Russian warship, go Rochefoucald yourself
The hypocrisy is energy policy, but we don't agree on what virtue we are betraying
I’m sure it'll be lost in the noise (and some signal) of tonights State of the Union address, but I wanted to get a quick thought out there before it’s overtaken by events, while also letting me try out a shorter posting style, so let me know what you think:
Sometimes we can all agree that an action is hypocritical - but it get’s messy when we can’t agree on what standard we're violating. I think there is a widespread and fair accusation of European hypocrisy on energy policy: they may have banned fracking, increased renewable uptake, cut emissions, and closed power plants but they also inexorably deepened links from the EU (and chiefly Germany) to the dirtiest1 major producer of natural gas, who also happens to have a pretty bad authoritarian regime, while ending up in a situation where coal plants are coming back online at the same time nuclear power plants are being retired.2 There are some quibbles, argument over the degree of problems, but here in the US, this accusation of hypocrisy (and the reasons behind it) seems to be a decent consensus position.
However, over here in the US, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and intensifying at present, there were a lot of charges of hypocrisy being thrown around when it comes to domestic energy policy.
The Biden administration has taken considerable flak from environmental groups who feel betrayed about the lack of more concrete action with regard to climate, federal oil and gas drilling bans, and more stringent regulations. They’ve often found the measures taken thus far (proposed regulations, leasing pauses, support for electrification) as good, but not enough & far too slow.
On the other side of things, the oil and gas industry has been frustrated by the very same actions, the lack of certainty, and the occasional scapegoating over gas prices.
What's interesting is that both sides have leveled charges of hypocrisy over energy policy. Most egregious, in the eyes of both groups, are the repeated calls by the President and high-level officials for OPEC+3 to increase oil and gas production. And when I say repeated I mean as recently as this week, but going back fairly frequently into last summer when prices started ticking up…
La Rochefoucauld4 said it 300 years ago: "Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue." So, there seems to be some widespread agreement that asking OPEC+5 to pump more oil is a “vice” and I'd tend to agree.
The problem is, we’ve got a pretty major disagreement about which “virtue” we're honoring by making these asks of the likes of Saudia Arabia and the UAE to increase their production and keep prices lower - is the virtue the eventual elimination of fossil fuels and a swift transition to renewable and electrification? Or is the virtue an honest acknowledgement of our need for diverse energy sources and admitting that we have considerable capacity here in the United States?
I can’t think of many examples of such a high profile issue, thrown into stark relief by current events, where we’ve got two polarized wings in violent agreement about how hypocritical the President and his team are being… but they are diametrically opposed as to what the hypocrisy actually is.
From a methane emissions during production point of view.
“This is an existential crisis requiring immediate collective action, but I’m certainly not going to stop building Nordstream 2”
For example, although there are many more : https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/568306-biden-draws-ire-of-gop-progressives-with-call-to-boost-opec-output
Full name: François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac…
AKA Franky 6-Pack
Once again, obligated to note that the “+" is RUSSIA.