynn a platform to claim that “there’s absolutely no gouging” in gas prices and that the Federal Reserve has been “weaponized” against oil and gas companies. [vid 8th]

the drumbeat of Big Oil talking points continued in the ensuing days.

On the March 9 episode of **The Faulkner Focus, anchor Harris Faulkner hosted API President Mike Sommers to blame Biden for high energy prices: “Some of the policies that are being pursued right now by this administration are putting us on a road to more dependence – not independence.”

Similarly, Fox host Jesse Watters hosted oil company CEO Dan Eberhart on the March 10 episode ofJesse Watters Primetimeto push for more domestic drilling and complained that the Biden administration has been treating the industry as “war profiteers.”

The narrative was still being pushed into this new week. On the March 15 episode of The Story with Martha MacCallum, Fox News anchor Sandra Smith suggested that the Biden administration should decrease energy prices for “the American family, the American consumer who is suffering right now” in part by taking a “friendlier approach to the oil and gas industry." Smith repeated this and other arguments to “increase and incentivize drilling” on the March 15 episode of *The Five*, citing API’s claim that the Biden administration should demonstrate it's not out to “demonize oil companies.”

Fox personality Charles Payne echoed the idea that the Biden administration was “demonizing” oil companies during the March 16 episode of America Reports. [vid]

there is a desperate need for cable news to ramp up its accountability journalism

Despite not promoting these false narratives during the Ukraine crisis as much as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC have largely failed to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for exploiting geopolitical conflicts for profit while driving the climate crisis and degrading the environment for billions of people. The networks have also featured very little coverage about the myriad benefits of clean energy, which include economic stability and energy security (clean energy generation is more price stable and politically stable than fossil fuels).

There is a very clear story that needs to be told about the fossil fuel industry, especially in this moment of rising gas prices and wartime sanctions. As explained by the nonprofit environmental law organizationEarthjustice: “Gas prices are not dictated by White House policy, and the industry’s argument that federal leasing and permitting policies are the source of high gas prices is a flat-out lie crafted to deceive the American public.”

Chasing more fossil fuel leases on public lands and waters would increase industry profits but wouldn’t do anything to decrease today’s gas prices at the pump. It also would keep sending us down the same road of fossil fuel production that is the main driver of the worsening climate crisis. The industry gets the profits, and the American people get handed the resulting wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and coastal flooding caused and exacerbated by climate change. There’s a better road to go down, and it’s the road of clean energy. For as long as we’re addicted to oil for energy, Americans will be subject to big cost increases when a foreign dictator decides to invade another country or there is a change in the world economy.

As a key cog in the fossil fuel industry’s disinformation network, Fox News will never cover this reality. But CNN and MSNBC can no longer afford to miss opportunities to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable in favor of echoing and amplifying Big Oil talking points while the window for meaningful climate action is rapidly closing.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-heaps-praise-fossil-fuel-industry-russian-war-ukraine-rages

~ dominance BS:

an 3 22 ukraine

On Monday, March 7, the Republican-controlled Florida State Senate sent House Bill 741 — which removes green energy incentives for Florida homeowners — to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk for approval. Because MAGA Republicans are dogmatic in their disdain for green energy and love of fossil fuels, DeSantis is almost certain to sign HB 741 into law. But in an op-ed published by the Miami Herald on March 14, Mark Hertling — an Orlando, Florida resident and retired U.S. Army officer — argues that DeSantis should veto HB 741 because it’s the type of bill that helps Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“(DeSantis) is likely to sign HB 741, which would negatively affect the solar industry and eliminate any incentive for individual Floridians to generate their own power at a time when we should be finding ways to expand homegrown energy,” Hertling explains. “To a degree, Florida’s decision to rapidly curtail available and cheaper domestic energy sources gives Putin money in his pockets and leverage over the West.”

Only a fraction of the oil and gas used in the United States has been coming from Russia. So, when President Joe Biden banned Russian oil/gas imports, it was a symbolic way to take a stand against Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. But Western Europe gets a lot of oil from Russia, and Hertling argues that European countries have been much too reliant on Russian oil.

