I have been reading the Wall Street Journal a lot lately, trying to see when it might be a good time to buy back into the stock market. Normally, I look for a 30% drop before buying, and we are near that now. It’s below when Biden took office. He totally squandered Trump’s bull market. How? By handing out stimulus checks, and attacking the American oil and gas industry. And he’s not done.

Here’s the first article from the Wall Street Journal.

The Biden administration canceled plans to auction drilling rights in three regions off the U.S. coastline later this year, adding more friction to an uneasy relationship with the oil industry during a period of high gasoline prices.

The decision to cancel lease sales for two regions in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of Alaska leaves oil-and-gas companies facing a blackout period of unknown length for access to new drilling spots in valuable offshore acreage.

A five-year schedule for offshore lease sales expires at the end of next month, and the Interior Department has yet to propose a new one. Canceling the pending sales with no new schedule yet proposed could mean the industry now faces years between successful federal offshore auctions.

“The lack of new lease sales will lower future supplies, which will keep energy prices high and drive inflation for years to come,” Marty Durbin, president of the energy arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. “While some in the Administration have called for more domestic production, this action sends exactly the wrong signal to producers and markets.”

Biden has been in an all-out war against domestic energy production since the day he took office, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and imposing a moratorium on new permits and leases for new drilling.  He’s fine with Russia getting a new pipeline, and he’d like to buy gas from communist Venezuela. But he doesn’t want Americans developing cleaner sources of energy at home. He’s doing everything he can to stop Americans from driving their cars and using heat and air conditioning, all in the name of global warming hysteria, which permeates his Chicken Little administration. This isn’t an accident. Raising prices on energy was done by design.

What can we expect from the party of global warming alarmism?

The Wall Street Journal explains:

From California to Texas to Indiana, electric-grid operators are warning that power-generating capacity is struggling to keep up with demand, a gap that could lead to rolling blackouts during heat waves or other peak periods as soon as this year.

[…]The risk of electricity shortages is rising throughout the U.S. as traditional power plants are being retired more quickly than they can be replaced by renewable energy and battery storage. Power grids are feeling the strain as the U.S. makes a historic transition from conventional power plants fueled by coal and natural gas to cleaner forms of energy such as wind and solar power, and aging nuclear plants are slated for retirement in many parts of the country.

Wind and solar power are not only more expensive than gas and nuclear, but they are also more inconsistent.

Here’s snow covering solar panels:

And ice freezing wind farms:

The problem with rising energy prices is that it is a drag on the economy – a separate source of inflation. Everything that is produced for sale to consumers is affected by higher energy costs. Especially things that have to be transported. It would be nice to see inflation addressed by raising interest rates. But because the Biden administration waited too long, that now carries the risk of recession. The next best option would be to lower the cost of energy by return to Trump’s “energy independence” policies. But Biden is totally opposed to that. Even if he changed course now, it would be months until energy prices were lowered.

It all seems as thought the Biden administration is making some sort of play to nationalize the energy industry, like Venezuela did. They’ll say “oh look, the private sector has failed. Now government needs to step in and rescue everyone”. That’s the way it usually plays out in communist countries. Nationalizing energy has caused massive shortages everywhere it’s been tried. Why think our communists are any different than the communists in other countries? They want power, and they don’t care if you have to lose your freedom and prosperity in order for them to get it.