E Pluribus Unum
Yesterday, it was Aramco's CEO joking, today one of America's shale revolutionaries, Scott Sheffield, CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources. Sheffield scolds Joe Biden for asking the Saudis, not the shale boys to increase oil production. Most amusing, Sheffield simultaneously states he wants oil in the $80-$100 a barrel range. Biden's on bended knee appealing to the Sauds to keep oil below, well below $80. So Scott, maybe that's why the call didn't come? Sheffield also jokes Pioneer will raise production a whopping 5% over the next year above their current 360 thousand barrels a days. That's an increase of around 18,000 barrels a day, maybe enough to keep Los Angeles freeways moving on a not heavy traffic afternoon.
Biden's old enough to remember and fear the fate of Jimmy Carter. Carter was the last US president's fortunes tied to yearly oil price increases and inflation. In the third year of his presidency, Carter saw the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the American National Security State's hand installed ruler. For twenty-five years, Iran had been the biggest oil producer in the Middle East. The Shah was replaced by the decidedly less American friendly ayatollahs. US oil policy shifted to dependence on the House of Saud and even for awhile Saddam Hussein led Iraq.
Over the next four decades, American National Security State Oil Policy was to spend trillions on the military. In 1991, we began blowing up the Middle East with the Senior Bush's destruction of Iraq's military, paving the way for his neerdowell son's blowing up and occupation of Iraq a decade later. The next administration would blow up Libya and Syria, though Syria was more collateral damage, not even producing more oil than Pioneer.
Today, we experience the direct failure of seven decades of American National Security State Oil Policy. Joe Biden has been atop DC for a half-century. He entered the Senate in 1973, the year of the first “Oil Shock”, then across all those years voted to fund an ever more bloated military, supported the 1991 Iraq excursion retrospectively, while voting the go ahead for 2003 occupation. He was in the White House for the blowing up of Libya and Syria. One might suggest he should have been at some point held accountable for all this, but really, why should he be singled out?
Across this time, the US did absolutely nothing to domestically cut our oil dependence. In fact, average passenger vehicle weight in the US has increased over the last three decades. The refusal to do anything about oil, besides blowing up the Middle East, is not simply the fault of the oil industry or the political class, it's the failure of all Americans, one of the many things that unite us – e pluribus unum.
Newton's Second Law states force equals mass times acceleration – f=ma. It was fundamental to industrialization, especially the development of American car culture. To use less energy, that is force, requires either a reduction in weight of the object moving or its speed. That's coming one way or other, and it’s by no means necessarily a bad thing.