“For those of us who spent most of our professional lives in the U.S. Armed Forces, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not a complete surprise,” Hertling explains. “When I served as the commanding general of the United States Army-Europe, Vladimir Putin’s expansion was something we tracked and reported on daily, given his invasion of Georgia in 2008, his takeover of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, and his other adventures in Moldova and Azerbaijan. We also understood why the world let Putin get away with it: The Europeans — and to a lesser degree the U.S. — depended on Russian fossil fuel.”

Hertling adds, “In the last three weeks, we have managed to cripple Russia’s economy, which is almost singularly based on its oil and natural gas industry. In the future, many nations, the U.S. included, must find ways to exploit alternative energy sources.”

Hertling goes on to explain why solar panels have been beneficial to Floridians.

“When I retired in Orlando eight years ago,” Hertling notes, “we put solar panels on our new house.… When we put solar panels on our home, our electric bills were cut by two-thirds. With tax exemptions, we paid for the panels in just a few years. And returning power to the grid while we were paying less gave us the knowledge that we were contributing to the community and an improved environment.”

Hertling continues, “In sunny Florida, we always wondered why most of our neighbors didn’t do the same. In all likelihood, HB 741 would significantly reduce the demand for rooftop solar power generation in Florida, taking roughly 1.5 million kilowatt hours of energy offline each year.”

In light of the crisis in Ukraine, Hertling writes, the last thing DeSantis should do is sign HB 741 into law.

“I am not suggesting that HB 741’s proponents support Putin’s criminal actions,” Hertling writes.“I am suggesting that any claim that rooftop solar is regressive — which is a dubious claim, as most Florida rooftop solar users make less than $100,000 a year — is counter-intuitive.Yet impact matters more than intent.… That DeSantis would pick this moment to support this is baffling. If he wants to be on the right side of history, Floridians, and our environment, he must veto HB 741.”

ukraine war may well be inflection pt between getting off FF and 2x down?!

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an 3 22

Right-wing pastor Andrew Wommack is no stranger to making boneheaded comments about climate change. A full-fledged denialist, Wommack has claimed that human beings lack the power to influence Earth's climatic systems, which he believes are regulated by a supreme being.

On Thursday, Wommack, a Truth & Liberty Coalitionfounder, upped his game in a one-two punch of ridiculousness. He declared in a conversation with co-founder Richard Harris and radio host Rick Green that climate change is the work of Satan and that abandoning fossil fuels would further empower Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia is the world's third-largest producer of oil and natural gas. President Joe Biden recently banned all Russian energy imports – which make up roughly three percent of foreign oil purchases – into the United States as punishment for Putin's invasion of Ukraine. That, when combined with the laundry list of sanctions that the US and its allies have levied on Russia, is expected to have a significant impact on the Russian economy.

Investments in renewables are also widely accepted by experts as an additional measure that can be taken to weaken Putin (and to prevent our extinction). And while it is possible that the West's embargo may embolden Putin into taking more extreme actions in Ukraine, ultimately, his position on the geopolitical stage has been undeniably enfeebled.

But not in Wommack's bubble.

"I believe that climate control is nothing but a ruse of the devil," Wommack said. "Ya know, climate fluctuates, and I've seen grass on this thing and they are attributing man-made climate change and they're using this as – I mean, I believe, in my opinion, opinions are like noses, everybody's got one, usually has a couple of holes in it – I believe that environmentalists and climate change and their push to get rid of fossil fuels are what's empowered Putin to go in and be able to take over Ukraine."

Wommack added that "people are dying because Christians aren't standing up and countering these things. So it's not politics, it's just standing for truth."

The truth is that scientists around the world have unequivocally concluded that human beings are responsible for the disruptions to Earth's climate. For decades, they have warned that unless we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, we risk destroying the habitability of the only planet in the Universe known to sustain life.

Watch below via Right Wing Watch:

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mofo (well does not quite blame biden for invasion tho other do see energy dominance]

https://republicans-climatecrisis.house.gov/news/press-releases/icymi-graves-slams-bidens-failed-energy-policies-have-emboldened-putin

no lnx

gRAVES SLAMS BIDEN'S FAILED ENERGY POLICIES THAT HAVE EMBOLDENED PUTIN AND HARMED AMERICAN FAMILIES

Mar 8, 2022 Press Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Select Climate Committee Ranking Member Garret Graves (R-LA) participated in the House GOP press conference on the Biden administration’s self-inflicted energy crisis and decision to ban Russian oil imports.

Click here to watch his full remarks]vid?]

"President Biden is announcing a ban on Russian oil. I welcome the Democrats' attention to this issue. This is something [Republicans] have been trying to do – not for days, weeks, months, but for years. Every single time Democrats have opposed our efforts through amendments or through motions to recommit in order to wean ourselves off of Russian energy. During the Biden administration we have seen a near tripling of dependence upon Russian crude oil.

And using today's prices coming out to approximately $25 million [more] every single day that we're sending Vladimir Putin for his Ukraine aggression and other activities that are simply contrary to human rights, contrary to freedom, and contrary to democracy. We're certainly calling on the administration – not just to ban Russian oil – but to come and truly have an ... American energy strategy. Because even under this administration they're projecting a 50 percent increase in global energy demand. It is inexcusable for us to be doubling and tripling down on the failed energy strategies of California, in the European Union, and others that have tried to mindlessly migrate toward these renewable energy strategies without a cohesive plan. ... We’ve got to chart a better course for American citizens that are being harmed by these incredible prices."

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pension plan?

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-trump-energy-secretary-**rick-perry**-says-criticizing-oil-and-gas-industry-unpatriotic

---

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): But the left prefers to fuel a war instead of a country. And the absurd is we have been instructed by the media, the Democrats for decades that energy is a moral issue. As far as the planet goes -- coal, fracking, fossil fuels -- these are immoral things. These are crimes against the environment. And yet, it's okay to buy the dirty oil from a war machine. So, it shows you that the moral stances of these people who had been telling us for decades how much better they were than us -- us evil right-wingers in our pickup trucks, in our gas-guzzling SUVs -- they're actually the most immoral people, because they were phonies and they were liars.

But there is an amazing -- Russia played us for the longest time. They love that we denigrated our energy prowess. They loved that we bought the idea that nuclear power was bad and that solar was good, and that Greta was a hero because that made us more reliant on Russian oil, and now,Iran's oilbecause we're sitting -- we were convinced, probably through the help of Russia, that our fuel industry was bad. So, now you look at Ukraine, there are fingerprints there of thehard green movementbecauseRussia used the green movement to play us and preserve their own power by selling oil.

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): Yeah, they funded all those campaigns: "Anti-fracking, anti-nuclear." They did it.

GUTFELD: Yes.

MARTHA MACCALLUM (CO-HOST):Yes.

THE LATEST

Douglas Macgregor, Tucker Carlson’s foreign policy muse, is a coup-curious conspiracy theorist

03/07/22 2:44 PM EST

GOP nominee for Michigan legislature shared material blaming Jewish people for 9/11, presidential assassinations, and subjugation of “white men”

03/07/22 11:52 AM EST

On Fox, Stephen Moore blamed Putin's invasion of Ukraine on “a radical green energy policy by the Biden administration”

03/06/22 11:51 AM EST

Fox News hosts make evidence-free claim that green energy campaigns in America are funded by Russia to increase dependence on foreign oil

03/04/22 6:41 PM EST

Tucker Carlson’s history of pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukraine propaganda

03/04/22 2:02 PM EST

Pagination

Current page1

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IN THIS ARTICLE

Greg Gutfeld

Greg-Gutfeld-MMFA-Tag.png

870 COMMENTS

0 SHARES

Fox News' Greg Gutfeld defends Republicans for heckling Joe Biden as he spoke about his dead son

03/02/22

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Fox News host puts blame on Greta Thunberg for the Ukrainian invasion: “Maybe she'll drop solar panels down into Kyiv to save people”

02/28/22

KATIE PAVLICH (CO-HOST): Greg, isn't this the reason we are in this situation in the first place, because they can't get themselves off of Russian oil because European countries and the United States are fine with -- they say we're not gonna drill here, but we'll still get oil from somewhere else.

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): I've been waiting for this segment for days. This is the irony of letting children like Greta Thunberg take up shelf space in your brain. Think about all of the adults that took her opinion over the – over the progress made in fracking or drilling or the necessity of coal in nearly every country. But – you know -- no, no, no no. "How dare you?" Remember that! "How dare you?" We all sat there, oh, maybe she'll drop solar panels down into Kyiv to save people. It's not going to happen.

China and Russia must have been laughing at uswhen we were allowed to be lectured on world affairs by a 14-year-old. Oil is a world affair, energy is a world affair, fuel's a world affair. We got to wake up, we also got to get back into the nuclear world – the anti-nuke ideology put us in a hole for many decades. It's probably the greenest fuel that we will ever see. The sooner we get back to nuclear, the sooner we – we were almost energy independent, remember the good old days?

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Fox News' Gutfeld blames inflation on “wokeism and virtue signaling”

02/11/22 5:43 PM EST

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-host-every-one-us-who-uses-oil-russia-complicit-atrocities-committed-ukraine

GERALDO RIVERA (CO-HOST): I'll say this also: Any business person, any company that buys Russian oil is complicit. You are aiding and abetting a monstrous war criminal. You are just as guilty.

JEANINE PIRRO (CO-HOST): Does that include America? That includes America?

RIVERA: It includes every one of us.

PIRRO: America?

RIVERA: Every one of us.

PIRRO: America?

RIVERA: If we buy -- if we buy -- I don't know about the nations -- but, generally, but I'll talk about any business person in America or anywhere else who buys Russian oil, you are complicit. Your hands are -- there's blood in that oil. You may get a bargain on it. It will haunt you forever. Turn your back on it. This -- this has to be seen in the context of what it is. This man is attempting to wipe out the Ukrainian race.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/fox-stephen-moore-blamed-putins-invasion-ukraine-radical-green-energy

STEPHEN MOORE (FORMER TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER): The entire Russian economy is really financed with oil. And it is so frustrating, and even almost immoral, that here we are in a situation today where we're now actually importing oil from the Russians. And in fact, that means that we're actually inadvertently helping finance the Russian war machine. And that would not be happening if Donald Trump were president today. Under President Trump 14 months ago, the United States was independent of oil from Russia and Saudi Arabia. So, I do believe that this situation we're in now is the direct consequence of a radical green energy policy by the Biden administration that wasn't taking into account the consequences of America giving up its energy independence.

By the way, the Europeans are not blameless here either. Trump warned five years ago the Europeans to not become dependent on and addicted to Russian oil and gas. That's exactly what's happened, and I do believe that's one of the reasons we're in the predicament today, and the Ukrainians are fighting these Russian tanks in the streets of Ukraine.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY (CO-HOST): Stephen, you are 100% right. I have been calling this the Green New Deal war, because absolutely--

MOORE: Exactly.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: This should not have happened.

---

kos http://redgreenandblue.org/2022/02/25/fossil-fuel-apologists-blame-everyone-putin-course/

russia invaded Ukraine yesterday, because “President Biden supports transgender rights, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, and like all world leaders, was bent to the incredible power of international energy and climate overlord Greta Thunberg.” That’s the view from denierland, and we honestly wish we were joking or exaggerating or otherwise misrepresenting the online reactions from climate and general rightwing “experts”

By Climate Denier Roundup

So here’s the roundup of reactions from crazytown:

No quicker than you can say “moment of uncertainty ripe for disinformation,” Tucker Carlson (who’sbeen defending Putin) had :{Marc Morano on his show to –what else – blame Biden and climate concern for the Russian invasion.}:

Matt Walsh, a comedian of sorts who works at Ben Shaprio’s fracker-funded propaganda shop [DAILY WIRE] and has written a whole “children’s book” attacking trans people, tweeted that he was “so glad that the west (sic) gave up on energy independence because Greta Thunberg yelled at us.” This is of course exactly backwards. If Greta’s calls for replacing fossil fuels with renewables were heeded, then countries would already be providing clean energy for themselves without needing to rely on Russia’s fossil fuels.

And despite what you may expect, Walsh was hardly the only one attributing Putin’s aggression to Greta Thunberg, as though that makes any sense at all.

Similarly nonsensical is tobacco-shill turned fossil fool Steve Milloy, who claimed Putin’s invasion is just like COVID and climate mandates, also quote-tweeted a story about Ukrainian people in traffic leaving Kyiv, with the comment “imagine you were in this and driving an EV”. As though it would be better to be beholden on the fossil fuels imported from Russia while Russia invades your country, than it would be to merely be reliant on the electricity generated by power plants running on Russian fuels.

While we’re imagining though, imagine having an electric car and clean energy grid to power it, so you’re not reliant on Russian fossil fuels for your car or electricity!

Similarly wrong yet Right wasDan Crenshaw, Texan Republican who has received $689,000 from the oil and gas industry for his campaigns for one of the most obviously gerrymandered districts in the country. He suggested that the Keystone XL pipeline could have replaced the fossil fuels we import from Russia, as though that pipeline was for US consumption (and not the global market it’s already reaching anyway). “Relying on Russian oil is a choice.” he added, “And it’s a stupid one.”

And he’s right! It’d be infinitely smarter to not rely on oil at all!

(But we somehow doubt that’s what he meant.)

(Originally appeared at DailyKos)

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"certainty ~ related to chaos? maybe has implicit notion that we are gonna get rid of dems who pass regs or just the regs themselves? or more benignly acknowledges electoral shifts;

or: those naive dems will pass some ill-thought out reg but reality will intervene and we clear eyed rational/realist gop will be forced to fix/reverse/ "reform" regs

a devil term for regulations //stability = security ~ crisis/chaos, morphs with national security, especially now that putin has ENERGY DOMINANCE

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alpha news syndicator/aggregator? "bios coming soon" new lamestream press will not cover BS

(Daily Caller News Foundation)— Major U.S. oil and gas industry groups urged the Biden administration Thursday toboostdomestic energy production amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday, the global price of oil surged past $100 per barrel for the first time in nearly eight years after Russia unleashed a full-scale offensive against Ukraine. Oil prices are the largest factor in determining gas prices for fossil fuel companies.

Russia provided more oil to the U.S. than any other country except Canada between January 2021 and November 2021, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed. The country, which exported nearly 65% of the 10.5 million barrels of crude oil per day it drilled in 2020, isEurope’slargest oil supplier as well.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden unveiled another round of economic sanctions targeting Russia along with Western allies. The president acknowledged during remarks at the White House that energy costs, including pump prices, may increase as a result of the sweeping sanctions package, but he said it was critical to respond aggressively to Russia.

“API condemns Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, andAmerican natural gas and oil producers have a critical role to play in supporting our European allies with access to a stable supply ofreliable and affordable energy,” American Petroleum Institute (API) President and CEO Mike Sommers said in a statement.

“With both geopolitical tensions and energy costs rising, American energy leadership can serve as astabilizingforce while strengthening global energy security,” Sommers said. “Our industry is committed to working with the administration to do everything possible to minimize any impacts on U.S. consumers while supporting our allies overseas.”

API represents around 600 different energy firms, making it one of the largest U.S. oil and gas industry groups. Another major industry group, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), also stressed the need for domestic production, saying it would benefit both the interests of the U.S. and its allies.

“The United States has shown its global energy dominance over the past decade. Unfortunately, this has been threatened by the current Administration’s policies against domestic natural gas and oil production,” IPAA COO Jeff Eshelman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “Make no mistake, natural gas and oil production here at home benefits not only our nation, but also our worldwide allies. For America, it means lessrelianceon oil imports from unfriendly countries.”

Eshelman added that greater American energy production means “freedom from hostile nations” for people across the world.

Additionally, Power the Future, a group that advocates for U.S. energy independence, wrote a letter to the White House on Thursday, urging the administration to reverse course on its energy policies. The letter, obtained by the DCNF, said the president’s energy agenda has proven to be a failure.

Since taking office, Biden has waged a war on fossil fuels, nixing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ditching an oil drilling project in Alaska, staying silent on a court ruling that prohibited an offshore drilling lease in the Gulf of Mexico, attempting to ban new drilling leases on federal lands and making it harder for utilities to gain approval for natural gas projects.

The U.S. is set to return to being a net importer of crude oil in 2022 under the Biden administration, according to federal projections. The U.S. became a net exporter of total energy in 2019, factoring in both coal and natural gas trade, and a net oil exporter in 2020.

Meanwhile, Europe has faced an energy crisis throughout the winter as wind power has underperformed and countries turned to natural gas imported from Russia. Russia provides Europe with almost 47% of its natural gas supply, the latest European Union data showed.

Russia, though, manipulated gas flows to Europe in recent months, causing massive price surges. On Tuesday, Germany halted the certification of direct Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which was completed in September 2021 after the Biden administration stripped sanctions on the $11 billion project.

The American Gas Association (AGA), a group that represents U.S. energy utilities,said the Biden administration must heed the lessons from the European crisis. The current cost of natural gas in the U.S. is $4.38 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) compared to the roughly $40 per mmBtu Europeans are paying.

“With the unfolding chaos abroad and disruption to Europe’s energy markets, natural gas prices for America’s homeowners and business are expected to remain stable,” AGA President and CEO Karen Harbert told the DCNF in a statement. “America’s abundant natural gas supply and vast delivery system insulates us from instability across the ocean and unstable leaders with reckless political agendas.”

“But we cannot ignore the fact that there are areas of the country that have refused to build the necessary infrastructure to bring natural gas to customers that need it, resulting in reliance on shipments of liquified natural gas from abroad, thehigh prices and instabilitythat go along with that,” she said.

Harbert noted that European consumers are facing significantly higher energy bills because leaders have “turned their backs on natural gas and the delivery infrastructure.”

“We should not follow their example,” she said.[nordstream 2?!]

On Jan. 25, as tensions increased along Ukraine’s borders, the White House announced it would help facilitate greater non-Russian natural gas flows into Europe. Such imports would come from North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the U.S.

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https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/blog/2022/03/01/voters-to-biden-us-gas-oil-strengthens-global-security

news: President Joe Biden delivers hisState of the Union address tonight. Americans will be listening closely to how he defines our security challenges and charts the path ahead. While it’s unclear what lies ahead as Russia invades Ukraine, we know one thing for sure: American energy is a positive force in difficult times, helping to provide stability for ourselves and our allies in Europe. Indeed, because of their commitment to technology and innovation, America’s natural gas and oil producers are able to use the vast abundance of energy right under our feet.

Perspective: According to one estimateby the International Energy Agency (IEA), nearly half of all energy used globally in 2040 will come from natural gas and oil – even if all 196 nations party to the Paris Climate Agreement meet their emissions reduction goals. Whileinnovationsare well underway to meet a lower-carbon future, the fact is that we’ll need more of these critical resources – not less – as the world’s population hits a projected 9 billion people by midcentury.

The Big Question: So the important consideration is where that natural gas and oil gets produced: Here in America, which requires operators to meet environmental standards and safety laws [HALLIBURTON DR GAG 2005 YOU BASTARD] that are among the most stringent on the planet? Or, should production shift overseas to nations which may have fewer environmental protections and regulatory oversight?

Here At Home: The answer is obvious and voters agree, according to new:{ polling by Morning Consult on behalf of API:}:

90 percent of voters support the U.S.developing its own domestic sources of energy rather than relying on other regions of the world (Democrats 92%; Independents 86%; Republicans 90%).
85 percent believe producing natural gas and oil here in the U.S. helps America maintain a leadership role during a period of global uncertainty (Democrats 82%; Independents 78%; Republicans 91%).
85 percent believe that producing natural gas and oil here in the U.S. could help lower energy costs for American consumers and small businesses (Democrats 81%; Independents 80%; Republicans 90%).
84 percent agree that producing natural gas and oil here in the U.S. helps make our country and allies more secure against actions by other countries such as Russia (Democrats 83%; Independents 78%; Republicans 88%).

30,000-Foot View: With global supplies disrupted, America has the energy abundance and the expertise to sustain reliable supply in the decades ahead and is currently working full throttle to enhance energy security for our allies abroad. As President Biden enters the House Chamber this evening, few things are more paramount than increasing energysecurity at home and abroad. Taking actions to restrict U.S. natural gas and oil are steps in the wrong direction.

Action Items: Here are several actions America’s natural gas and oil producers hope that the President will take in tonight’s State of the Union speech:

Emphasize Energy Security and LNG Infrastructure: As Russia escalated threats against our European allies late last year, the U.S. overtook Australia and Qatar as the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter. Experts predict America will surpass all other nations in creating the most LNG capacity by year’s end. And for a period in January, American LNG shipments to Europe overtook Russian natural gas pipeline deliveries for the first time ever. America’s allies agree: LNG is an energy security game-changer – and the administration should take actions to ensure supply and build infrastructure. Absent restrictions and polices to curtail production, the U.S. can do even more to help Europe. The administration can move faster in authorizing additional LNG exports and should ensure LNG facilities here have the flexibility to increase export volumes if needed. It should also ease barriers that block U.S. support for overseas natural gas infrastructure projects.
Reduce Permitting Uncertainty: News last week that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had voted along partisan lines to significantly increase regulatory barriers for approving natural gas pipelines could have a direct impact on America’s response to the current geopolitical situation. FERC’s decision inserts more uncertainty into the approval process at exactly the time operators need clarity. Unfortunately, FERC is not alone in issuing restrictive policies. In an op-ed in The Hill, Ellen R. Wald, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, detailed the many restrictive actions the administration has put in place at the same time they’ve asked oil producers to increase production: “Oil prices are high enough that companies should be producing more and planning for growth, but they are not,” Wald wrote. “The White House should be working to alleviate producers’ concerns about … the permitting process and other regulatory issues so that producers can feel confident investing profits in future oil production. After all, more supply means more reasonable prices. This is perhaps the quickest way to lessen pain at the gasoline pump.”
Reject Protectionist Policies: Americans are struggling with inflation and rising energy bills. And instituting an export ban on LNG, as 10 Senators asked President Biden to implement is not a solution. Increasing LNG exports are not to blame for higher domestic costs. (For example, an Energy Information Administration report cited pipeline restrictions in New England as a key factor in local price increases.) Only about 10% of U.S. natural gas is sent overseas as LNG. And when exports grew the most, in 2019, domestic natural gas prices not only didn’t rise, but fell to three-year lows. Department of Energy studies under the Obama and Trump administrations concluded that rising LNG exports have a negligible impact on domestic prices. Amid high inflation, global instability and a worsening European energy crisis, the most important move federal policymakers can make is to signal that America is well-positioned to provide stability amid any supply disruption – and can do so without increasing costs at home. Hopefully, President Biden will continue to reject export bans that would undermine energy security.
Promote American Energy Leadership: Over the previous decade, as the benefits of the Shale Revolution were realized and policies were put in place to allow natural gas and oil development, America gained our energy independence and became a net exporter of natural gas and oil. And as the world emerges from the economic chaos and disruption caused by the pandemic, America is again the world’s top producer of natural gas and oil. However, a dip in production has meant a return to being a slight net importer in crude and refined products. The path to restoring energy dominance is in avoiding policies that restrict future investment or hinder supply. Last weekend’s decision by the Interior Department to freeze certain new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters is a great example. President Biden should announce its reversal tonight. Imperiling lease sales threatens supply and discourages the kinds of investments that enables energy leadership and lower, stable consumer costs. The President should also ensure the completion of the next five-year offshore leasing program, which should be in place July 1, 2022. President Biden should move forward with a new plan to head off another massive restriction on American energy production.

What They’re [HUH?] Saying: “We commend the administration’s focus on addressing climate change and share the goal of reducing emissions across the economy, but we cannot let that objective detract from the clear and present need for continued responsible investment in oil and natural gas development. Recent developments illustrate the importance of the government working collaboratively with industry to ensure U.S. energy and economic security, as well as that of our allies in Europe and around the world. Now more than ever, the administration should speak clearly and without equivocation that the United States will be a reliable producer and supplier of oil and natural gas to our allies around the world both now and in the future.” –API President and CEO Mike Sommers

About The Author

Lem Smith is API’s vice president for Federal Relations.Lem joined API in February 2020 as vice president for Upstream Policy & Industry Operations. He previously served as a principal at Squire Patton Boggs, an international law and public-policy firm, where he advised private and public sector clients on federal and multi-state policy matters and provided counsel on communications strategies, campaign affairs and crises management. Previously, Lem was director, U.S. Government & Regulatory Affairs at Encana,and responsible for all aspects of U.S. government relations and regulatory policy matters at the state and federal levels. Prior to that, Lem was director of Government Relations for Kerr-McGee Corporation. Lem began his career on Capitol Hill, working for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker (Mississippi) and the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood (Georgia), where he negotiated key member priorities within the 2005 Energy Policy Act (EPAct). Lem is a graduate of the University of Mississippi.

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